An Auburn Officer Was Cuffed Inside His Own Station. Then the Department Fired Him.
On the morning of May 15, 2026, a 42-year-old Auburn, Washington police officer reported for his shift. According to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, deputies were waiting. Body-camera footage shows them placing the officer in handcuffs inside the Auburn Police Department around 6:30 a.m. and walking him out to a waiting vehicle.
He was booked into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of felony communication with a minor for immoral purposes. According to detectives, he had allegedly been messaging what he believed to be a minor — in reality, an undercover deputy with the county’s Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force, working a decoy profile.
The criminal case is unresolved, and the officer is presumed innocent unless and until a court finds otherwise. But the department’s response is itself a documented fact: within two weeks, Auburn Police terminated him. This is what accountability looks like when the accused wears the badge.
- May 15arrest — cuffed inside the Auburn PD at roughly 6:30 a.m. as he arrived for his shift — Pierce County Sheriff / KIRO 7
- 42the officer’s age; he was booked into the Pierce County Jail — MyNorthwest · May 2026
- 9.68A.090the RCW statute — communication with a minor for immoral purposes, a felony when done electronically — Washington State Legislature
- TerminatedAuburn Police fired the officer within two weeks of the arrest — FOX 13 / MyNorthwest · late May–June 2026
- ICACthe Pierce County Sheriff’s Internet Crimes Against Children unit ran the decoy operation — KOMO News
A sworn officer, allegedly caught in a child-predator sting. The arrest happened at his own precinct.
According to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, the case began on Wednesday, May 13, when detectives with the county’s Internet Crimes Against Children unit were doing what they call “proactive online work” — posing online as minors to draw out adults seeking to exploit children. Investigators say the suspect reached out to one of those undercover detectives. Within that exchange, deputies say, probable cause for an arrest was established.
Two mornings later, on Friday, May 15, the officer arrived at the Auburn Police Department for his shift. Pierce County deputies, coordinating with Auburn police to avoid tipping him off, took him into custody on the spot. KIRO 7 reported that body-worn camera footage shows the officer being handcuffed inside the station and loaded into a waiting car. He was booked into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of felony communication with a minor for immoral purposes.
The detail that the messages went to law enforcement decoys — not to an actual child — does not lessen the charge under Washington law. The statute reaches anyone who communicates “with a minor or with someone the person believes to be a minor” for immoral purposes. We cover the allegations as allegations: nothing here has been tested at trial, and the officer is presumed innocent.
What “immoral communication with a minor” actually means in Washington. RCW 9.68A.090, in plain language.
The charge cited by investigators is governed by RCW 9.68A.090, “Communication with a minor for immoral purposes.” Washington courts have read “immoral purposes” to mean the predatory purpose of exposing children to, and involving them in, sexual misconduct. The statute applies whether the other party is an actual child or someone the defendant only believes to be a child — which is exactly the scenario a sting is built around.
- →Base offense: communicating with a minor (or someone believed to be a minor) for immoral purposes is, at minimum, a gross misdemeanor.
- →Felony enhancement: it becomes a class C felony when the communication is sent through an electronic medium — text, app, or online message.
- →Felony enhancement: it is also a felony if the person has a prior conviction under this section or a prior felony sex offense.
- →"Immoral purposes" has been interpreted by Washington courts as the predatory purpose of promoting a child's exposure to and involvement in sexual misconduct.
- →The law expressly covers belief: communicating with "someone the person believes to be a minor" is enough — which is why ICAC decoy operations hold up.
Because the alleged conduct was electronic and directed at a person the officer is accused of believing to be a child, the case falls squarely within the felony tier of the statute. KOMO News reported that, as of mid-May, formal charges were still pending while prosecutors screened the case, and investigators were examining the officer’s electronics for additional evidence — meaning further counts remain possible. None of that is a finding of guilt; it is the ordinary path a felony case follows before arraignment.
Administrative leave, then termination — inside two weeks. The chief did not wait for a verdict to act on employment.
Auburn Police placed the officer on administrative leave the day of his arrest and opened an internal investigation into the off-duty conduct. By late May — FOX 13 Seattle reported the termination effective May 28; MyNorthwest’s follow-up placed the announced firing in the days immediately after — the department had fired him outright. The criminal case and the employment case ran on separate tracks: the firing rested on the department’s own internal review, not on a conviction it does not yet have.
“The allegations in this case are deeply troubling and do not reflect the values, professionalism, or integrity of the Auburn Police Department. Our duty as officers is to ensure the safety and well-being of the public, especially children. This officer has broken that trust.”
Auburn Police Chief Mark Caillier
Chief Mark Caillierframed the firing as a matter of restoring trust while still respecting due process — a balance the statement named explicitly, noting the matter would be “handled as promptly as possible, while still ensuring that due process is followed.” That is the correct register: an employer can sever a relationship over conduct it has investigated internally even as the courts work through the separate question of criminal guilt.
Chief Mark Caillier: the allegations are deeply troubling and do not reflect the values, professionalism, or integrity of the department. Our duty is to protect the public — especially children. (Paraphrased from the department's public statement; see Sources.)
An Auburn police officer was arrested in a Pierce County child-exploitation sting and booked into the Pierce County Jail; the department says it has since terminated him following an internal investigation. (Paraphrased from KIRO 7 reporting; see Sources.)
Naming the officials and the agencies. Jurisdiction is part of the fact set.
Auburn is a city of roughly 90,000 straddling the King–Pierce county line south of Seattle. Its mayor, Nancy Backus (D), is serving her third term and oversees the police department through the chief she appoints. The investigation that produced this arrest, however, came from outside Auburn entirely — the Pierce County Sheriff’s ICAC unit — which is itself a point worth noting: the officer was caught by another agency’s decoy work, not by internal suspicion.
- Mayor Nancy Backus (D)Mayor of Auburn, WAAuburn's first female mayor, now in her third term; the police department reports up through her office. The firing was carried out by the chief under her administration.
- Chief Mark CaillierChief, Auburn Police DepartmentPlaced the officer on leave, opened the internal investigation, and announced the termination, calling the allegations 'deeply troubling.'
- Pierce County Sheriff's ICAC UnitInternet Crimes Against Children task forceRan the proactive decoy operation that led to the arrest. Deputy Carly Cappetto served as the department's public voice on the case.
- Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney's OfficeCharging authority (Pierce County, WA)Booking occurred in Pierce County; prosecutors there were screening the case for formal charges as of mid-May 2026.
When the person caught in an ICAC sting is a sworn officer, the right response is the one Auburn gave: leave, investigate, and remove the badge. Trust in policing depends on holding our own to the same standard we hold everyone else.
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
Paraphrased; representative of police-accountability and child-safety commentary on the case.
No badge is a shield against an ICAC charge. The standard has to be the same for the officer as for anyone else caught in a child-predator sting — arrest, investigate, and if the conduct is what it appears to be, you are off the force. Auburn did it the right way.
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
Paraphrased; composite of police-accountability commentary on the termination. Buttonless editorial card.
The badge is a position of trust, not a shield. Holding our own accountable is the test.
The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department put the principle bluntly: “We are trusted with the authority to hold people accountable for their actions; holding our own accountable shall be no different.” That is the heart of this story. A child-safety sting is supposed to catch predators wherever they are — and Deputy Carly Cappetto noted that predators turn up “in all sorts of lines of work.” When one of them is wearing a uniform, the only credible response is to treat the case exactly as it would be treated for anyone else.
That is also why the presumption of innocence cuts in two directions here. The criminal charge is unproven and must be resolved in court before anyone calls the officer guilty of a crime. But the employment decision is a separate, fully documented fact: confronted with the allegation and its own internal review, Auburn Police did not stall, did not quietly reassign, and did not wait out the news cycle. It removed the officer. On an accountability beat that usually documents the opposite — agencies protecting their own — that distinction is worth marking.
We will update this page as the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s office files or declines formal charges, as the officer is arraigned, and as any additional counts emerge from the review of his devices. Until then, the facts we can state are narrow and firm: an arrest, a felony statute, an internal investigation, and a termination — with the criminal question still open.
