The Stranger recognized the 2 Seattle Police Division (SPD) officers captured on video repeatedly hitting an individual suspected of arson on Could 31 as Sergeant Nathan Patterson and Officer Cody Alidon. The Workplace of Police Accountability (OPA) opened an investigation into each officers, and SPD Interim Chief of Police Sue Rahr stated her workplace additionally plans to assemble info and evaluate the arrest.
Patterson, who has a historical past of complaints and lawsuits towards him for extreme power, will be seen within the video hitting the suspect three to 5 occasions along with his baton as the person seems to withstand arrest by tensing his arms. This wouldn’t be Patterson’s first time wielding his baton, both. Again in 2012, a YouTube person posted footage of him taking satisfaction in breaking a nightstick over somebody.
In that video, a crowd confronts a gaggle of cops exterior the Northwest African American Museum (NAAM) on Juneteenth 2012. Patterson tells a crowd, “I’m the one which broke the nightstick.” Then somebody asks him what he broke the nightstick on, and he says, “One in all you.” They ask him if he’s pleased with that, and he says, “Yeah.”
The video claims the nightstick-breaking incident referred to an evening in July 2011, when SPD officers broke up a celebration in Columbia Metropolis. Attendees of that social gathering later filed a lawsuit towards the Metropolis, claiming that SPD officers arrived on the social gathering, charged via the gate, and started hitting friends. One of many plaintiffs within the case described a second when Patterson and different officers had the plaintiff handcuffed and continued hitting him “with flashlights, batons, knees, or fists.” The Metropolis settled that lawsuit for $195,000.
(The video additionally claims that SPD officers had overwhelmed three folks contained in the occasion at NAAM, however an article from that point doesn’t point out any aggressive actions by SPD, simply that officers escorted two folks from the occasion.)
In 2020, video confirmed Patterson repeatedly punching a protester throughout an arrest. An OPA investigation discovered he violated division coverage round disproportionate use of power in that incident, saying he’d used as much as eight punches two seconds after the individual had swung a water bottle, whereas one other arresting officer solely “used two punches over two seconds instantly after he was struck with the water bottle.”
Patterson joined SPD again in 2005, earlier than the US Division of Justice (DOJ) got here to city to analyze SPD for a sample of extreme power, particularly towards folks of shade. The DOJ really used a Patterson arrest for example of SPD’s disproportionate makes use of of power. Within the instance from June 2010, Patterson and three different officers arrived to analyze a doable stabbing at a celebration. They discovered a 50-year-old man, who the DOJ report described as 5’ 3” and 130 kilos, handed out on a sofa. Even supposing the report from the social gathering described a suspect in his 20s, the SPD officers determined the sleeping man introduced a risk. The 4 officers beat and tased the person, in accordance with a lawsuit. The DOJ discovered the usage of power by 4 officers extreme towards “one unarmed man of comparatively slight stature.” The Metropolis settled the swimsuit for about $90,000.
Patterson made about $155,000 in 2023 and the Metropolis owes him about $60,000 in again pay beneath the brand new Seattle Police Officers Guild Contract.
