Police Officers Who Attended Jan. 6 Rally Can Be Identified: Washington State Supreme Court

Six Seattle Police Department officers went to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.

Massive crowds gather as then-President Donald Trump speaks to supporters from The Ellipse near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Police officers who attended President Donald Trump’s rally on Jan. 6, 2021, can be identified, Washington state’s highest court has ruled.

The four officers, with the Seattle Police Department, “have not shown a likelihood of success on the merits that their identities are exempt based on either a statutory or constitutional right to privacy,” the Washington state Supreme Court said in a Feb. 13 decision.

The decision reverses a lower court ruling, which was in favor of the officers.

Six Seattle Police Department officers went to Washington on Jan. 6. Two were identified and fired by the department after leaders found that they crossed barriers that had been erected by U.S. Capitol Police. The pair was never charged with a crime.

Officials said three of the other officers did not violate department policies. For the remaining officer, the evidence was inconclusive, they said.

Several people filed public records requests seeking to identify the officers. After the department told the officers that it was going to release their names, the officers sued, saying their identities were exempt from the state’s public records law because they were engaged in activities protected by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment and making their names known would violate their constitutional rights.

A trial court denied the officers’ request for a preliminary injunction, finding that disclosure of the names “does not prevent them or anyone else from exercising their First Amendment rights and attending a rally.” An appeals court ruled in favor of the officers.

Sam Sueoka, one of the people who have been seeking the records, appealed to the state Supreme Court.

The court said there is a strong presumption for the release of public records and that exceptions are narrowly tailored to protect privacy or vital governmental interests.

Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis wrote for the majority that the requested records relate to the officers’ “activities at a highly publicized and public event” and that “the officers have not shown they likely have a privacy interest under the First Amendment that would reach the fact of their identities as the public employees who attended these public events documented in public records.”

The majority also said the officers’ records had not shown that they should be able to proceed under pseudonyms in the legal case.

The state Supreme Court remanded the case back to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with the new opinion.

Several justices wrote in partial concurrences and dissents that they agree with the main finding but believe that the trial court, which said the officers could continue to use pseudonyms, should be able to reconsider the pseudonym issue or that the officers should be allowed to proceed under pseudonyms.