Report finds King County jail used excessive force, submitted faulty investigation

A report from the King County Ombuds finds the Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention “more likely than not” used excessive force when officers punched and Tased a man during a jail booking on Nov. 10, 2024.

The report concludes that the corrections officers violated their agency’s use-of-force policies, and that the department's reporting about the incident contained “concerning deficiencies and errors.”

The Ombuds report was issued Nov. 18, 2025, just over a year after the incident.

When he was given an opportunity to respond to the findings, DAJD Director Allen Nance initially defended the officers’ actions as reasonable and necessary.

But after King County Councilmember Jorge Barón raised concerns about the findings, Nance submitted an updated response this week (included below), with an 11-point plan to address use of force and related oversight. In that letter Nance wrote, "we should have done a better job on multiple fronts related to the handling the matter that prompted your attention."

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Barón told KUOW his concerns go beyond the specific use-of-force incident, to the fact that the Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention’s Force Review Committee failed to flag and refer the incident for any further inquiry, prior to the Ombuds bringing it to light.

“This incident — people can argue about whether it meets the criteria for excessive force or not — but I think most people would agree that this was a possible staff misconduct situation that should have triggered that additional more intensive review,” Barón said. “And that did not occur in this situation.”

Barón sent a letter to King County Executive Girmay Zahilay on Feb. 10 in which he said the department’s failure to trigger an internal investigation on its own was “deeply problematic.” He called Nance's initial response to the Ombuds report “dismissive and internally inconsistent.”

In Nance’s updated response March 2, he said his Internal Investigations Unit will look into the case. The agency will hire a national expert to review the policies and practices of its Force Review Committee (which did not refer the case for an internal investigation).

Nance also said he's already implemented a policy change for “a cool down period instead of immediate use of force, when individuals are uncooperative during the booking processes.”

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According to the Ombuds report, corrections officers were booking the subject, whose identity is redacted, into the King County Correctional Facility in downtown Seattle on Nov. 10, 2024 when they said he ignored commands to remove his belt.

The Burien police officer who assisted in his arrest told corrections officers that police had struggled to control the man earlier. Officers Joe Salcido and Abraham Lopez said they moved toward the man to handcuff him.

They said the man resisted. But the Ombuds report said that’s not what the facility video shows.

“We find that, based on a thorough review of all the available evidence, it is more likely than not that it was Officer Salcido’s initiation of force by shoving [the man] into the counter, not apparent passive resistance preceding the push, that was the catalyst,” the report said. “Once physical contact was initiated it quickly escalated into a serious force incident that included five officers, multiple closed fist strikes to the head, a knee kick to the head, a drive stun taser, and resulting injuries to [the man’s] face.”

Photos indicate redness and swelling on the man’s temple and the side of his face.

“Based on our review of all available evidence, we find that it is more likely than not that the force used by DAJD officers against [the subject] on November 10, 2024, was excessive," the Ombuds report concludes. "In addition, we identified multiple reporting errors and failures to follow DAJD Policies.”

The ombuds said DAJD violated its own policies by failing to seek a statement from the inmate, even though he was held in the jail for four days and rebooked at Malang Regional Justice Center for months in 2025. DAJD did not address this in its response, saying his injuries were assessed by the Jail Health staff.

The ombuds said DAJD also violated its own Taser policy by neglecting to photograph the man where he was tased. And the ombuds said the video did not corroborate the officers’ statements that the subject “pulled away” as they attempted to handcuff him. The report also mentions questions over whether the man was intoxicated and whether he understood English.

Court rulings limit the disclosure of videos taken inside secure locations and the Ombuds said this video is exempt from disclosure.

Councilmember Barón said he reviewed the video and, while it is grainy and taken from a distance, he found the Ombuds report described it accurately.

In his initial response to the findings dated Dec. 16, Nance pushed back on the report’s assertion that officers’ accounts were at odds with the video.

“There is no clear and convincing evidence that the submitted reports are inaccurate. In fact, the video supports the general narrative of all the submitted reports,” Nance said. “The officer reports state that the resident was ‘pulling away’ and turned toward the officer. The Burien Police Department officer had just told the DAJD officer that the resident had ‘fought’ during his arrest. It is reasonable for that officer to think, in the moment, that he was about to be struck by the resident. The officer then used reasonable and necessary force to attempt to control the resident based on the facts that he had at the time.”

King County's Office of Law Enforcement Oversight investigations monitor Ryan McPhail said Burien police had arrested the man on suspicion of arson. The man filed a complaint alleging bias-based policing and excessive force against them for the takedown during his arrest, and a second complaint about use of force in jail booking.

McPhail’s office reviewed the man’s complaints. He said the oversight review found the arresting officers’ actions to be within policy and they were exonerated. His office forwarded the complaint about the use of force in the jail to the Ombuds because the Office of Law Enforcement Oversight does not have jurisdiction there.

The Ombuds report includes a recommendation for more de-escalation training to avoid using force, and three recommendations to align with DAJD’s own policies: better documentation on use of force including efforts to gather required statements from the impacted person; required leadership review of every taser deployment; and a recommendation to clarify which types of force are appropriate “on a partially and/or completely handcuffed resident.”

Barón said the King County Ombuds was established to serve an oversight function, performing independent reviews to “make findings and recommendations when they identify issues where the county has not been living up to its commitments.”