Investigation opens into ex-Seattle mayor, police chief’s missing texts on 2020 protests
Then-Mayor Jenny Durkan, right, and Police chief Carmen Best, cheered for the Seattle Storm game in 2018. Photo: Genna Martin/Getty Images
The King County Sheriff's Office is investigating whether former Mayor Jenny Durkan, ex-police chief Carmen Best or others broke the law when thousands of potentially key text messages exchanged during the city's raucous 2020 racial justice protests were deleted from their city-issued phones, Axios has learned.The Sheriff's Office opened the probe July 28 at the request of King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg, his spokesperson said in an email to Axios on Thursday.
"But in recent weeks and months, I heard from people in the community that this matter was important to them and I considered it my responsibility to make this request to the Sheriff before the end of my term."a Sheriff's Office spokesperson told Axios in an email Thursday the agency was "in the early stages of reviewing this matter.
The text messages are public records required to be kept under state law and could have served as possible evidence in multiple pending lawsuits against the city over its handling of the 2020 protests.Durkan has said she accidentally dropped her phone into salt water and denied setting her replacement phone to automatically delete messages.in bulk from her city-issued phone after independently deciding the messages didn't contain significant information that would require them to be saved.
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