Former Los Angeles Police Officer and Special Investigator Charles Gaither says he was excited when he was hired to become King County's first civilian watchdog in December 2011. As Director of King County's new Office of Law Enforcement Oversight, Gaither vowed to crack down on deputy misconduct and erase a history of lax oversight. But he says it was difficult to accomplish his goals because he had little authority and never got the support or the staff he needed to effective.
"It's hard to be effective when you're working with a fixed deck," Gaither said.
But people who worked with and around Gaither say there was another problem—he took out his frustrations on others and made life intolerable by acting like an explosive bully.
Captain D.J. Nesel, former head of the Internal Investigations Unit of the King County Sheriff's Office, says his encounter with Gaither in October 2013, left him shaken. Nesel says the two were having a heated discussion in Gaither's office about some cases when Gaither flew into a rage. "An absolute rage, where you think he's going to crawl over his desk and come after you physically. It was enough to make a former Marine, (who's) 6'5" and 250 say, we gotta get out of here."
Nesel left, but he says Gaither followed him down the street toward the King County Courthouse shouting at him to come back and finish things. Nesel said when he stopped at a crosswalk, he saw Gaither coming at him in a threatening manner: "Hands stiff along the sides, hands clenched in fists, neck jutted forward, everything we're taught in law enforcement as showing pre-attack indicators." Nesel says he drew Gaither's attention to people who were watching and Gaither backed off.
But Gaither strongly denies being the aggressor.
"The independent investigation found that didn't happen," Gaither says, "so for him to go and share this like it actually happened is bewildering, a stretch of what happened and it's an outright lie."
Gaither complained and the King County Sheriff's Office sustained an allegation against Nesel for "conduct unbecoming" for his role in the altercation but Nesel never backed down from his account of what happened. He says he thought Gaither was going to assault him and when others made similar complaints against Gaither later, he felt vindicated. "You stick to your truth and it will come out and that's what happened," Nesel says.
The King County Council was getting worried. Nesel was the second person to complain that Gaither had crossed the line. The county had already paid $5200 for a facilitator. They hired a Clinical Psychologist to coach Gaither and help him improve his management style—at a cost of more than $11,000.
"We were still hoping that the professional side would shine through and effective oversight would be done even as we dealt with the rougher edges of effective management and dealing with authority figures," says King County Council Chair Larry Phillips.
But just as the six month coaching sessions were ending another serious complaint was lodged against Charles Gaither—this time it came from King County Sheriff John Urquhart himself after he challenged Gaither over exceeding his authority on a case.
"It ended up being a fairly heated meeting with both of us, however he ended up swearing at me standing over me, in a fairly threatening manner, and that was the end of the meeting," Urquhart says.
King County was spending more and more money trying to fix the mess—over $15,000 to hire outside experts to investigate their investigator.
Then this past August, Auditor Tess Mullarkey, who'd worked under Gaither for just six weeks, accused him of creating such a hostile work environment she feared for her safety.
Asked about the pattern of complaints Gaither says "I don't have an anger problem but this is the jacket they've put on me and they're not letting me take it off."
The council was ready to give up and cut Gaither lose even after spending a half million dollars on his salary, special training, coaching and the investigations into his behavior.
They offered him $84,500, plus $15,000 for his attorneys fees if he would resign. Gaither's last day was September 5, but it wasn't over. Earlier this month, Tess Mullarkey went to court and got a temporary anti-harassment protection order against Gaither, who was ordered to turn in his guns and show up for a court hearing on October 22. The hearing was later moved to the 28th.
Gaither insists he is not a threat to Mullarkey. "I haven't seen Tess since July of 2014," he says.
But Capt. Nesel believes Mullarkey has good reason to be concerned.
"Everybody should be careful of not taking him for granted," Nesel says.
After Gaither left, the Sheriff says he found a cache of police equipment, including a $4200 rifle scope and mount in the former director's office. Gaither says he bought it with the sheriff's full knowledge--for training purposes and to outfit deputies.
But the sheriff is adamant he knew nothing about it.
"We didn't ask for him to buy that equipment, we didn't know he was buying the equipment. No equipment we would ever need for ask for."
Meantime, since Mullarkey filed for whistleblower protection as a King County employee two separate investigations are being conducted by outside investigators into her claims against Gaither. Councilmember Phillips says the county is required to do the investigations even though Gaither is gone.
Meantime, Phillips said the Council realized how deep the problems were with the Office of Law Enforcement Oversight when they saw Mullarkey's audit for 2013. The Internal Investigations Unit sent Gaither more than 300 cases to review. Under the county ordinance, each case is supposed to be reviewed and certified within 5 days. Gaither didn't meet that deadline even once. On average he took not days but months to complete the work.
Gaither says there's a good reason—the King County Council never gave him the help he needed even though he asked for it over and over.
