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Resident urges Bellevue to hand police investigation to third party, alleges cover-up
Summary
In public comment, Maria Hudson urged the council to transfer an investigation of alleged police misconduct to an independent third party, accused the department of burying evidence and referenced a court finding of conflict; council took no immediate action at the meeting.
During the oral-communications period of the May 4 meeting, Maria Hudson, a preregistered speaker, urged the council to move an active investigation out of the city's internal processes and into independent hands.
Hudson used strong language and referenced past court findings while making the request: "I'm gonna ask you again to turn it over to a third party because you've been running a school-to-prison pipeline ... and because you violated the Ku Klux Klan Act," she said. She accused the department of "burying evidence" and of allowing officers to investigate their own actions rather than using independent investigators, and cited an East District Court judge's identification of a conflict of interest dated 07/27/2022.
Council and staff did not take formal action in response during the meeting. The city clerk thanked Ms. Hudson for speaking; no motion or direction related to the allegations was recorded in the minutes for this session.
Because Ms. Hudson's remarks allege ongoing investigations and name legal statutes and a past court reference, reporters and officials should be careful to attribute the allegations to the speaker and not present them as established fact until independent confirmation is available.
