Posted by John de Leon
A Bellevue police officer who
was disciplined for his drunken off-duty behavior at Seattle Seahawks game in
September 2012 has been charged with misdemeanor drunk driving in an incident
in which a fellow Bellevue officer stopped him for erratic driving and then
allowed him to go home with a relative.
The officer who was pulled over
has been identified as Andrew Hanke.
Bellevue police say on Nov. 20,
an unidentified off-duty Bellevue police officer was driving home in his patrol
car when he stopped a car on Interstate 90 near Issaquah to investigate the
driver for possible DUI. The driver of the vehicle that was pulled over was
Hanke, according to Bellevue city Prosecutor Lynn Moberly, who filed the DUI
charge Thursday in King County District Court in Issaquah.
The off-duty officer did not
arrest Hanke and instead allowed him to be driven home by a relative, police
said.
The investigating officer
notified a supervisor of the incident.
The following morning, Bellevue
police Chief Linda Pillo was notified of the incident and Hanke was immediately
placed on administrative leave, said Bellevue police public information Officer
Seth Tyler. The department has also
opened an internal investigation into the officer who stopped Hanke but did not
arrest him.
“While officers are allowed
some discretion during a traffic stop, the officer’s decision in this case not
to make an arrest is undergoing a thorough and objective internal
investigation. That investigation will determine whether the on-duty officer
used poor judgment and/or failed to perform their duties,” police said in a
news release.
Police say details of the
internal investigations will not be released until they are completed.
“I expect our officers to abide
by our guiding principles of respect, accountability, integrity and service,
and to abide by the laws of the state of Washington both on and off duty,”
Pillo said in a statement. “If these allegations are sustained, the involved
officers will be held accountable for their actions.”
Hanke was one of two Bellevue
officers punished last year for their off-duty behavior at a Seahawks game,
when they drunkenly confronted a female Seattle police officer and got into a
profanity-laced altercation with a fan and his family.
During the investigation into
that incident, which was first reported by The Seattle Times, Hanke was
suspended for 30 days without pay and removed from the Bomb Squad. Hanke had
told investigators that he was too drunk to remember driving home to Snoqualmie
from CenturyLink Field.