New guild leader: A police officer, first and last

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"How long a blade would I need to kill you right now?"

Even as a hypothetical, the question held an element of menace. The police officer who posed it, after a pause, offered his own answer: less than an inch. Tiny!

"I can cut you here." His fingers pressed against a spot on his thigh above the femoral artery, "and kill you." He touched his neck, just over the carotid artery. "I can cut you here, and a medic in the same room couldn't save you."

Ken Saucier, new president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, was making a point. Last month, in the University District, officers shot and killed a man wielding a martial-arts sword. Witnesses disputed police reports that the man had raised the sword as if to strike.

Saucier, with restrained exasperation, said it didn't matter whether the sword was raised or lowered. If a 1-inch blade can kill, surely a sword with a 19-inch blade could — from countless angles, in a split second.

It's the same point Saucier has made for much of his 16 years in the department, the same one he promises to defend during his two-year term as guild president: that police officers on the job are often a flicker away from injury or death and must respond accordingly, sometimes with lethal force.

In all the city's recent high-profile police shootings, from David John Walker in April 2000 to the latest, on Feb. 18, involving the sword-wielding Shawn Maxwell, Saucier has — through letters, essays and interviews — resolutely defended police.

His willingness to speak out and his blunt, sometimes theatrical style have made him popular with rank-and-file cops and propelled his decisive victory in the guild elections. In defeating two other veteran officers, Saucier became the first African American to hold the guild's top spot.

He inherits an organization in tumult.

The most urgent item, a pending vote of no confidence in Chief Gil Kerlikowske, was initiated under the previous president, Mike Edwards, but Saucier says he will dutifully carry out the process. The vote, to be released March 21, could dramatically affect the course of the department this year: It could mark the beginning of the end of Kerlikowske's tenure in Seattle or it could prove Kerlikowske's shining moment, either as victor or victim, with the guild being seen as vindictive and petty.

Already there has been a backlash against the guild. A recent newspaper editorial admonished the guild to "stop whining!" James Kelly of the Urban League suggested that community groups should hold their own vote of no confidence in the guild. Some cops share those sentiments.

"We've got to stop being crybabies," said Sgt. Kirby Leufroy, a 22-year veteran. Leufroy, vice president of the Black Law Enforcement Association of Washington, which represents 80 officers, has publicly backed the chief, who is slowly gaining a reputation as a friend to minority communities.

The no-confidence vote was initiated by a relatively small number of officers after Kerlikowske reprimanded a white officer for his conduct during a jaywalking stop in the International District. The jaywalkers, a group of Asian Americans, claimed the officer was sarcastic and disrespectful.

Wrestling with racial issues

Racial issues have been the bane of the police guild. Most of the victims in the recent shootings have been black; the officers, white. Black community leaders have attacked the guild for defending — in one case, awarding — officers involved in the shootings.

Saucier's election could have strategic value for the guild: What better defense against charges of racism than to have its 1,200 members elect an African American to lead it?

"This is our own rank and file choosing the best person, regardless of what color he is," said Lt. Andy Tooke, white and an 18-year veteran on the force. "We've been talking the talk. Now it's clear we're walking the walk."

But leaders in the African-American community don't see Saucier's election as a victory for the cause. They say they'll give Saucier a chance but quickly add that his past statements indicate he's just another loyalist cop.

Oscar Eason, of the Seattle NAACP, and another black leader who did not want to be named, likened Saucier to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, an African American with conservative views who they implied might as well be white.

Eason said he was troubled by statements Saucier made last year defending police in the shooting death of a black motorist, Aaron Roberts. Saucier publicly broached de-policing — passive law enforcement — as a response to chronic charges of police racism. Eason interpreted that as a threat: If you keep calling us racists, we'll stop policing your neighborhoods.

"His statements, his whole attitude — they don't make me very optimistic," Eason said. "The rank and file see him as a true servant of law enforcement, a 'my police department right-or-wrong' kind of guy. I see him as the wrong guy, someone who may bring the worst set of circumstances for the African American community."

'Somebody who doesn't know me'

Saucier shrugs off such characterizations. It's the old "He's-not-really-black" position, which he considers no position at all.

He sits among unopened boxes in his spacious new office. "I take it for what it is," he says. "... the last little shot from somebody who doesn't know me, doesn't know the issues, and doesn't have anything else to say."

His voice is soft, almost wispy. He is 38, wears braces and rectangular wire-rimmed glasses. The rest of him evokes roundness: shaved head, fleshy cheeks, a midsection with more expanse than he'd like. "Why have a six-pack when you can have the whole keg," he laughs, girding his belly.

He can be a jokester, a side only friends and close associates see. He makes it clear there is "a private Kenny and a public Kenny." He's determined to keep them separate, politely requesting that his family not be named.

The private Kenny is married with three children, ages 15, 12 and 8, a motorcycle buff, a computer geek, an introverted bookworm, a homebody who adores his mother. In formal ceremonies to become a police officer and again to become guild president, he asked his mother to swear him in. "My hero," he says of her.

The public Kenny is a certified Emergency Medical Technician, which is why he knows about all the key veins and arteries; a nationally ranked pistol marksman who can hit a quarter at 50 feet nine times out of 10; a battle-worn veteran of the streets and a single-minded advocate of law enforcement. He is a true believer in the notion that police form the thin blue membrane separating society from utter chaos.

He is, in demeanor and outlook, a soldier. He grew up in Pearl Harbor, a Navy brat, joined the Army out of high school, and went from the Army Reserve to the Seattle Police Department. He's been surrounded by and wrapped in uniforms all his life.

Growing up in the cultural melting pot of Hawaii, and on a military base where blacks and other minorities held positions of power, Saucier never became preoccupied with racism. Indeed, his comments indicate a disdain for those who blame racism for their troubles.

"When we go into these communities, the stories are always, 'Well, my cousin down in Alabama in the 1960s got this done to him by the police,' " Saucier said. "They're still seeing the scene of blacks squaring off with policemen and their dogs and big fire hoses. It's absolutely true that police at one time were the instrument of institutional racism. But how many times does someone have to say they're sorry? How many years have to pass before the sons are forgiven for their fathers' sins — 20 years, 50 years, 100 years? Forever?

"Let's talk about Seattle. Let's talk about now."

His loyalties are those of the soldier: Comrades in arms come first. And if this seems narrow and self-serving, so be it. He's willing to be called, in his words, "an obstinate jackass."

Those who know Saucier talk of his two sides, which roughly correlate to his public and private selves. The face-to-face Saucier is polite, laughs easily, appears to listen intently and even be open to persuasion. Just below that surface is where the obstinate jackass lives, although he prefers to see it as the principled jackass.

Colleagues describe him as honest, industrious and absolutely reliable in a bind — the kind of partner you would want on a dangerous assignment.

And he is pathologically opinionated. He's an avid contributor to Letters to the Editor pages, constantly jeers reporters through e-mail and writes regularly for the guild newspaper, The Guardian.

In a recent piece, Saucier describes the Racial Profiling Task Force as a "monster" whose many voices "drip with contempt." The group was formed to study whether Seattle police engage in such profiling. Saucier writes:

"Of course no one has come out and stated exactly what racial profiling is. They don't know what it is, but it sounds bad, so they are against it. They've heard it's happening in other cities so it must be happening here. After all, all cops are alike."

It's this side of Saucier that most worries city leaders. City Councilman Nick Licata says the sarcastic tone in Saucer's writing "does not build bridges."

As head of the largest body of police officers in the Northwest, Saucier "has to remember he's not just a sideshow columnist anymore," Licata said. "He needs to act responsibly."

Saucier will meet with Chief Kerlikowske every other week. They had their first meeting in late February.

Though critical of the chief for his handling of last year's Mardi Gras riots and for his apology to Asian-American leaders over the jaywalking incident, Saucier acknowledges that problems with morale and race relations predate Kerlikowske.

Saucier said he doesn't view the no-confidence vote as an act of mutiny but as an "opportunity" to determine whether there is a problem of leadership, and if there is, to fix it. He said he'll wait for the results and "act accordingly."

Kerlikowske wouldn't comment on the vote or on "the politics of the guild." But he said he built good relations with the police unions in three other cities where he was chief.

A sense of besieged brotherhood

The guild is a collective-bargaining unit whose primary responsibility is negotiating and upholding contracts on behalf of its members. An adversarial relationship with the chief is inherent in that. But more and more, the guild has taken on the role of defender of officers in the court of public opinion.

There's a widespread feeling among officers that if the guild didn't defend them, no one else would. A sense of besieged brotherhood, common in police departments, has had a uniting effect that gives the guild bully-pulpit power. The poll is an example: At the very least, an overwhelming vote of no confidence would make it harder for Kerlikowske to do his job and could publicly embarrass him.

Kerlikowske, a veteran bureaucrat, knows the precarious reality of his post and the threat the guild could pose. But he said he would prefer to focus on the positives, "to find those areas we can agree on and combine our strength."

The chief identified one item on which he and Saucier already agree: the need for more and better police training.

As a shooting instructor, Saucier decried the fact that the guild, during the last contract negotiations, had to fight for more training hours. This year, the chief is recommending boosting annual training hours from 32 to 40, a move that will need City Council approval. Said Kerlikowske: "Together we can state a very convincing case."

Kerlikowske also has been responsive to guild complaints that police leaders have been slow to support cops involved in fatal shootings. In each of the last two high-profile police shootings of black men — Devon Jackson last August, and Shawn Maxwell in February — the chief and his deputies held news conferences within 24 hours, explained the circumstances, exhibited weapons and commended the officers.

Saucier called it "a good start."

The challenges of politics

A number of veteran officers, though respectful of Saucier, privately worry that he doesn't know what he's in for. They guess there will be many days in which he might wonder whether the job is worth the $60,000 the guild pays him. It's one thing to launch polemics from the ranks; it's another to lead. The guild is a political entity, and politics requires diplomacy, something for which Saucier may not have the predisposition.

After the Maxwell shooting, Eason of the NAACP and Kelly of the Urban League called for a federal investigation into the "practices and patterns" of the department. A few days later, Kelly called Saucier and the two had their first long talk. They agreed to meet and continue talking.

Eason, representing the harder line of the African-American activist community, said he would not initiate contact with Saucier. He said he has a read on the new guild president and does not have high hopes for improved relations. Saucier, who has his own list of criticisms against Eason, expressed mutual regard. Their parting statements indicated less-than-promising prospects for the next two years:

Eason: "He knows the number to the NAACP."

Saucier: "He knows how to get ahold of me if he wants to talk."

Alex Tizon can be reached at 206-464-2216 or atizon@seattletimes.com.