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Sheriff: Deputy pepper-sprayed water bottle to deter homeless from camps

A King County Sheriff’s Office deputy was fired for allegedly putting pepper spray on a water bottle to “deter homeless people” from staying in encampments.

Documents obtained by KIRO7 show Deputy Derek DeZiel was fired after an internal investigation.

Documents from the internal investigation show that DeZiel’s partner made a complaint about him pepper-spraying the water bottle during a November 2016 visit to a homeless encampment in Falls City.

In an internal investigations unit interview, KCSO reports DeZiel said, “I put a little squirt of pepper spray on the end of the water bottle to deter him from coming back.”

When asked if he thought pepper spraying people’s belongings was the right thing to do, DeZiel said “All the other stuff that we’d done as a deterrent; I did not have a problem with it, no.”

He said that he had learned the technique as a junior deputy, while he was working for Metro. But he could not name the people who taught him to do this.

A letter signed by Sheriff John Urquhart revealed that KCSO believed DeZiel was frustrated by the government’s inability to clear out the homeless camp under the bridge. The internal investigation lists “frustration” as DeZiel’s excuse for his actions.

In the termination letter, Urquhart wrote: “I find it an attack on the most vulnerable and powerless segment of society by the most powerful segment of society...a police officer."

Interviews with DeZiel’s junior partner, Ryan Sprecher, show that DeZiel called him upon finding out that he had made a complaint.

In the phone call, Sprecher said that DeZiel cursed at him: “Who the f--- did you talk to and what the f--- did you say?”

DeZiel admitted to internal investigators that he used expletives, but that he wasn’t attempting to discuss the complaint, which would be a violation of policy.

DeZiel told them, “I’ve always been taught that if you have a problem with somebody, you work it out with them. I, I was trying to find out what the hell was going on. Um, it was more for me it was, what the f---.”

In his termination letter, Urquhart addressed this exchange, saying that this type of thinking reinforces public perception of a ‘Blue Wall,’ in which law enforcement officials do not report on each other’s errors.

The documents obtained by KIRO 7 also show DeZiel’s disciplinary record, including kicking in the door of someone’s home over a parking violation, having no probable cause to enter a house, illegally entering a property, watching television while driving, not following up on a robbery report, and making a statement that a female co-worker was a woman doing a man’s job.