Bellevue cop punished for run-in at Hawks game resigns

Troubled Bellevue officer resigns amid a drunken-driving investigation; officer was suspended for 30 days in late 2012 after a profane run-in with Seattle police outside Seattle Seahawks game.

A Bellevue police officer who was disciplined in 2012 for his profane and drunken behavior at a Seattle Seahawks game has resigned in the midst of an internal investigation into a November drunken-driving incident.

Andrew Hanke, 38, an eight-year department veteran, was suspended in November after Chief Linda Pillo learned that he had been stopped on Interstate 90 by another Bellevue officer, who concluded that Hanke was “hammered,” but let him go home rather than citing him or booking him into jail.

Hanke was eventually charged with drunken driving, even though the officer who pulled him over did not conduct field-sobriety tests or obtain a blood-alcohol level, according to a report he filed a week after the incident.

Those charges remain pending in Issaquah District Court.

The actions of the arresting officer, Doug Brennan, remain under internal review by the department, Pillo said in a prepared statement.

“As we move forward, my hope is that we rebuild the public’s trust and continue our focus on the great work that the men and women of this department do every day,” the chief said Thursday.

In late 2012, Hanke was suspended for 30 days and removed from his position on the department’s bomb squad after an investigation into an off-duty incident in which he and another officer, both admittedly intoxicated, got into a tense exchange with a Seattle police officer after one of Hanke’s companions littered in a crosswalk outside CenturyLink Field before a Seahawks game.

Inside the stadium, Hanke and another officer, Dion Robertson, got into a profanity-laced exchange with a fan and his family and got thrown out of the stadium before the end of the first quarter. Hanke later told investigators he did not remember driving home to Snoqualmie.

Robertson was demoted from corporal to officer and removed as supervisor of the bomb squad.

On the night of Nov. 20, Brennan was off duty but in uniform and driving his squad car home from work when he was passed in the eastbound lanes of I-90 by a speeding Jeep Cherokee.

According to a report Brennan filed Nov. 27, a week after the incident, the Jeep was traveling at more than 70 mph and “swerving all over the roadway.”

Brennan pulled the car over and said he found Hanke behind the wheel, eyes glazed and reeking of alcohol. “I told him he was drunk,” Brennan wrote. “I told him he was hammered.”

Even so, Brennan called Hanke’s wife and told her to come and get him. After she arrived in her own vehicle, she drove Hanke home in his car while Brennan waited with her vehicle until she got a ride and came back for it.

In a previous statement, Pillo has said Brennan’s decision not to arrest Hanke was under review to determine whether he used “poor judgment” or failed to perform his duties.

Officer Carla Iafrate, the department’s spokeswoman, said that the Brennan case remains under review. She said Hanke resigned Thursday, before the internal investigation was completed.

Mike Carter: mcarter@seattletimes.com or 206-464-3706

Information from Times archives is included in this report.