Byline: JEFFREY M. BARKER P-I reporter
TACOMA -- A woman who filed a sexual harassment complaint against late police Chief David Brame is a recently promoted detective, sources close to the city and the department said yesterday.
The city's Human Resources Department received the complaint early last week. City officials yesterday would not identify who brought the complaint or other details of the case.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer last week formally requested any sexual harassment claims involving Brame, who fatally shot his wife and then committed suicide last month.
Human Resources Director Phil Knudson has not yet provided any documents. Tacoma officials said there had been no previous formal sexual harassment complaints filed against Brame.
The woman who filed the complaint is well-liked within the department, the sources said.
The complaint could be a precursor to a lawsuit, which could also name the city as a defendant.
Attempts to reach the detective yesterday were unsuccessful. Her complaint was filed under the U.S. Civil Rights Act.
A woman accused Brame of raping her in the late 1980s when he was a patrol officer, but charges were never filed and the police chief at the time determined the allegations could not be proven.
The Brame shooting has left Tacoma in upheaval. The city manager, an assistant police chief who briefly replaced Brame and the head of the police union are all on paid leave pending various investigations.
An investigation to determine whether federal criminal violations occurred was announced Tuesday by the FBI and U.S. Attorney's Office.
The city will rely on its own employees to try to determine whether Brame sexually harassed the woman, a police detective now on administrative leave, during his 15 months as police chief, a city spokeswoman said yesterday.
"We will assign an investigator and dig into it," Knudson told The News Tribune in Tacoma.
Brame, police chief since January 2002, died within hours of the shootings April 26 at a strip mall in nearby Gig Harbor. His wife, Crystal, died a week later.
Since then:
Longtime City Manager Ray Corpuz Jr. has put himself on leave and announced he will retire after two investigations into Brame's hiring and promotions are completed.
It was reported this week that Brame was among the high-ranking police officials who did not pursue an insurance fraud case against Corpuz and his wife, Lynda, in 1998 - and that police had a "no arrest zone" of two or three blocks for Corpuz's son.
Catherine Woodard, an assistant chief who was named acting chief after the shootings, has been placed on leave pending an inquiry into her actions in accompanying Brame on a disputed visit to his wife.
The head of the police union, Patrick Frantz, has been placed on leave pending an investigation into an e-mail he sent to a man who first revealed details of the Brames' bitter divorce case on his Internet site.
P-I reporter Elaine Porterfield contributed to this report, which contains information from The Associated Press.
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