SEATTLE _ Late on a Wednesday last November, a middle-aged man in an Audi sport utility vehicle pulled into a lot off Aurora Avenue North and allegedly agreed to pay $40 for sex to a police decoy posing as a prostitute.
The undercover cop silently gave a signal, and a team of Seattle police officers watching from nearby swooped in. They soon realized their vice sting had netted one of their own: an out-of-uniform Seattle police captain named Randal Woolery.
Police bodycam videos of Woolery's arrest that night show that after officers handcuffed him and read him his rights, he turned to a supervising officer and asked: "May I talk to the sergeant?"
Sgt. Jeffrey Page took Woolery away from the other officers, and with the sergeant's body camera still recording, Woolery told him: "I'm going through a divorce."
"OK, brother," Page responded. "I'll try to make this as ... painless as possible."
Moments later, Page shut off his body camera and stopped recording the arrest _ a violation of department policy. His action would be the first in a series of apparent breaks given to Woolery that night.
The preferential treatment afforded to Woolery wasn't mentioned in the department's brief announcement following his arrest. But details of how the department handled the matter can be gleaned from police video and in incident reports since obtained by The Seattle Times, and from internal investigation records since publicly released by the Office of Police Accountability (OPA), the department's citizen-led watchdog on officer conduct.
Unlike the four other men arrested in the sting that night, Woolery avoided having what Page later described as an "embarrassing situation" fully videotaped, according to records from the internal investigation. The police captain also wasn't taken in handcuffs to a North Precinct holding cell to await booking into the King County Jail. Woolery, in fact, didn't spend any time behind bars that night, records show.
Aside from Page, at least three high-ranking Seattle police officials were involved in deciding how to handle Woolery's arrest that night. Capt. Eric Sano, then-commander of the North Precinct, Assistant Chief Steve Hirjak, who oversees the department's community outreach unit, and then-Deputy Chief Marc Garth Green, who was the department's second in command.
At the time of Woolery's arrest, Garth Green had drawn sharp criticism from several City Council members while defending a department emphasis on arresting sex workers on Aurora rather than johns, by remarking during a council meeting that some prostitutes "choose" their work and "enjoyed" it.
Reached by phone this week, Woolery declined comment, but said he would forward an interview request to his attorney. His lawyer didn't call or respond to a message.
Garth Green, Sano and Hirjak also each declined to be interviewed.
Sgt. Randy Huserik, who heads SPD's media unit, answered via email some general questions about Woolery's arrest, but declined to comment on questions related to the commanders' actions that night, including identifying all department leaders involved in the matter.
"As this information is part of a still 'open' OPA investigation, it is not currently available for release," Huserik repeated in response to those questions.
Investigation on hold
So far, only Page has faced discipline in Woolery's arrest for turning off his body camera. He was reprimanded and given more training on proper documentation of camera deactivation. Then-Chief Carmen Best sustained the discipline on June 29. OPA closed his case and publicly released a summary of it on Aug. 31.
OPA Director Andrew Myerberg said in an email this week that his office will decide whether to open an investigation of the commanders involved with Woolery's arrest after his criminal case is resolved.
Woolery, 54, has been charged with one misdemeanor count of "sexual exploitation," the city's name for the crime of patronizing a prostitute. He has pleaded not guilty. Prosecution of his case has been postponed due to cancellation of Seattle Municipal Court hearings during the coronavirus pandemic.
In turn, an internal investigation of Woolery also has been suspended until his criminal case is resolved, which is required under the city's contract with the Seattle Police Management Association, which is the police managers' union, Myerberg said.
The OPA "could have moved ahead with the investigation" of the other commanders, Myerberg said. "However, from a resource management perspective, it just makes more sense for us to do the cases together as opposed to breaking them out into separate cases," he said.
At the time of his arrest, Woolery, an officer for 32 years, served as commander of the Force Review Unit, which oversees use-of-force cases and their compliance with ongoing reforms and standards. He's been on paid administrative leave since the day after his arrest. Over that roughly 44-week span, Woolery has earned about $174,000, based on his hourly pay rate of $98.72.
Woolery, one of eight Seattle officers now on paid leave related to disciplinary issues, isn't required to be compensated during his indefinite suspension. Under the contract with the police managers union, the chief of police has discretion to determine if "leave without pay is necessary in order to maintain the public trust."
A resident of Monroe, Woolery also continues to serve as an elected commissioner for Snohomish County Fire District 7, a position that pays up to $12,288 annually.
