Seattle Police Chief addresses video of fake tombstone at East Precinct

Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz addressed questions from the Community Police Commission on Wednesday, after footage surfaced of a fake tombstone of a Black teenager killed by police on display in the East Precinct. The Seattle Times broke the original story.

The tombstone displayed the name Damarius Butts, a 19-year-old who was killed by police after they exchanged gunfire in 2017. The tombstone was propped on a shelf above a microwave, near a table and chairs where officers were seated. An unrelated lawsuit unearthed the footage, which also shows a Trump 2020 flag on the wall of the same break room.

Diaz appeared virtually at the Seattle’s Community Police Commission meeting Wednesday morning, after he accepted an invite to attend. He apologized for the tombstone.

“Our department is committed to making it right, and I’m committed to making it right,” Diaz said.

Diaz said the tombstone and Trump flag are no longer up. He said his focus now is to rebuild trust. He said he’s working with the Office of Inspector General on an equity assessment, to review issues of bias and discrimination within the department. He said his expectations are that commanders and supervisors will hold personnel accountable.

“My expectation is we make sure that we have a healthy environment,” Diaz said, “that there are no items that will create further trauma or hurt.”

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Butts’ mother, Stephanie Butts, said she was shocked when she saw the video footage of the gravestone. She said it was hurtful to know that “SPD officers were so callous that they warmed up food in a microwave below my son's fake tombstone and didn't see anything wrong with that, and the SPD leadership allowed the tombstone to be displayed in a common area for a prolonged period of time.”

Adrien Leavitt represented the Butts family during the inquest proceedings for Damarius Butts. Leavitt said it was as proceedings were ongoing that the fake tombstone was on display in an “open space.” He said the tombstone appeared to have been taken from a memorial for Damarius Butts during protests the prior year.

“The memorial that was in the police department was supposed to remember him, was supposed to remember his life and that it mattered,” said Leavitt, who is also a commissioner and attorney with the Department of Public Defense.

“Taking that from wherever it was found and placing it in the East Precinct shows a deep level of disrespect to him, to his family, and community,” he said.

Diaz punted certain questions to the Office of Police Accountability, which is investigating how the flag and fake tombstone got into the police building. He said his department is working with the police accountability office to answer those questions.