Hey there, from the KUOW Newsroom. This is Seattle Now. I'm Ruby Deluna with today's top stories. It's Thursday, April 11th.

The Seattle City Council is drafting legislation to move all the city's police recruiting efforts into the police department

itself. It's an attempt to ease acute staffing shortages at SPD by speeding up the testing

and hiring process. At a committee meeting today, Council President Sarah Nelson accused the

previous council majority of being reluctant to add positions at the police

department. For that reason, Nelson says, the council added police recruiters to the city's department

of human resources. But she says HR didn't act on many of the council's recommendations around

recruitment. And that might have been an issue with bandwidth.

Or, she says, the Human Resources Department might have lacked expertise in hiring police.

Later this month, Nelson will introduce legislation to provide wraparound support to police

applicants. It may also expand or change the testing

process to resemble the one used in neighboring cities. In other SPD news, more harassment

complaints have surfaced against the Seattle Police Department. The new allegations

involve Lieutenant John O'Neill, who heads the SPD Public Affairs Office.

Investigative reporter Ashley Heruko has the story.

The latest complaint was filed by Lieutenant Lauren Truscott, and she sent her complaint to the

Equal Employment Opportunity Office with the City and the Office of Police Accountability.

And in her complaint, she said that

O'Neill approached her about one of his subordinates to gossip about her sex life, but also

accused her of lying on her timesheets. Trescott, in hearing this, started doing some digging on

her own, and she learned about complaints that had been filed against O'Neill and also

complaints that he was filing in return. Several other women have come forward in the last three years to accuse O'Neill and also complains that he was filing in return. Several other women have come

...