‘There's not much I can say, but I can listen’; Police Chief addresses recent SPD controversies

SEATTLE - Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz fielded questions at the first press conference since two recent controversies came to light—both when an officer was caught on body camera laughing and joking about a woman hit and killed by a patrol car, and when audio captured an off-duty officer harassing his Chinese-American neighbor and using racist and sexist slurs.

"As part of our accountability ordinance, there's not much I can say, because at the end of the day I'm the final arbitrator of discipline, so in order not to impact any case, if there is some level of discipline, I want to make sure I respect the process," said Diaz. "With that said, those under the Office of Police Accountability, those came from, well, Officer Auderer came internally from our own personnel, and then on the second case it came from an outside organization nonprofit."

As FOX 13 News previously reported, the officer accused of racist and sexist comments to his neighbor was placed on administrative leave.

RELATED: Seattle Police officer placed on leave amid investigation of racist and sexist comments

"[I] immediately had certain actions to put the officer on administrative leave, and so very clear, very different types of cases, but very complicated. I know it's created huge impacts in our Asian community. I've been meeting with the Asian community. I’ve been meeting with the Indian community, the South Asian Communities and really having extensive conversations and, really, listening sessions, because at the end of the day, there’s not much I can say, but I can listen to what the community's concerns are."

RELATED: SPD oversight group demands officer under investigation for viral bodycam comments be put on leave

As for the ongoing investigation into the death of 23-year-old Jaahnavi Kandula by a speeding patrol car, Seattle Police had for several years had a contract with Truleo, a body camera analysis firm. That contract was canceled just weeks after Kandula's death.

When asked why SPD ended the contract, Diaz said officers were concerned they were being spied on, and the service itself could not distinguish between voices.

"We are looking at all that. I can tell you that there’s not any relation to [Auderer's comments]. There was concern from officers that after hearing that we were in a pilot-testing phase of the system," explained Diaz. "What we were actually seeing with the system was that they couldn’t distinguish between the officer’s voice and a suspect’s voice, but it had some things that needed to be worked out."

Diaz also suggested the Seattle Police Officers Guild [SPOG] pressured them to end the contract.

"And there was[sic] concerns from officers that they were potentially being surveilled, and it wasn’t just SPOG was raising it as part of their membership, but really it was a lot of the officers, after hearing that we were looking at using this as a product," said Diaz. "We are actually still in discussions with Truleo about their product. As it gets refined, as it starts to really develop, we might end up using the system—we might not, we might go on to something completely different."

Diaz clarified the service would not have affected this case, as it targets vocal inflection, elevated heart rate and other indicators of stress, all as part of de-escalation training.