Seattle cops continue to be officious threatening douches to
citizens doing things perfectly legal, even though they are under a
federal court order to essentially stop being such threatening
douches, the
Seattle Stranger reports:

dmixo6 / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND

The setup: Stranger writer sees a bunch of cops
surrounding a guy, starts taking pictures. Again, the hard life of
a police officer is exhibited: nearly any encounter with anyone can
turn ugly and nasty, as soon as the cop chooses to make it so:

King County Sheriff’s Office Sergeant Patrick
“K.C.” Saulet rushed over and told me
to leave or be arrested. He claimed I was
standing on transit station property; the plaza belongs to King
County Metro’s International District Station and I could not stand
there, he said. I backed up about two feet over the line that he
pointed out (two parts of the same walkway) until I was
unambiguously on the City of Seattle’s sidewalk, near a utility
pole by the curb. But Officer Saulet then insisted that I would be
arrested unless I left the entire block…..

Back to Saulet: “You need to leave or you’re coming with me,” he
said while repeating his arrest threat yet again. Commuters,
shoppers, and vagrants were milling about the sidewalk and
plaza—some people were passing closer to the center of the police
activity than I was—but I was the only one on that
busy block told to leave (the guy watching the police
and taking their picture)…..

Saulet has a long history of abusive policing. In 2006,
the Seattle PI reported the he
has 12
sustained misconduct complaints against him and “one
of the worst misconduct histories in the King County Sheriff’s
Office.”….

 I was jotting down a few notes so I’d
remember what happened when I saw three officers leaving the scene.
I asked them who was the commanding officer on
scene.,,,Then Seattle police officer John
Marion asked why I was asking.

I explained to him that I’d just been threatened with arrest for
standing on the sidewalk (even though he’d just watched the whole
thing), so I wanted to know who was in charge and if he thought it
was illegal to stand on the sidewalk.

Instead of answering, Officer Marion asked why I
was asking him questions.

I explained that I’m a reporter and I didn’t think I’d broken
any laws. He asked what news outlet I worked for. The
Stranger, I told him.

Then Officer Marion said this: “I’m going to come
into The Stranger and bother you while you’re at
work.” He asked for my business card so he could get
the address to come to my office, and, twice more, he threatened to
come harass me at work. His point, he said, was that I was
“harassing” him.

Of course, he was violating no law. He writes that he intends to
file a complaint with SPD, 

Because it shouldn’t be considered professional conduct in our
county police force to threaten law-abiding citizens with arrest.
It’s rank intimidation. I also can’t imagine that when that
civilian asks a question of city officers—am I breaking the
law?—that it is considered professional to threaten the civilian
with visiting his place of work and harass him. If either of those
things are considered acceptable, we should change the code of
police conduct, because both are insane. And if they aren’t
considered acceptable, I expect the departments to
punish the cops involved.

Well, good luck with that.

Hat tip: Radley Balko, who wrote for us this January
2011 classic feature on the illegitimate police war on citizens
who photograph or film them.