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seattle pi - Seattle Post-Intelligencer


SPD officer fired for 'inappropriate' contact with women

By LYNSI BURTON, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF

Updated 5:10 pm, Friday, March 13, 2015

Chief Kathleen O'Toole fired a Seattle police officer Thursday for attempting romantic relationships with women he met during the course of his police work last summer.

Patrol officer Peter Leutz, an officer of 10 years, engaged in "repeating and escalating misconduct" by calling and texting women whose phone numbers and home addresses he acquired during routine police calls, according to his disciplinary action report.

"This was serious and repeated abuse of authority, and an unsettling pattern of behavior," O'Toole wrote in the disciplinary report. "... The damage to the public trust in this department from this type of behavior cannot be overstated."

The same officer shot a teen in the leg in 2007 during a Central District incident. In that case, a 13-year-old boy reached for an object during a police interaction that Leutz thought to possibly be a firearm. It was a cell phone.

Office of Professional Accountability investigations uncovered the following incidents from last year:

July 17, 2014: Leutz responded to a report of a stolen bike. After the contact with the female victim ended, he texted her days later using the phone number he collected in the police report. After she ignored him, he called her to ask her to meet him socially, but she declined.

The woman did not file an OPA complaint, but investigators learned of this interaction while investigating subsequent incidents involving Leutz.

The woman reportedly expressed being troubled by the officer's conduct.

Aug. 4, 2014: Leutz responded to a domestic disturbance call at a residence in the city. A woman and her boyfriend reportedly argued and the woman spent the night outside their apartment waiting to be let back in to see their infant child, according to police documents.

Police determined that no crime had occurred, but Leutz left a domestic violence information pamphlet with the woman.

Within hours, Leutz called the woman on his personal cell and asked her to get coffee with him. During the next three days, he sent her multiple text messages containting comments calling her "cute and sassy" and remarking that he wanted to "hug and comfort" her. Leutz also asked her again to meet him for lunch or coffee and urged her to end her relationship with her boyfriend.

Aug. 10, 2014: Leutz performed a traffic stop on a woman's vehicle and issued a warning.

About 40 minutes later, he drove to the woman's house in his patrol car and during his shift, having obtained her home address during the stop.

He gave the woman his personal cell phone number. The woman later told OPA investigators she contacted him at the urging of a friend who encouraged her to get a police officer "on her side," reports say.

Leutz sent the woman at least 109 text messages to the woman during the next 39 days - "it appears she sent far less in return," records indicate.

Reports say that most of the exchange took place after Leutz was aware that the previous woman he texted filed a complaint against him for similar behavrio.

Leutz's text messages complimented the woman's looks, asked her "did u feel something when we locked eyes" and requested multiple times to meet her in person.

She told Leutz she was separating from her husband, to which Leutz responded with more requests to see her and, "say yes! Go for it...I am!"

The disciplinary report also says Leutz referenced his status as a police officer during times the woman expressed decreased interest in him. At one time, she asked: "am I just some dumb ol' cop to you."

Leutz reportedly admitted to "really unprofessional" behavior.

O'Toole wrote to him, "I do not have sufficient trust in your judgment or faith in your future conduct to ever send you back into the field as a police officer."

Leutz earned an annual salary of $93,855 in 2014.










JOURNAL ARCHIVE: August 14, 2006


The police just take me to the hospital every time I talk to them and sometimes leave me nothing but expressions of passive-aggressiveness.


[JOURNAL ARCHIVE 14 August 2006 excerpt ends]





JOURNAL ARCHIVE: Thursday, January 18, 2007 posted by H.V.O.M at 9:10 PM


This Tacoma, WA, terrorism incident occurred on 11/20/05. I wonder if it is a deliberate variation of 11/2. I called the police again about this because I sensed someone was trying to connect to me somehow, but they didn’t give a shit. They didn’t even ask me any questions. I called them after I started living in that homeless shelter in Pioneer Square and I told the cop I thought that people were seeing me as some kind of informant, along with my suspicions about the terrorist, but he just brushed off my suspicions and told me that he thought no one thought I was an informant. That was the last time I called the police because all they did was take me to the hospital where I had to explain that I didn’t need their help. I needed the damn police to start doing their damn jobs. All I got from direct interaction was incompetence and the last time, passive aggressiveness.


[JOURNAL ARCHIVE 18 January 2007 excerpt ends]










JOURNAL ARCHIVE: 01/26/08 6:18 PM
A few times I have thought I was regaining memories of discovering murder victims in the course of my work as a police officer and detective. I feel a mild sense of dread that is probably from being able to recognize the signs of what I am about to see and I have seen it a lot. Probably too much.


[JOURNAL ARCHIVE 26 January 2008 excerpt ends]



- posted by H.V.O.M - Kerry Wayne Burgess 06:19 AM Pacific Time Spokane Valley Washington USA Saturday 14 March 2015