Caught the police in a lie - should I pursue it through legal channels?

Location: Seattle, WA.

Hello! I am looking for some advice about a situation I have found myself in. I want to keep this as straight forward/short as possible but if you have questions let me know!

On May 1st my partner was seriously injured in a hit-and-run and hospitalized. Police and paramedics responded. According to the police department’s manual, officers are required to refer hit-and-runs with serious injuries to a particular department (let’s call them Traffic Squad) for further investigation. In this situation, they did not do that. A police report was produced that minimized the incident and omitted key details that were known at the scene*. On May 6th someone from the Traffic Squad read the report and decided to close the case without further investigation. On May 8th a local news agency did a story about the incident in which a spokesperson for the police said that the investigation was “in its infancy.” On May 15th, having never heard directly from anyone in the police, I began bothering them to investigate the case. On May 17th, sixteen days after the incident, an investigation by the Traffic Squad began.

In June I submitted a complaint to my police accountability office, alleging that the responding officers failed to follow protocol at the scene and did not refer it to the appropriate department, leading to the loss of a prompt and thorough investigation. My complaint was sustained, and they found that the officer who was responsible for this referral failed to do so, and that it was a big enough failure to warrant “misconduct”. It was through the final “closed case summary” about my complaint that I learned that someone from the Traffic Squad HAD seen the report on May 6th, 11 days earlier than I previously knew — but because, in my opinion, the report minimized the incident and omitted key details, they decided to close it.

My new complaint is two-fold:
- By the Police Accountability Office’s own research and omission, this case was closed on May 6th and reopened on May 17th, after my advocacy. Their computer records show that no one else accessed the case files during that time. If this is true, why did a police spokesperson tell the media on May 8th that the investigation was “in its infancy”? (This interview is still up and available on this local news station’s website.) An investigation “in its infancy” suggests an investigation that exists, and as of that statement being made, it was closed. This is a straight-up lie.
- The police report omitted information, minimized the incident, and provided inaccurate information. Without getting too much into it, there are three key pieces of information that were clearly known and communicated at the scene* but did not make it into the police report. I feel strongly that had the police report more accurately described the situation and included these three pieces of information, the person in the Traffic Squad would NOT have decided to close the case.

These things may seem minor, but they had actual, real-life consequences for us. The assurance that the investigation was “in its infancy,” even though it was delivered via the media and not directly to us, led me to delay reaching out to the police because I felt they had the case on their radar and would be reaching out to us any second. I ultimately did not begin bugging them in earnest until May 15th and I would have done it sooner had it not been for this lie. The weak police report led to it not being investigated sooner and important key information being left out of the news coverage into the incident, where witnesses may have been able to come forward. It also led to us being ineligible for a crime victim compensation fund that would have helped with medical expenses and loss of work. Ultimately, this case was never solved, which I contribute fully to it not being thoroughly investigated on the day of, as it was supposed to be. The amount of physical evidence in this case compared to your average hit-and-run was staggering and it’s not just hopeful thinking that this case would have been an easy win for the police, had it been investigated.

I began to write another complaint to my police accountability office, but I realized that it’s possible this is veering into legal territory. I have clear evidence that they lied to the media about this case’s status. I have a Police Accountability Office report that an officer already was found to have committed misconduct in this case and may have had incentive to minimize the incident in the police report to justify his inaction. Is it worth consulting with a lawyer? Is there a potential case here? I know stuff involving the police can get really hairy. Thanks for any insights you may have.

*I now have police body cam footage and police car footage from the incident, so I know what was known at the scene.