Victim to suspect. Report a problem, become the problem.
At Chief Randy Celori's request, the City paid retired Kent Police Captain Lorna K. Rufener $4,188 to interview seventeen LSPD employees on August 1, 2, and 10, 2011. Her report documented a department already in trouble — five years before the IAPro manipulation documented elsewhere on this site began.
A "clique" inside the department — Commander Lorentzen socializing off-duty with Officers Thomas, Valvick, and Stevenson — produced systemic favoritism, protected misconduct, and crushed morale. Lorentzen reportedly said he "keeps his boys in line."
Rufener noted in 2011 that LSPD's WASPC accreditation had lapsed — the same accreditation regime in which Chief Beazizo would later submit false zero-racial-investigation certifications in 2020 and 2024.
Detective Sergeant Julie Jamison filed a sexual harassment complaint against Detective Jeff Lambier on September 5, 2011. The retaliation began immediately. Her November 26, 2012 formal complaint to Interim Chief Lorentzen — and her February 4, 2013 response to HR Director Steve Edin — laid out a textbook pattern that the City declined to correct.
"The retaliation by the LSPD/City began immediately after I submitted the sexual harassment complaint when I was sent home; the LSPD's procedures were not followed re: administrative leave, complaint notification, or investigation."Julie Jamison to HR · Feb 4, 2013
Male officers under investigation (Wellington, Lambier, Stevenson) were formally placed on administrative leave with written notice to the entire Department. According to department records, when Jamison reported sexual harassment, she was sent home and Chief Celori refused to issue any written notice — creating the perception she was the subject of the investigation.
After six years as a detective and four as Detective Sergeant supervising six staff, Jamison was forcibly transferred to graveyard patrol — supervising three — under the auspices of "reorganization." Lambier was permitted to apply to return to Detective while keeping his specialty pay rate.
The Lambier investigation closed "not sustained" with a directive that neither party discuss it. Lambier then emailed the entire Police Guild calling the complaint "unfounded." Records show the Department took no corrective action.
Jamison's filing established, on the record in 2012, that an LSPD command staff member who reported misconduct was systematically punished. This is the origin of the Department's de facto policy of "no more complaints" culture
Herald reporter Rikki King obtained the Rufener report under the Public Records Act and published a front-page story on the department's culture problems. The reporting put taxpayers, the City Council, and the public on notice.
"The Herald last week reported that the department also has investigated two officers at least seven times in recent years for allegations of bad behavior. One of them reportedly is on his 'last chance' with the city. One of the incidents led to Lake Stevens paying a Marysville family $100,000 to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit."HeraldNet · Feb 5, 2013
Chief Randy Celori had just left the department "in lieu of termination." Commander Lorentzen — the same Lorentzen named in the Rufener report — was acting as Interim Chief and told the paper LSPD "can't apologize for bad behavior." The two officers the Herald flagged, James Wellington and Steve Warbis, would each generate further litigation in the years that followed.
On January 13, 2023, Lake Stevens Detective Kerry Bernhard shot and killed 30-year-old James Blancocotto after he climbed into the driver's seat of her unlocked, unattended patrol car — keys in the ignition, AR-15-style rifle mounted behind the console. Two years later, his family sued the City, the State, and Bernhard in federal court.
"James Blancocotto could have safely driven the vehicle without injury or imminent risk of injury to any LSPD officer nearby had he not been shot."Blancocotto v. City of Lake Stevens · The Seattle Times · May 6, 2025
"The LSPD and (the state of Washington) failed to reasonably accommodate James Blancocotto's emotional and mental disability in a public forum."Federal Complaint · quoted in The Seattle Times
"He's stealing the patrol car."LSPD officer over radio · search warrant quoted by The Daily Herald · Feb 21, 2023
The Herald's reporting, drawn from a SMART task-force search warrant, established that the detective left her cruiser open with the keys in the ignition and a rifle mounted inside — then fatally shot Blancocotto through the chest when the car rolled forward. The family's attorney, Edward Moore, told The Seattle Times that Blancocotto's death "resulted from a series of circumstances that could easily have been avoided had he received the help he needed." It is the same pattern the Rufener and LEMAP reports warned about: a department that escalates instead of de-escalates, and a city that pays the settlement instead of fixing the cause.
Officer Steve Warbis, deposed in his own civil action against the City, described — in his own words — the practice that the Rufener report had flagged years earlier: cases are routinely forwarded to the prosecutor's office without proper investigation, in anticipation that the prosecutor will simply decline to file.
"I am not suggesting that, but what I am saying is, and we do it at Lake Stevens, is if there's a gray area, and you aren't 100% sure the elements meet the elements of the crime, we will send it to the prosecutor's office for review, and nine times out of ten they will say, if you can't come up with the elements of the crime on scene when you were there, we can't create them in our office … I have been advised by sergeants to do that. If you don't know, forward to the prosecutor's office, see if they can come up with anything or a reason to charge on it."Steve Warbis deposition · pp. 38–39
This sworn admission corroborates the 2011 Rufener finding that LSPD detectives were "filing as directed and getting rejection notices from the prosecutor" rather than sending deficient cases back to the responsible patrol sergeant. It is the same pattern that, applied to DV cases, becomes the department's culture of suppression: the substantive investigation never happens because the DV cases are engineered to die at the prosecutor's desk.
The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs' Law Enforcement Mutual Aid Plan (LEMAP) assessment — finalized in version 3 and circulated internally by Administrative Supervisor Julie Ubert on April 22, 2016 to records custodians Krusey and Lambier — gave the City direct written notice that the internal-investigations system was already broken and that the Chief was personally conducting every investigation.
The full LEMAP analysis, including the "harmful" / "broken" / "no linkage to current best practices" language and the IAPro manipulation that followed, is documented in the OPS Files section. Every IAPro change documented from 2017 forward occurred against this notice.
Eleven years on the badge. Sergeant's stripes. Complaint after complaint. And on December 12, 2025, LSPD's own command review finally caught what the city had been paying to look away from: a turbulent supervisor whose default response to a teenager is use-of-force.
According to disciplinary records, Wells tackled an intoxicated juvenile shoplifting suspect, landed chest-to-chest on top of him, and pinned him to the ground with his forearm across the boy's chest.
"The suspect stated he could not breathe. Sgt. Wells stated 'wrong answer' as he moved his forearm off the suspect's chest and towards his face to move it away from him."Cmdr. Michael Hingtgen · Use of Force Review · OPS 2025-0033
"While SGT. Wells was lying on top of the suspect, he advised SGT. Wells that he couldn't breathe. Sgt. Wells … dismissed the suspect's statement by saying that he could breathe just fine and that it was the wrong answer. Due to several high profile incidents throughout this country these are not acceptable statements."
"In CPL. Lyons' BWC footage, you can see that the suspect is lying on the ground while SGT. Wells is lying on top of him. The suspect does not appear to be resisting in anyway shape or form at this point."
The teenager was left cuffed in a patrol car for nearly twenty minutes before anyone called for medical aid — and only then because he was vomiting. He was transported to the hospital. The command finding:
"The use of force for this incident was unnecessary as fast as it occurred. Therefore, making the use of force unnecessary and unreasonable."
This is not Wells's first ride through the OPS system — it is the one the body camera made impossible to ignore. The City of Lake Stevens retained him through the prior complaints, promoted him to Sergeant, and put him in supervisory contact with juveniles. "Built to ignore" is not a metaphor for what happens at LSPD. It is the personnel files generated after each complaint.
The Bloom Complaint alleges that LSPD did not merely mishandle reports — it punished the people who filed them. Officers, civilian complainants, and a Detective Sergeant who reported misconduct all describe the same feedback loop: report a problem, become the problem.
Fourteen years after Rufener named the "clique" and the favored officers, the same culture surfaces on a Lake Stevens body camera. Corporal Jason Holland, driving alone on a code run, vented what every cop in the building propably knew — that promotion is a popularity contest and that two favored officers can do anything without consequence. The Department fully investigated Holland for saying it out loud. Reference: Instagram reel.
"He had stated something to the effect of why he would even test for Sgt. and it is just a popularity contest, and Corporal Fiske could shit on the chief's pillow, and nothing would be done about it. During his dialogue he accused Corporal Schedler of lying in a report and nothing was done."Deputy Chief Dean Thomas · Running sheet · OPS 2025-0031
Holland's "could shit on the chief's pillow" line is not random. Fiske is the same officer named in the Elijah Slade complaint — alleged to have called Slade a "bitch" and "fuck" during transport, cuffed him hard enough to allegedly injure him, and arrested him on charges the prosecutor declined to file. Complaint after complaint, Fiske is retained, protected, and promoted. Inside the building, every officer knows it. Holland just said it on camera.
Holland accused Schedler of lying in a report. Schedler has incident after incident in the OPS file — and was promoted to Corporal and handed supervisory authority over other officers. The Department's response to Holland's allegation was not to look at Schedler. It was to look at Holland for raising it.
Holland was found "Not within policy" under Standards of Conduct 314.5 — disparaging remarks about authority, conduct unbecoming, failure to "endorse, support and defend organizational objectives." Closed via coach-and-counsel by his own sergeant. Translation: the message to every cop on the roster is that naming Fiske or Schedler will end your shot at sergeant — exactly the warning Jamison logged in 2012, exactly the favoritism Rufener logged in 2011, exactly the "no more complaints" custom the Bloom Complaint pleads as a de facto policy.
The Rufener "clique" did not get fixed. It got promoted. The same command structure that protected favored officers in 2011 still does it in 2025 — and the officers it favors are the ones generating complaints due to bias, racial profiling, and targeting of DV victims, juveniles, immigrants, and other protected classes that the rest of this archive documents. The cops who speak up get investigated to the fullest.
Bloom alleges Deputy Chief Jeff Young opened an internal investigation in response to her false charges, then closed it with a finding of 'no officer misconduct' despite admitting to her personally that the protection order had been misread and promising corrective training.
The complaint alleges Young entered a note suggesting Bloom was experiencing a 'mental crisis' — a note Plaintiff says was used to discredit her later complaints and to color subsequent interactions with other agencies.
Detective Kristen Parnell is alleged to have communicated to Mukilteo PD that Bloom files false police reports — a statement Plaintiff frames as a verifiable factual accusation, not protected opinion.
Parnell is alleged to have made similar statements to Kirkland PD, allegedly undermining investigations into reported death threats against Bloom.
The complaint alleges officers actively made Bloom worse off by disclosing her confidential Address Confidentiality Program address and undermining investigations into anonymous death threats.
The Bloom Complaint alleges Detective Parnell subjected Plaintiff to a coercive and emotionally degrading interrogation in a private, windowless interview room at the Lake Stevens Police Station — following which Plaintiff experienced recurring nightmares and panic-inducing flashbacks. Plaintiff alleges Parnell called her 'delusional', 'too far gone', aggressively yelled at her and coordinated her interrogation strategy with her rapist.
Bloom's First Amendment theory ties the protection-order-violation citation issued by Officer Marshall directly to her earlier social media complaints against the department: the timeline of complaints followed by retaliation via police power.
The Bloom Complaint alleges a pattern and practice of disbelieving female victims of domestic violence, protecting white male abusers, and using race and immigration status to decide whose reports get investigated.
The complaint alleges LSPD was aware of domestic violence in the household as early as 2016, when the ex-husband was arrested for DV — but strangulation injuries to Bloom were attributed in the police report to her holding a newborn infant.
The complaint frames the failed rape investigation and the subsequent protection-order-violation citation as a pattern in which the department disbelieved the victim's account, credited the accused, and ultimately turned the complainant from victim into criminal defendant.
The Fourteenth Amendment equal protection claim alleges LSPD treated Bloom differently from similarly situated complainants — specifically, that officers credited the white male accused's account over the multiracial female victim's account as a matter of department culture, not isolated discretion.
The Bloom Complaint pleads four interlocking City customs: (1) disbelieving, discrediting, and failing to protect female victims of domestic violence and sexual assault; (2) race- and bias-based policing against people of color and immigrants; (3) retaliating against complainants — particularly women, immigrants, and DV victims — who criticize or seek oversight of the department; and (4) protecting and siding with abusers over the victims who reported them.
The Bloom Complaint alleges that when citizens reported these violations, the City did not correct them but buried them — deleting, downgrading, and reclassifying complaints in its internal-affairs system and altering the underlying police reports to suppress accountability while preserving the department's public image.
The Bloom Complaint frames Plaintiff as fitting every targeted pattern at once — a multiracial immigrant woman, a domestic-violence survivor, and a persistent critic of LSPD — and argues what was done to her was the predictable product of a system built to disbelieve women like her.
Reporters documented the pattern both before and during the Bloom litigation: misconduct settlements, retaliation, a broken internal-affairs system, and a leadership culture that protected the accused while discrediting complainants.
Federal Judge Barbara J. Rothstein allowed domestic violence survivor Gina Bloom’s retaliation and malicious prosecution claims against the City of Lake Stevens and its officers to proceed. The court rejected the City’s request to dismiss the case, denied qualified immunity for the individual officers, and found Bloom “has plausibly alleged both the absence of probable cause and a causal connection between Defendants’ conduct and the prosecution.” The First Amendment retaliation claim was also allowed to proceed.
Reporting on Sgt. Julie Jamison’s retaliation lawsuit, The Daily Herald noted that Lake Stevens police had already faced an off-duty bar brawl, a $100,000 civil rights settlement, and a troubled officer on a “last-chance” agreement whose credibility was being questioned by prosecutors in a murder case.
A Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs review found that for years the department did not consistently investigate alleged misconduct or review major use-of-force incidents. The former chief allowed officers to “circumvent their bosses,” creating a “prevailing lack of accountability” that was “in need of deliberate attention.”
After the City settled the Fenter civil rights lawsuit for $100,000, Officer Steve Warbis filed a claim alleging the City had defamed him by feeding the media inaccurate information. The claim itself captured the public image LSPD had created: “The cumulative result of the City’s errors is that Warbis has been continually portrayed as a rogue and hot-headed cop.”
Cmdr. Dennis Taylor’s retaliation lawsuit alleged that City Administrator Jan Berg targeted him for supporting Sgt. Jamison’s sexual harassment case. Taylor’s attorney, who also represented Jamison, stated: “He was supporting Julie and Jan Berg said … basically, ‘I’ll get you.’” The same supervisor who accused Taylor of dishonesty was the officer Jamison had accused of harassment.
Officer Andrew Thor resigned after his ex-girlfriend accused him of stalking. She alleged Thor used police resources to look up information on her, drove past her house, followed her, and intimidated her by repeatedly loading and unloading his duty firearm in front of her. No criminal charges were filed.
The City paid Dennis Taylor $400,000 to settle his wrongful-termination claim. The Herald described the settlement as the end of “years of discord between City Hall and the police department, both of which have since changed leadership.”
“He was ordered to cease and desist discussing his safety concerns with anyone, at pain of discipline.”
— Cmdr. Dennis Taylor’s lawsuit, as reported by The Daily Herald, Nov. 19, 2015
An independent, citizen-maintained archive of public records and reporting concerning the Lake Stevens Police Department. Editorial characterizations reflect the archive’s analysis of the documented record and are not official findings by any court or agency unless expressly stated.