A Monroe woman filed a request for a restraining order against a Seattle police officer. In sworn written statements she wrote that she caught the cop underneath her car, placing a tracking device. She also wrote that the officer had followed her while she was driving multiple times. Officer Andrew Swartz, 35, was placed on administrative leave after the young woman filed a restraining order against him.
The woman, 23, told law enforcement that she and Swartz had dated for about 11 months. When they broke up, she started dating another man. On July 31, 2021, the new boyfriend reportedly told police he was home with his children when the doorbell rang. He went downstairs to open the door, the boyfriend reported, and saw a man looking into a side window with his “face pressed against the glass.”
The man at the window lied and identified himself as an employee from “J & J Financial” and asked about refinancing his home, according to a police report. He told the man to leave. The woman had showed the new boyfriend a photo of Swartz, police wrote, and he said the man who came to his house looked similar to Swartz. The new boyfriend told law enforcement that Swartz photographed him and the woman at a hotel in Lynnwood.
Detectives believe there is probable cause that Andrew Swartz, 35, committed felony domestic violence stalking over a two-month period while working as a police officer in 2021, according to records filed in Snohomish County Superior Court. Other witnesses corroborated the woman’s story, including a man who identified himself as a longtime friend of Swartz. The friend submitted a signed declaration to a judge in the protection order case. He wrote that Swartz was “terrorizing” the woman and her family.
“There has been several prior incidents of stalking since we broke up in mid July,” the woman wrote. In her restraining order request, the woman asked the judge to make the order last at least 12 months. “I’m afraid if it doesn’t last a year or longer, he will harm me or a family member,” she wrote.
Seattle Police Department spokesperson Patrick Michaud told The Daily Herald that Swartz was still employed by the department as of November 2022. The woman filed a protection order in Snohomish County Superior Court in response to the repeated stalking.
