Seattle Police Chief Returns Lost Wallet to #BlackLivesMatter Activist

Ansel Herz

Mohawk Kuzma holds up his wallet, which police had lost, and the backpack they replaced for him.

Well before the we broke the news of 70-year-old William Wingate's treatment at the hands of Officer Cynthia Whitlatch, a smaller bit of citizen vs. police drama was underway: A local #BlackLivesMatter activist who goes by the name Mohawk Kuzma was trying to get his wallet back from the police department.

It all began when Seattle police arrested 24-year-old Kuzma during Martin Luther King Jr. Day demonstrations and accused him of breaking through a police line and pushing an officer. (At around the same time, police were caught on camera pepper-spraying Garfield High School teacher Jesse Hagopian and others.) Kuzma spent the night in jail. King County prosecutors have not yet filed charges against him.

When Kuzma got out of jail, police gave him back the backpack he'd been wearing when he was arrested, but it was useless. The straps had been cut in two places, something the police described as standard procedure during arrests.

Worse, police didn't give Kuzma back his wallet, which contained his debit card, ORCA card, and driver's license. When he asked for his wallet, various police officers sent him on a fruitless quest back and forth between the police evidence unit, the King County Jail, and the West Precinct. No one seemed to know where it was.

The day after the Wingate video came out, Kuzma tweeted the following, referring to the golf club that police had confiscated from Wingate and subsequently returned:

Finally, on Friday evening,Seattle police chief Kathleen O'Toole personally delivered Kuzma's wallet to him at Cal Anderson Park. The chief didn't want the press there (but Kuzma did, so I made it out to observe) and she refused—despite the urging of me and public relations officer Sean Whitcomb—to be photographed handing the wallet back.

"We're not looking to make a big deal out of this," O'Toole said. "We're not grandstanding. I just wanted to do the right thing."



At a city council meeting, when Kuzma complained to her about his lost wallet, she said she'd told him, "Feel free to call OPA [the Office of Professional Accountability], but I'll make some inquiries myself."

Those inquiries were fruitful. "Turns out that the officer who made the arrest was wearing a body-worn camera", O'Toole explained. "You couldn't make this up. He was one of the body-camera-wearing test people."

It was James Manning, a former detective who works with the chief, who went and found the video from the body camera (for which I've filed a public records request). O'Toole described to me what they saw: "They have him at the car, they're inventorying his property, the officer says, 'Wallet,' and puts it down and it was—they have the trunk open. And he put it there. The other officer's taking the stuff... you could see the wallet got slammed right there in the trunk."

Here's a screengrab from the bodycam video:

SPD



"Unbelievable," O'Toole said.

On his own dime, Whitcomb bought Kuzma a brand-new backpack from North Face.

What the hell should we make of this?

It's admirable, of course, that Seattle's chief of police and those around her, who oversee a nearly $300 million department with roughly 1,800 staff, took a personal interest in returning the wallet of a known activist.

But it's troubling that it required the involvement of O'Toole and her staff to resolve the matter. Whitcomb often speaks of SPD as being a "public service agency." I didn't see much in the way of service in how three police officers treated Kuzma at the West Precinct on the chilly evening of January 23. None were transparent about the fact that it was lost, and none of them apologized to Kuzma for the inconvenience. The first officer we encountered, sitting at the front desk, was Daniel Espinoza. He seemed hostile—glowering at Kuzma and saying virtually nothing as the activist politely asked how best to track down his wallet.

O'Toole's personal involvement in Kuzma's case is reminiscent of how the department handled the golf club incident. After an outcry by community members, the chief and Deputy Chief Carmen Best viewed the dash-cam video of Whitlatch arresting Wingate for carrying the golf club. Then, leadership of the department recommended that city prosecutors drop the charges against Wingate.

Best visited Wingate personally, apologized, and returned the golf club to him. The morning The Stranger published the story, the department touted its actions as a "win" on its blog and said "counseling" for Whitlatch was the "appropriate resolution." Later that day, after further revelations, O'Toole ordered an investigation into the officer.

A lot of people—including Mayor Ed Murray—think it's obvious that the SPD needs to do more toward achieving its reform goals. Part of that includes the department's accountability system actually functioning and delivering solutions—whether it's resolving mishaps like the lost wallet or dealing with deeper problems (like Whitlatch's apparent pattern of misconduct)—without the intervention of the chief.

O'Toole has said she is committed to reforming the police department (last June, she told us, "I have no tolerance whatsoever for arrogance or rogue cops"). But even if that's true, she and her staff can't possibly be expected to get involved in every case where something goes wrong. Making this department live up to its creed is going to take structural change.

More on that to come in this week's paper, but for now back to Kuzma: By the time the chief got his wallet back to him, he'd already replaced the wallet, backpack, and ORCA card, and ordered a new ID. He'd gone more than one week without any of those essentials. The cost? More than $100, he said, most of which he covered through a crowd-funding campaign.

"They might treat me a little better," Kuzma said as he walked away, holding the wallet and the new backpack, "but people of color are still being affected regardless. Until our system is equal to everyone, and until we're being treated equally to every other white person... one or two nice things does not make a difference in how the community sees the SPD."

Kuzma added, "One minute Seattle police are being nice to you. Next minute, Seattle police are beating you into the ground."

I asked him if he's going to keep organizing protests. "Yeah," he answered, without hesitating. "Because black lives do matter."

UPDATE: The office of City Attorney Pete Holmes points out that it played a role in getting the charges against Wingate dismissed. Spokesperson Kimberly Mills calls that outcome a "win."