A Seattle police student officer has been placed on unpaid administrative leave after he was charged with cyberstalking for allegedly harassing a woman online over a span of several months, the department said Oct 19.

Jafar Al-Salehi is accused of sending repeated messages and texts to the woman between Nov 20, 2021, and Aug 19, 2022, according to a domestic violence criminal complaint. The charge he is facing is a gross misdemeanor.

Al-Salehi, 22, is still in his probationary period within the department’s field training programme, which was set to end in March.

Al-Salehi first messaged the woman on Facebook through a dating app on Nov 8, 2021, according to charges filed by the Seattle City Attorney’s Office. The woman told police she was concerned that Al-Salehi knew her last name since it wasn’t on her profile, according to the charges.

After some correspondence they arranged to meet at a West Seattle diner on Nov 11. The woman later went with him to his home, where the officer insisted on showing her his badge and firearm, according to the charges. She declined and Al-Salehi drove her back to restaurant and her car.

The woman decided to not continue seeing Al-Salehi, the charges say. However, she told police that he continued to send her messages via Instagram. She blocked him but he created a second account, according to the charges. Al-Salehi sent her more messages on Facebook on Dec 5, 2021, the charges allege.

He then messaged her on OKCupid to apologise for being “rude”, charging documents say. However, he continued to harass the woman by sending unwanted messages, according to documents.

The woman told police she grew more concerned on Dec 12, 2021, when she received a text message from Al-Salehi despite the fact she never gave him her phone number, according to the charges. She told police she believed Al-Salehi used police resources to find her number, according to documents.

Al-Salehi messaged the woman again on Aug 8 from an unknown number and she immediately blocked that number as well, the charges allege. She told police she was worried about Al-Salehi’s access to a firearm, the charges say.

Detectives in the department’s Domestic Violence Unit investigated the allegations and forwarded a case to the City Attorney's Office.

 - TNS