Renton Police Chief Chief Kevin Milosevich held a press conference in front of Renton’s City Hall this afternoon to defend the department’s decision to charge an anonymous cartoonist who is “either a department employee or one who is closely associated with the department,” with cyberstalking for posting generic cartoons (that don’t mention the department specifically or any people by name, according to King County Superior Court charging documents) that supposedly mocked the Renton PD.

The ACLU of Washington and other First Amendment rights lawyers have called the department’s cyberstalking charge both flimsy and concerning.

As you read, please remember, we are talking about cartoons here. CARTOONS—which is why I’ve replaced “videos” with “CARTOONS” in the text below. Ahem:

“Early this year, a series of nine [CARTOONS] were posted on YouTube,” Milosevich begins in a statement to the press. “The purpose of these [CARTOONS] was to embarrass, torment, and harass specific members of the police department and other city employees. The [CARTOONS] currently posted by a local media outlet are a very mild representation of the entirety of the contents. The [CARTOONS] that are the basis of the criminal investigation are being released this afternoon.”

Now, in an unusual move, the department is releasing all of the videos in a seeming attempt to prove the department’s case to the public—i.e., that the cartoons are totally embarrassing and harassing. (I’ll post the videos as soon as they’re formatted correctly.) Which will totally contain this mess for sure.

More after the jump.

Milosevich continues:

Often, law enforcement is accused of failing to investigate incidents of misconduct, and/or minimizing the actions of officers. The [CARTOONS] we are releasing today meet the definition of a crime. As with other reports of crime occurring within the City, we will investigate to determine if a crime has been committed and to prosecute such crime.

In this case, we obtained search warrants for various internet sources in an attempt to identify the suspect in the case. We believe that the suspect in this case is either a department employee or one who is closely associated with the department.

Once a thorough investigation has been completed, and if the suspect is identified, the case will be submitted to the appropriate prosecutor’s office for review. It is the responsibility of the prosecutor’s office to determine if criminal charges will be filed.

As the Police Chief, I have the responsibility to the citizens of Renton to ensure that our officers are acting within the law and within department policy. I would rather err on the side of investigating all incidents of alleged criminal misconduct rather than risk failing to investigate a crime.

Former Stranger news writer Cienna Madrid has been a writer in residence for Richard Hugo House, a local literary nonprofit. There, she taught fiction classes and wrote 4/5 of a book about a death-row...

32 replies on “Renton Police Chief Defends Cyberstalking Investigation, Releases Cartoons”

  1. This is beyond bizarre. Have this guy never heard of Anthony Weiner? Would ANYONE have even cared about these cartoons if the Renton Police hadn’t displayed this GROSS OVERREACTION?

    WHO is accusing the police “of failing to investigate incidents of misconduct, and/or minimizing the actions of officers”? Do the people of Renton even want the police investigating? Aren’t there more pressing incidents that “meet the definition of a crime”?

    Murder?

    A-RABS?

  2. @1 Generally, most departments have an internal team anyways. Most likely, the resources are not being taken away from the streets, but from things like psych evaluations, and investigations into sneaking things from the pot locker, etc etc.

    That being said…HA! It may be “harassment” but it certainly isn’t cyberstalking.

  4. The perfect example of if you’re not in the good ol boy’s club, we’ll find something to nail you with. They should be fucking ashamed to call themselves law enforcement officers. Enforce the law, don’t use it as a tool to get the guys you don’t like.

  5. @3 Case or no case, the cartoonist is fucked. They’re going to lose their job, and it just reinforces the idea that speaking out will get you burned. Which is and has always been a load of crap.

  6. Wait, is the logic here really:

    1) The cartoons depict criminal activity or misconduct by police
    2) The cartoonist is acting anonymously
    3) Therefore, they must be found so as to investigate the misconduct in (1)

    Am I reading that right?

  7. This is ridiculous. It’s not a crime to embarrass someone. This police chief needs to learn about a little something called the Streisand effect. The harder he pushes this nonsense, the more justified those videos look. If they really don’t want it to look like a political witch-hunt, then why don’t they turn the case over to an outside agency like WSP or the FBI. Apparently Renton doesn’t like to air its dirty laundry. Unless there’s threats to life and limb, this case will be laughed out of court on First Amendment grounds. I hope Google fights hard to quash the subpoena. I hope the person posting was smart enough to make a bogus account using a coffee shop’s wifi too since corporate America isn’t always the best at protecting privacy or anonymous speech. And for the record, no, I didn’t make the videos. But I support the First Amendment rights of whomever did. Maybe we should be investigating the police chief for failure to be an effective leader.

  8. @6: I think the logic is

    1) The cartoons may or may not be criminal themselves.
    2) The cartoonist is acting anonymously.
    3) We should find out who the cartoonist is before we decide whether their actions are criminal. That way (s)he gets penalized anyhow.

  9. @8: That’s what I originally thought, but now my read is that because the cartoons make accusations of crime or misconduct. It’s confusing and unclear, and wrong either way. Someone’s going to make a bundle suing the department.

  12. Gee, if the police ever figure out how to nab a cyberstalker and formalize their detection and capture please let me know.

    I’ve been the victim of many of them for years, and I’ve always felt that at some point the technology would catch up to them and their trails becomes as plain as fingerprints under UV light.

  13. This reminds me of the Danish cartoonist who did the editorial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. Some Muslims took it rather poorly, flipped out, and took raging revenge against anyone and anything remotely related they could get their hands on.

    Renton’s police chief is apparently afflicted by the same uncontrollable rage. The townspeople should take his commission and weapon away from him before he takes this any further.

  15. What a pathetic, corrupt clown.

    I look forward to seeing the ACLU hand him his ass on a platter. Either that or seeing the triumph of the internet as this ass-backwards good ole boys’ club flails about in rage and humiliatingly fails to find the object of their fury.

  17. If it is an internal investigation involving harassment then it should have been turned over to an outside agency such as the WA State Patrol or a county agency. This just sounds more like a witch hunt to find an employee exercising their free speech. Parody and satire are well protected under the US Constitution. Their real purpose seems more to find an employee they can fire than find enough evidence to charge. This is being very badly handled.

  18. If you look at the actual content of the cartoons, these appear to be the work of someone who is themselves a cop rather articulately describing frustration wtih administrative bureacracy within the department. References to other police misbehavior is in the context of the videos themselves being treated with more urgency internally than other cop malfeasance.

    I hope that all of the cartoons wind up released – they likely describe the frustrations of a lot of officers out there. Saying that Renton police have launched an investigation is a bit of a misnomer – this particular witch-hunt appears to be motivated by management, not the cops themselves.

  19. I’ll give the slightest bit of care if they can act in the same manner to two 14 year olds harassing one another online. Laws are to protect the citizens, not the protectors of the citizens.

  21. @18, I have all the videos and will be posting them this morning (hopefully). Unfortunately, when I try to load them right now, the formatting gets all screwy. I’m hoping our tech guys can fix this soon….

  22. you can determine if it is harassment without knowing the creator. so i guess we’ll see.

    if the “comics” are actual harassment, then the police should be able to get the name of the creator. i’m all for that. but if the comics do not fit the pattern of illegally harassing and individual, then absolutely no way. and if it’s not even close to harassment, which seems to be the case, then the request is upsetting and dangerous. the request itself is. all the worse if the police actually get a name.

  23. That’s why a buffer of an outside investigator is important… once they learn the name the cat is out of the bag. That name should be held in trust until it has been determined a crime has occurred. Technically they could charge using John or Jane Doe if there was a real crime.

  24. According to the code, or my interpretation of, unless directly sent to someone, the URL where such a cartoon was posted must meet the definition of a ‘third party’, and only if lacking a disclaimer, and if it can be proven other than coincidense, which better have been the case to authorize a warrant, at best is nothing more than a gross misdemeaner.

    What a waste of funds.

    I am embarrassed for the Renton PD.

    Witch hunt is a very good description.

  25. I’m appalled that judge Cayce actually signed off on this warrant. This is clearly, clearly, clearly protected speech, and no judge worth his or her salt should put up such a limp-dicked defense of the first amendment. Judge cayce can be reached at james.cayce@kingcounty.gov.

  26. Wrong, @26. It would “clearly” be protected speech if you said it; public employees do not have a first amendment right to criticize their employer. Really. Before you go around criticizing judges, it might help if you, you know, at least went to law school or something.

  27. @27,

    You’ve got it backwards. Government employees actually have MORE first amendment protections than their private counterparts.

    A government employer can no more fire or discipline an employee for speaking out against the agency (or individuals in it) that they work for than a government agency can come after YOU for doing the same thing.

    Stand outside the Redmond campus of Microsoft with a sign saying “Linux Rules!” before trundling into work in the next version of Windows, and you get your pink slip.

    Read your Constitution.

  28. Oh, I’ve read the constitution – and the case law that’s been written since. Clearly, you haven’t, though. What I said is absolutely correct.

    And by the way, holding that sign in front of Microsoft? That’s not protected speech. Not that I’d expect you to know the difference.

  29. @29,

    No you haven’t. You don’t know your ass from a hole in the ground.

    And actually holding the sign in front of Microsoft (so long as you’re not on Microsoft property) IS protected speech. It’s protected in that the government may not penalize you for it – even if Microsoft can.

    By the same token, a government employer is still a government entity, and can’t penalize its employees for engaging in protected speech.

    That’s how the First Amendment works. Look into it.

  30. I’d comment on the amount of money this is costing me as a resident of Renton, both now in the form of working this ‘case’ (along with sad attempts as PR damage control), and in the future when the video cartoonist is undoubtedly fired and sues my city government for a massively large (and justified) monetary award. I would also comment on the city’s chief executive’s involvement or lack thereof in supervising this ‘case’, but again I live within the city boundaries of Renton and wouldn’t want to be ‘investigated’ for actually voicing an opinion.

Comments are closed.