A decorated Seattle Police Department official has sued the agency and Chief Adrian Diaz, alleging wage, job and gender discrimination.
Deanna Nollette, a 27-year SPD veteran who rose to one of the department’s top jobs — assistant chief over criminal investigations — applied for the chief job, which Diaz held on an interim basis, in 2020. When Diaz won the permanent appointment, he demoted her to captain, a rank she still holds.
In a lawsuit filed Monday in King County Superior Court, Nollette alleges Diaz “has a history of misogyny … is demeaning to women in the police force” and retaliated against her for applying for his job.
Nollette is the second prominent woman in the department to file a discrimination lawsuit against SPD in recent months, joining longtime Detective Denise “Cookie” Bouldin, who alleged in November that she witnessed and endured decades of racism and gender bias from department brass and fellow officers.
In her lawsuit, Nollette alleges “Diaz specifically excluded female commanders from command staff social events” and favored male officers with travel, training and networking opportunities not made available to women on the force.
The lawsuit further alleges that many times, when she presented an idea to Diaz, he ignored her and gave credit to a male officer.
Nollette also claims that when Diaz suggested the creation of a flag football team as a “team building” exercise, she suggested women might not want to “play football with their male counterparts.”
“Defendant Diaz retorted that the women can be cheerleaders,” the lawsuit claims.
Nollette’s attorney, Judith Lonnquist, said Nollette had no comment on the lawsuit. Diaz didn’t respond to a request, and the SPD public information office said it hadn’t seen the lawsuit and wouldn’t comment on pending litigation, referring inquiries to the Seattle City Attorney’s Office, which didn’t have any comment.
Diaz was named interim chief when former Chief Carmen Best retired in August 2020. After officially being named chief, he demoted to captain both Nollette and Eric Greening, another assistant chief who had applied for the top job.
Nollette claims she asked Diaz at the time who she would report to and where her office would be located. She claims he replied, “I don’t know. I’ll have to figure it out.”
She claims stress from the alleged discrimination took such a toll that she was forced to take sick leave from last July to November. When she returned to work, Nollette claims, Diaz had assigned her “to work for a newly promoted white male Captain with less experience, training and accomplishments, in a less-than comparable job.”