It dressed like a man

After Seattle protests, texts from mayor’s phone were deleted, court filing shows

https://news.yahoo.com/seattle-protests-texts-mayor-phone-032911163.html

SEATTLE — A newly disclosed forensic analysis has found that 191 texts were manually deleted from an iPhone of former Mayor Jenny Durkan in the months after her administration’s controversial response to racial justice protests in June 2020, according to the latest filings in a federal lawsuit.

The previously unknown manual text deletions from Durkan’s phone — along with other new details, including that “factory resets” were performed on phones of six other city officials in fall 2020, resulting in the deletions of thousands of other text messages — are among the revelations contained in the findings of an expert’s 32-page report completed in April.

The expert’s report, along with a host of other exhibits, was filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle late Wednesday to bolster new arguments raised by attorneys for several businesses and residents suing the city for damages they say were caused by Seattle’s weekslong tolerance of a sprawling protest zone two years ago.

In an accompanying motion, attorney Angelo Calfo seeks a default judgment and sanctions against the city, contending Seattle officials intentionally destroyed potential evidence after the plaintiffs filed their lawsuit, which Calfo said could have helped prove the plaintiffs’ case.

The motion alleges Durkan, former Police Chief Carmen Best, Fire Chief Harold Scoggins and several other Seattle officials intentionally deleted thousands of text messages “well after this case began and in blatant disregard of their duties as public officials to preserve their texts.”

“The City’s explanation for … why the officials deleted the texts—using factory resets, 30-day auto deletions, and manual deletions—are either non-existent or incredible,” Calfo’s motion states. “There’s only one plausible explanation. These officials intended to deprive Plaintiffs of crucial evidence, prejudicing Plaintiffs’ case and rendering the City’s defenses difficult to rebut.”

Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison’s office, which is defending the city, declined comment about the latest filings Thursday, but countered by filing the city’s own motion for sanctions against the plaintiffs, including business owners, landlords and residents, for allegedly destroying evidence.

It claims at least two of the plaintiffs “deliberately, manually deleted their text messages about” the protest zone after the lawsuit was filed, “when they knew they were obligated not to do so, and have done nothing to retrieve them.” Several other plaintiffs used an encrypted messaging app with “disappearing” messages to discuss the protests, the city’s motion states.

Durkan, a former U.S. Attorney who did not seek re-election after her single term as Seattle’s mayor ended last year, said through a spokesperson’s statement Thursday most of her texts, which were "mostly innocuous and irrelevant," were recovered. The statement said she believes “strongly in the public’s right to know what their government is doing.”

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