Prosser police chief placed on leave. Here are the allegations that led to it

Prosser Police Chief Jay King was placed on paid administrative leave Thursday following a recent “no confidence” vote from a majority of his officers.

A third-party investigation will begin Jan. 17 into allegations made by Prosser Police Department staff, according to a city of Prosser announcement Thursday afternoon.

While King is on leave, Sgt. John Markus will serve as interim police chief. He has worked for Prosser for 25 years.

King was hired eight months ago to lead the police department.

At the end of last week Teamsters Local 839 sent a letter to the city saying that King had devastated morale, bullied officers and disregarded Prosser police policies and Washington state law.

“Chief King’s abuse of power, narcissistic attitude toward police officers and bullying are more than any employee should put up with,” wrote Teamsters Business Agent Jesus Alvarez.

King did not respond to an email from the Herald asking for his position on the allegations.

The Teamsters Local letter said King is responsible for 75% of the department’s employees leaving or trying to find other employment since he became chief in March.

“Prosser Police Department is now the utter laughingstock of the lower (Yakima) valley law enforcement, EMS, and dispatch communities,” Alvarez wrote in the letter.

King allegedly created a toxic work environment where he “bullied employees to the point of great stress and HR/Union action due to targeted, unlawful and sexist actions,” Alvarez wrote.

In addition, King is accused of berating employees when they raised concerns about the legality, ethics or efficiency of his suggestions.

And the Teamsters claim King violated basic safety protocols while on duty at critical scenes. That includes showing up at potential crime scenes with an unloaded gun and not wearing body armor.

That creates a situation where officers not only have to worry about a possibly dangerous situation, they also need to worry about the chief’s safety because he is not equipped correctly, Alvarez said.

State law requires officers to wear body armor, be armed and have a body camera when they’re on duty.

King had 28 years of law enforcement experience when he came to Prosser, but Alvarez said King had only 18 months of patrol experience.

“If Chief King were required to undergo (Prosser department’s training program), he would, in nearly all aspects vastly fail to meet the minimum standards as a patrol officer,” Alvarez said.

Prosser officers also are concerned about King’s spending choices, he said. They are critical of his decision to order new vinyl wraps for police cars and new uniforms and badges when he should be working to fix a serious problem with their communications radios not functioning properly inside the station.

Alvarez contends the relationship between the chief and the officers is broken beyond repair.

Before joining Prosser department, King was the the head of the troubled Unalaska Department of Public Safety in Unalaska, Alaska.

That city paid out $765,000 to settle four civil cases when he was the chief, according to records from the city.

He was only directly involved in one lawsuit and a minor player in two others, but he was accused of not improving the situation.

In one case, he allegedly made it worse by threatening an officer with criminal charges, according to documents from one of the four lawsuits.

At the time he was hired in Prosser, then Mayor Randy Taylor said King came highly recommended by his colleagues and that none of the lawsuits specifically named him as a defendant.