Skip ads and navigation
Advertising
Our network sites seattlepi.comHelp
Seattle 911: A Police Blog
Print thisE-mail this
Levi Pulkkinen
Sheriff's Office fights arsonist's request for photos, addresses of deputies

The King County Sheriff's Office has sued to keep a convicted firebomber with a history of intimidating law enforcement from obtaining the names and addresses of the Shoreline deputies that put him away.

In court documents filed earlier this month, the Sheriff's Office claims that Allan Parmelee has requested photos and other identifying information from the Shoreline Police Department, which is operated by King County.

Parmelee, a former paralegal, was sent to prison in 2004 after being convicted of two counts of first-degree arson. He received an exceptionally high sentence, 24 years in prison.

At issue, then and now, was Parmelee's penchant for retribution, according to court documents.

The two cars he burned belonged to attorneys who'd represented his ex-wife and the ex-girlfriend of a Bellevue lawyer for whom Parmelee worked. He also launched a Web site encouraging other men who'd lost custody of their children to pay the attorneys "a visit."

P-I reporter Tracy Johnson had the story here.

During trial, Parmelee managed to obtain personal information about a juror, forcing a mistrial. Parmelee also threatened a judge after sentencing, saying that he would likely start "a new Web site" encouraging people to attack the judge's home.

In jail, he often made references to the home addresses of corrections staff, claiming he'd have someone "visit" them. If court documents are correct, Parmelee is big on threatening "visits."

He also was found with a hand-drawn diagram of the facility marked with areas to bomb, and attempted to get photos of corrections officers so that he could produce bogus sex offender notifications to be circulated in officers' neighborhoods.

The Sheriff's Office request coincided with a state Supreme Court decision that doesn't seem to favor Parmelee's case. The court ruled on July 3 that the Department of Corrections isn't obliged to pass public records on to inmates if the records are considered contraband. The AP's Curt Woodward has the story here.

Earlier this year, Parmelee saw some success when a King County Superior Court judge ruled that he had the right to request records. That story is here. The judge made no decision on whether Parmelee's requests should be granted.

Court documents show that Parmelee has filed at least 39 such requests since his conviction. A Franklin County judge threw out one of the requests earlier this month. Tri-City Herald reporter Michelle Dupler did this story on the decision.

Parmelee is now held at the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton.

Posted by at July 10, 2008 5:27 p.m.
Comments
#149543

Posted by unregistered user at 7/10/08 7:10 p.m.

I am wracking my brain trying to come up with a single reason to have an iota of sympathy for this idiot and the only thing I can come up with is this: he is too dumb to shut up and suck up and try to get out sooner so he can do his own dirty work. As far as I am concerned, he is well housed right where he is.

#149592

Posted by Devil Dog 72-03 at 7/10/08 9:19 p.m.

He has a right to public records. Just like anyone else. What he does with them should be the legal concern.

Who next doesnt get public records, Blacks, Women, Homo sexuals?

#149594

Posted by oneguy at 7/10/08 9:32 p.m.

So devil dog how is my address a "public record". He has no right to that. He can have my name, rank, salary and all records associated with the job but he has NO right to my address or personal information.

A deputy

#149602

Posted by born in seattle at 7/10/08 9:56 p.m.

devil dog, you are juvenile.

#149613

Posted by Roger Knight at 7/10/08 10:13 p.m.

oneguy, if you are registered to vote, the address at which you are registered is a public record. Sound Politics has done the requesting for us and publishes the voters' registrar on the Internet! Hit Dogpile, Google, or Yahoo! and search for "Sound Politics Voter Database".

If you granted a deed of trust, that too is a public record. While the King County Council voted to keep the actual face of deeds of trust off the Recorder's website, the recording numbers of any deeds with your name as grantor is listed and with that, a visit to the Third Floor of the County Admin building between the Courthouse and the Jail can gain access to the rest of it. Sometimes the parcel id is listed and a visit to the assessor's page can get the street address and description of the property.

And whether you are paid up on the property taxes!

And court records! Paternity and dependency cases are the only cases I cannot look up! While a few other civil cases have had their files sealed by court order, the existence of such cases and their cause numbers aren't necessarily so. Judgments filed under -9- cause numbers are almost never secret. Missing, perhaps, but not intentionally kept from view of the public. And the federal court records in civil, criminal, and bankruptcy cases are also public records, available for free at the US Courthouse, and for a fee on-line through PACER.

Parmelee's problem is that he is sitting in a prison cell and I seriously doubt that he has access to an Internet computer. If he has a friend on the outside willing to do all this work for him, he need not bother making all these requests under his own name.

So I suspect he's doing it just to (self-censored) you off!

#149619

Posted by unregistered user at 7/10/08 10:41 p.m.

He's a convicted violent felon. And as such he's allowed to harass and intimidate people? Allowed to threaten them and their families and homes with violence and harm? He's allowed, from inside prison, to incite others to track down and bomb, burn, kill our dedicated public servants who in good faith are performing their sworn duty to protect and serve?

If all this is legal & constitutional, then I suppose he has a right to have guns in prison... after all, that's a constitutional right as well. Committing a violent felony means you just sit in a cell for a while but otherwise retain all your constitutional rights.... or so his argument seems.

What's this called when the mafia does it from outside prison? Hmmm...

#149637

Posted by unregistered user at 7/10/08 11:53 p.m.

Maybe they should get protection orders against him so that any attempts to get at their records at work are evidence of stalking and violation of the protection order...then, he gets no records and gets more time with each request!

#149675

Posted by unregistered user at 7/11/08 5:24 a.m.

R.G. I'm aware of the various other ways of obtaining said info. I don't live in King County and have only been involved in criminal cases for the most part. Civil claims are a part of the job but 99% of the time they are through the department so personal is left out. In my case you would have to work a bit harder to figure it out.

In the end finding anyone's address is not really that difficult even for a private citizen. My point in my rant was this feeling that just because I am a public employee that you (see citizen) have the right to my personal information. I have no problem with my salary, training records, commendations/disciplines, etc being listed. That is a matter of public record as it should be. But for some idiot like DD to make the statements he/she made is ridiculous.

#149706

Posted by unregistered user at 7/11/08 7:25 a.m.

How is he "getting" all these public records? He fills out a form in jail and they have an army of clerks go find stuff for him. This is nuts. How about he does it like a regular person would have to do. He goes to the deputies and asks them. Oh, so they won't answer his questions. No wonder. Or maybe he needs to make a personal appearance at a courthouse to request info. What? He's in jail and cannot go to a courthouse. Good! He's in JAIL for good reason and being in jail means he cannot go whereever he wants and do whatever he wants, even if it's legal. It certainly means he shouldn't be given info to help him commit more crimes. Just because records are "public" and someone could somehow find them with effort, doesn't mean inmates should be given them, nor anyone should do any work at all to assist this felon in his effort to intimidate (or worse) law enforcement people.

#150008

Posted by jctsuave at 7/11/08 3:18 p.m.

This is a lot of money and time being wasted just so some psycho with way too much time on his hands can harrass the dozens of people he wants to harrass for curtailing his dangerous behavior and getting him off the streets. There is no way cops private addresses should be some special public record, you can look it up just like any other property record, but if someone has business with a cop take care of it at the station.

! Login below to post a comment.

Registered users, log in here
E-mail 
Password 
Remember me
 HELP! I forget my password

Unregistered users, sign up now

Or post anonymously (About this feature)

Your comment (No HTML allowed, use these special codes instead)
Violating our Terms of Service may result in your post being removed.

Special codes
  • [b]selected text[/b] -- Display the selected text in bold.
  • [i]selected text[/i] -- Display the selected text in italics.
  • [link]www.seattlepi.com[/link] -- Creates a link to the url between the link tags.
  • [link title="Seattle Post-Intelligencer"]www.seattlepi.com[/link] -- Creates a link to the url between the link tags, uses title as link text.
  • [mail]newmedia@seattlepi.com[/mail] -- Creates a link to an email address.
Enter the code shown:
What is this?
SUBSCRIBE

RSS
Headline widget

TOP CONTRIBUTORS
photo
Casey McNerthney: P-I staff reporter
photo
Brad Wong: P-I staff reporter
photo
Scott Gutierrez: P-I staff reporter
ARCHIVES
Search this blog

Recent entries
· Woman bound and beaten in Kirkland condo
· Seattle officer in crash, and other morning headlines
· Can I ride with a Seattle firefighter?
· Man killed in Tacoma hit and run
· AUDIO: Details on First Hill fire

Browse by month
Browse by author

RSS/Web feeds (help)
RSS 2.0RSS 1.0Atom
Headlines for your site

Most recent posts
· Power Talk: Eye Contact
· Dateline Earth: Obama, McCain race going to the dogs?
· Buzzworthy: Masks for McCain, or Obama

*Would you like to blog for us?

ADVERTISING
MySeattlePix
Advertising

Seattle Post-Intelligencer
101 Elliott Ave. W.
Seattle, WA 98119
(206) 448-8000

Home Delivery: (206) 464-2121 or (800) 542-0820
seattlepi.com serves about 1.7 million unique visitors
and 30 million page views each month.

Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com
Send investigative tips to iteam@seattlepi.com
©1996-2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Terms of Use/Privacy Policy

Hearst Newspapers