An off-duty Seattle Police detective and the Hells Angels biker that he shot during a bar brawl at this years Sturgis Motorcycle Rally will both face criminal charges in South Dakota. The off-duty SPD detective is charged with aggravated assault, perjury, and carrying a concealed weapon without a permit. The Hells Angel he shot is also facing aggravated assault charges—punishable by up to 15 years in prison in South Dakota. Another off-duty Seattle Police officer......

Courtesy of Seattle crime blog extraordinaire, Seattle 911, comes an infuriating answer to a reader question about cops and hand-held cell phones. While the rest of us face fines of $124 for driving while operating a hand-held cell phone, the officer writing that ticket and pulling you over just might be using theirs, completely legally. It turns out the recently enacted law does not apply to police officers or ambulance drivers when they are operating......

"SPD Bike" by Seattlest Flickr Photographer Slightly North Though we don't know his name yet, we do know that an off-duty Seattle Police detective and Police Guild board member shot a Hells Angels biker during this years' Sturgis bike rally. The shooting occurred early Saturday morning at a packed bar during the week-long rally. The officer involved in the shooting identified himself as a member of the Iron Pig motorcycle club. (Funny how, when it's......

Despite the fact that medical marijuana is legal in the State of Washington and the Seattle Police Department are paid to uphold said laws, the SPD handed over 12 ounces of illegally seized medicinal marijuana to the DEA. The SPD turned the medical marijuana to the DEA at the request of U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan, who asked for it to be destroyed. Strangely, this same attorney's office is not pursuing criminal charges or any......

After a possibly illegal Tuesday raid on an office providing care, resources, and referrals to medicinal marijuana patients, Seattle Police have agreed to return patient files and a computer hard drive that were taken during the incident. The SPD does, however, refuse to return 12 ounces of dried marijuana and two bongs they seized Tuesday. Police have told Martin Martinez, owner of the office that was raided, that he will not be facing criminal......

The state Supreme Court unanimously overturned a 30 year-old precedent which allowed Washington State Police to arrest an entire car-load of people if the officer even smelled marijuana. Now, if a police officer pulls you over and approaches you because they smell chronic, they have the right to search your car for proof of the drugs. But, they can no longer just arrest you based on a cop's sensitive sniffer. Considering the continued aggression the......

"WTOpolice_1" by Seattlest Flickr Pool contributor ntisocl. Daaang, he got right in there. Thanks! We learned our code of behavior from America's suburbs: if the cop's right behind you when you see flashing lights, pull over and turn off your radio. If the flashing lights are on the side of the freeway, slow down a little bit so you can bear proper witness to the speeding culprit's shame. If the flashing lights are parked......

At an afternoon press conference, the Seattle Police announced they have arrested a man they believe groped an Asian woman in South Seattle on Saturday and who they hope may be behind over two-dozen similar attacks. Darin Boler has been charged with second-degree robbery and fourth-degree assault for Saturday's incident. (The robbery charge is for stealing a would-be-witness' cell phone/camera.) Boler is a registered sex offender and has been previously convicted for raping a......

Is it a felony to advocate semi-civil disobedience? If not, the few remaining souls tough enough to stomach the funeral that is the Sonics last home game this Sunday should consider storming the court or at the very least burn former owner Howard Schultz in effigy outside. Emphasis on should. After considerable soul-searching, we’ve determined getting arrested on a Sunday evening doesn’t exactly fit into our end of weekend plans, but we have no......

A Seattle teen was critically injured this weekend after a shooting in the parking lot of Northgate Mall. A Seattlest reader, Eli Black, was at the mall shortly after the shooting and sent us photos of the aftermath. The 15-year-old victim was shot in the leg and the groin after a confrontation in a mall parking structure on Friday evening. Police believe the shooting stemmed from a previous argument that day in Northgate's Food Court.......

Seattlest's house was broken into last week. The burglar absconded with our PowerBook, our D80, some watches, our wife's jewelry box (high sentimental value, low retail value), and our peace of mind. "Our house was broken into" isn't as exciting a story as "our car mysteriously caught on fire while we were driving it." (Digression: Volkswagen accepted responsibility for whatever weird mechanical failure caused it, which made Liberty Mutual happy.) Since then, we've filed our......

We've heard that people commit suicide by jumping off of bridges instead of going a less spectacular route like pills or closed garages precisely because it does create a spectacle. Going out with a bang, so to speak, after failing to make an impact in life. Well, the person who jumped from the Aurora bridge late this morning succeeded in the spectacle-making department above and beyond the usual depression in the Adobe parking lot. The......

KING 5's Investigators have their panties in a bunch about the racist and pornographic emails Port of Seattle police were sending on Port time, using Port computers. In their story, they can hardly bring themselves to present the liberally pixelized graphic evidence. Again and again. It turns out, "over a two-year period, 32 officers -- nearly a third of the entire force -- either received, saved, or passed on more than 175 inappropriate e-mails,......

The Seattle Police Department pulled a Fortuny on Craigslist recently. They posted bullshit ads for $150 full-service massages on CL, the Stranger and Seattle Weekly, but then instead of posting the names, email addresses and dick pictures of the responders on the internet ala Fortuny they arrested the guys. From the P-I: Detectives had to quickly learn the code words used by many of the men in order not to tip them off. For their......

Which is it, newsmedia types? Safe or not safe? Earlier this week there were 18 billion articles on the freshly-released City Crime Rankings report that listed Seattle as the 262nd safest city in America. 262nd? That's not safe at all! Used to be a time when Seattle was safer than Portland, at least. No longer true, according to this report. Portland is the 249th safest city in the Union. Our region's safest city is Bellevue......

Most evenings, Seattlest drives down 6th Avenue from Seneca to Stewart. And we've noticed, just about every day, that Seattle police officers in yellow vests direct traffic out of the parking garages for the Seattle Hilton and the Washington Athletic Club. When a guest wants to leave, the officer stops traffic in the left lane to let the exiting car turn right. We figured at first that the SPD just wanted to keep traffic moving......

There's Microsoft blood in the water right now and the sharks at The Stranger are taking full advantage, continuing to hammer home their contention that the software company changed their stance on the anti-discrimination bill in response to pressure from Ken Hutcherson. In "The Lying Game" this week they trot out ex-Microsoft empoyee Jeff Koertzen who reports that he was in a recent Microsoft meeting where the bill was discussed and "said that [Microsoft senior......

We reported that members of the Seattle Police Department were under internal and FBI investigation concerning their relationships with various city night clubs, including Rick's topless club. The relationships were said to be potentially problematic because similar romances in the past had come to a bad end for the SPD, but in this case the officers under investigation will not be charged by federal or state prosecutors. From the PI: The FBI's Public Integrity Task......

There's a strip club just far enough north to sometimes escape notice called Rick's on Lake City Way. It's been in the news before and depending on the circles you run in it's notorious/famous for skirting the law. A "well-known, documented vice location" according to Seattle Police report issued yesterday. The report (which you really should see for yourself) details misconduct allegations against members of the Seattle Police Department for relationships carried out by SPD......