Seattle mayor’s workplace scrambling to retrieve months of deleted textual content messages – KIRO 7 Information Seattle

SEATTLE – Seattle Mayor’s Office Jenny Durkan is actively working to retrieve several months of missing and deleted text messages, which the Mayor’s office suggests are potential evidence in a federal lawsuit against the city of Seattle.

The lawsuit accuses the mayor and the city of law enforcement exiting the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) zone last summer. This means that part of Capitol Hill is closed to first responders to enter the area and save the lives of 19 people. One-year-old Lorenzo Anderson – after he was shot there in one night in late June.

Anderson’s mother Donnitta Sinclair is behind the lawsuit, in which several city officials, including the mayor, are held accountable.

“You left the CHOP,” Sinclair said. “You have left your turf. You didn’t get in when you should. Nobody had a plan. Everyone knew the CHOP was there. The result is death. What are you going to do about it? “

The lawsuit calls on the mayor’s text messages to find out if it was her idea to remove the police from the East Precinct, but attorney Mark Lindquist – who represents Sinclair – said he had Durkan’s texts from Aug. 28, 2019 through Aug. June received. 2020 were “automatically deleted” due to a setting in their iPhone that removed text messages after 30 days.

“It is very irresponsible for a highly elected official not to understand the need to keep records,” said Toby Nixon, an expert on our state’s open record laws. Nixon, who is also a member of Kirkland City Council, said all text messages from the mayor regarding official business of government are official records. As a legislator, Nixon has drafted a law that requires every elected official in our state to be trained to maintain all communications.

“I’m assuming the Seattle Mayor received this kind of training, and she really has no excuse for not knowing that you can’t automatically delete records after 30 days,” he said.

The Mayor’s Office sent KIRO 7 News this statement, which read in part: “At all times, the Mayoress believed and believed that all of her text messages, calendars, and emails were secured, available to everyone, and would be produced quickly and completely. The mayor has asked that all of these documents be made available to the public as soon as possible. “

Lindquist sent a statement to KIRO 7 News: “The text messages are important evidence in our lawsuit against the city, and I am confident that a federal judge will order the city to produce the news.”

Nixon said this situation is a real teaching moment for any elected official that even communications on an elected official’s personal phones and devices can be viewed and must be kept as a public record.

“You can’t say,” I’m not going to flip this because this is a private device, or because this is my personal email or Facebook account, “he said.” You still have to flip it. “

Nixon said it was open to prosecution in a case like this, but it would require proof that a particular person “deliberately and intentionally” destroyed public records by setting the iPhone to automatically delete messages.