The Washington State Patrol has agreed to pay $1.4 million to settle a federal lawsuit accusing a trooper of making pretext stops and targeting people of color and immigrants.
All four of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the WSP and Trooper Cameron Osmer were arrested and booked into jail on suspicion of impaired driving within weeks of one another. All four were Black immigrants with "notable accents," the lawsuit alleges. None showed any trace of alcohol or drugs, according to blood tests Osmer obtained after taking them into custody.
These were not isolated cases, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in 2022 by Jean-Baptiste Yamindi, Nickiesha Gordon, Florence Masundire and Fitsum Seifu. Their attorneys turned up internal WSP documents showing Osmer was responsible for an unprecedented number of arrests where involuntary post-arrest blood draws — a significant constitutional intrusion that requires probable cause and a search warrant — later showed no intoxication.
A majority of those involved were people of color, according to an analysis of WSP arrest data filed with the court.
The analysis showed that of 69 individuals Osmer detained and subjected to blood draws on suspicion of impaired driving during his first seven months as a commissioned trooper in 2020, a total of 15 had no intoxicating substances in their system. Of those, 10 were immigrant people of color.
This ratio far exceeds the general population of King County, according to the pleadings.
Moreover, Osmer has been sanctioned by a district judge in King County, who in 2022 dismissed DUI charges against a Mexican immigrant after concluding Osmer "conducted a thinly veiled pretextual stop" on a seat belt violation "under the guise of investigating him for a DUI."
Evidence showed the suspect, who isn't one of the lawsuit's plaintiffs, spoke little English. Osmer, rather than obtaining a translator, questioned the man in English, occasionally asking in Spanish if he understood and calling him "amigo." The judge concluded the man "would repeatedly express a lack of understanding" but found Osmer "undeterred" in his questioning and investigation.
"Trooper Osmer appeared to barely attempt to meet minimal constitutional requirements for his interaction with this citizen," wrote King County District Judge Kristen Shotwell in a 2022 order dismissing the case.
The WSP also disciplined Osmer and placed him on a so-called "Brady List" of potentially ethically compromised law enforcement officers in Kittitas County after an internal audit found he had cheated on special-assignment overtime, according to documents filed with the lawsuit. The internal investigation showed Osmer was at home collecting overtime pay when he reported being on a medical call.
Osmer was found to have neglected his duty and was given a six-day suspension with four of those days held in abeyance. The two other days were subtracted from his paid time off, according to the court exhibits.
Osmer, now 27, first began working for the WSP in 2018 in Bellevue and served an unspecified assignment on the governor's security detail, according to pleadings filed by the state. He graduated from the agency's training academy in 2020 as a commissioned trooper and is currently assigned in the Tri-Cities area.
The lawsuit points out that despite other troopers' concerns over the number of negative toxicology reports and arrests by Osmer without charges, he was recognized and given a commemorative plaque by patrol leadership for having the most DUI arrests in 2021.
WSP spokesperson Chris Loftis reiterated the agency's commitment to nonbiased police work, pointed out that other troopers first reported Osmer's arrest issues, and said his time-reporting discrepancies were discovered through a patrol-initiated audit of its programs.
Loftis said an internal review of Osmer's arrests identified "deficiencies" but "revealed no violation of WSP policy and no indication that bias played a role in these arrests."
"These deficiencies were determined to be a result of training and inexperience and unfortunately exasperated by delays" at the state toxicology laboratory, Loftis said in a statement. "Trooper Osmer was assigned additional training and his arrests received closer monitoring and to our knowledge this has resolved the issue at hand."
The patrol concluded Osmer "has a passion for removing impaired drivers from our roadways" that may have interfered with his judgment.
Joseph Shaeffer, one of the Seattle civil rights attorneys who filed the lawsuit, said his clients were "very pleased" with the settlement and "are happy to move on from this devastating experience."
Yamindi, the lead plaintiff and a 49-year-old Microsoft software engineer, moved away as a result of the experience, the lawyer said.
"The inconvenient truth is that the Washington State Patrol still employs Trooper Osmer, and still hands out awards for troopers who make the most DUI arrests, even if those arrests never lead to charges or conviction," Shaeffer said. "That incentive system will inevitably result in more unconstitutional arrests."
Shaeffer said the concerns raised about Osmer's "bad arrests" by other troopers, including his own sergeant, "were swept under the rug by higher-ups, and to this day WSP has not disciplined him for any of them."
Records show Osmer's fellow troopers first raised the alarm about the negative toxicology tests in September 2021, when the first 12 cases turned up. In a memo, Sgt. David Porter wrote that he was "concerned after looking into some of his cases." Osmer was still a probationary trooper at the time.
"While there are possible explanations on a case-by-case basis, I haven't seen something like this before," Porter wrote.
Of particular concern was that Osmer conducted most of the physical sobriety tests and questioning in a majority of the suspicious stops outside the view of his car's dash camera, according to the lawsuit pleadings.
The WSP opened an internal investigation after Shaeffer filed an initial tort claim over the January 2021 stop and arrest on Interstate 90 of Masundire, a 61-year-old nursing assistant and immigrant from Zimbabwe.
While the investigator eventually concluded Osmer had reason to stop Masundire, there were inconsistencies in his report and concerns he conducted field-sobriety tests outside the view of the cruiser's dash camera. The investigator also concluded race was not a factor in the stop and rejected Masundire's biased-policing complaint.
"That is NOT to say that Trooper Osmer's arrest decision in this case was correct," wrote WSP Lt. Julie Fisher in a Feb. 3, 2023, finding. "The fact of the matter is the toxicology results indicate no alcohol or drugs were detected."
