A civil-service panel has upheld the firing of former Seattle police Lt. Donnie Lowe, whose dismissal in 2013 over allegations of domestic violence, disregarding a court order and dishonesty put the department’s efforts to hold officers accountable under a spotlight.
A civil-service panel on Monday upheld the firing of former Seattle police Lt. Donnie Lowe, whose dismissal in 2013 over allegations of domestic violence, disregarding a court order and dishonesty put the department’s efforts to hold officers accountable under a spotlight.
The three-member Seattle Public Safety Civil Service Commission panel unanimously agreed in a six-page order that then-Interim Police Chief Jim Pugel, now the second-ranking deputy in the King County Sheriff’s Office, had sufficient cause to fire Lowe.
Lowe, 48, was arrested in 2012 for alleged domestic violence against his wife, but a jury acquitted him of a misdemeanor charge during a trial in which she didn’t testify and evidence was limited by the judge.
He also was charged with violating a court-imposed no-contact order stemming from the domestic-violence arrest. But after his acquittal on the first charge, Lowe reached an agreement in which prosecutors agreed to drop the second case if he met court conditions.
Help for domestic-violence survivors
If you are in immediate danger, call 911. If you have been abused by an intimate partner, you can call the 24-hour National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 or 800-787-3224 (TTY). A variety of agencies in the area offer assistance, including confidential shelters, counseling, child therapy and legal help. For a list of resources, visit the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence's website.Lowe, reached by telephone Monday, said he was unlikely to appeal the finding in court.
“It is what it is,” he said of the decision, adding that he was now involved in other business ventures.
“No need to feel sorry for me at all,” said Lowe, who maintained during an appeals hearing earlier this year that his firing was unfair.
Under more liberal evidentiary rules allowed during the hearing, the commission heard a detailed account of what prompted Pugel, after an internal investigation, to fire Lowe.
Shortly before his domestic-violence arrest, Lowe had been placed in charge of the department’s “20/20” plan to overhaul procedures after a U.S. Justice Department investigation found Seattle officers routinely used excessive force. The plan was eventually superseded by a comprehensive federal consent decree in 2012 requiring reforms.
Lowe had been placed in charge of the leadership aspect of the “20/20” plan, but he was replaced after his arrest in June 2012.
He was arrested after his wife, Nanette, called 911 to report Lowe had slapped her. She later recanted her story.
While the no-contact order was in place, Donnie Lowe was pulled over in August 2012 for talking on a cellphone while driving with a female in his car.
The officer who stopped him suspected the female was his wife but lacked sufficient proof at the moment.
Lowe subsequently identified the woman as his then-16-year-old niece.
At the request of Seattle police, the King County Sheriff’s Office conducted an investigation. Video was obtained of Lowe’s wife arriving at work about a half-hour after the traffic stop in a multicolored dress similar to the one described by the officer, Assistant City Attorney Molly Dailey told the commission during the hearing.
The officer who made the traffic stop also was confident the woman in the video was the female in the car, and the niece offered inconsistent statements that led a sheriff’s detective to believe she was lying, Dailey said.
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Lowe’s attorney, Steven McConnell, told the commission that the city had taken “every fact and twisted it to their ends.”
He said Lowe’s wife genuinely recanted her domestic-violence claim, and disputed that she was in the car when her husband was stopped. The officer looked at the female inside for only a few seconds, McConnell said.
But Commission Chair Christian Halliburton and Commissioner Joel Nark, who is a Seattle police officer, and Pro-Tem Commissioner Terry Carroll wrote they were persuaded by the initial statements of Lowe’s wife that he had placed his forearm on her chest and slapped her. Her recantation was “understandable” but “not credible,” the commission found.
The commission also found “not credible” the hearing testimony of the niece that she was in the car, as well as his wife’s remarks to the panel that she was not the passenger.
As a result, the commission concluded, there was “substantial evidence” Lowe lied during the internal investigation, an allegation that was added to the case.
Lowe was previously arrested on suspicion of drunken driving in 2008. He pleaded guilty to an amended charge of reckless driving, later dismissed when he met court conditions.
The department then suspended him for four days without pay.
He also was reprimanded for inappropriate physical treatment of a son who was handcuffed and in police custody in a holding cell in 2006, and over an improper effort to retrieve from a man nude photographs of a female acquaintance in 2002.