SEATTLE -- Imagine if your dirty laundry was out there for all the world to see. That's what happened to dozens and dozens of Seattle police officers when sensitive, internal documents were found in a public alley.

When KOMO 4 Problem Solvers first broke the story last fall, the department promised to find out what happened. So far, that promise has not been fulfilled; one of those officers knows what went wrong. One former cop believes his brotherhood has betrayed him - again.

"That just kills me," says former Seattle cop Stuart Colman, "that is so pathetic."

Colman never wanted to leave his job as a Seattle cop. A thick file of commendations from both citizens and his superiors with comments like, "he is a hero," "so very grateful", " outstanding officer", tell what kind of cop Colman was.

"I loved the job, it was a great job," he said. But one of his last memories on the job is his most painful.

And the sordid details wound up in a set of files that were somehow dumped in a Capitol Hill alley. Colman talked to KOMO 4 about what was in those files: "It's intensely personal, and intensely private."

'Angry and Humiliated'

Diane Young was walking her dog last September and found the files in the alley.

"I had the feeling it was placed here," she said.

When she started looking through the papers, she realized they were internal police department files.

In the stack of files, one detailed how the department relieved Colman from duty, involuntarily committing him as suicidal -- a charge he denies.

"I'm angry and humiliated," he said. "But you know, I'm not surprised."

'We Watched People Getting Beat

It was the lowest point of Colman's career and it all started five years earlier with one of the department's lowest moments: Mardi Gras in the late nighttime hours of Feb. 27, 2001.

Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske had ordered his officers that night not to enter the unruly crowd.

"We stood there on one police line," recalls Colman, "and watched people getting beat within an inch of their lives and couldn't go in."

Colman was with the bicycle squad. He says they begged for permission to bring out Kristopher Kime, who was beaten unconscious and later died.

"Why has nobody gone in?" KOMO 4 reporters on the scene that night questioned Chief Kerlikowske about his inaction.

His officers also questioned the call.

"I was sitting there first hand right next to him at Mardi Gras and watched what I thought was a gross dereliction of duty," Colman said.

Colman was vice president of the police guild and pushed a no confidence vote in the chief.

"And it was an overwhelming vote for his removal," adds Colman.

'At Wits' End'

Kerlikowske survived the no confidence vote, and Colman says that's when the retaliation began.

He says training requests, transfer requests, even days off - were all denied. Eventually Colman sued the department, but the pressure grew and he snapped.

"I was at my wit's end," he said.

Eventually, the city settled and Colman agreed to resign.

But then the Problem Solvers told him his file had been found in a public alley. The department never warned him the files had been lost.

"I think they owed me a phone call, something like that out of just pure decency," Colman said.

Also in those files were the names and details of grievances involving 125 officers and sergeants.

Many officers contacted us, worried their information was also compromised. The Problem Solvers tracked the files to the police department's head of human resources, Mark McCarty.

"I don't know what happened," says McCarty. "The files you've got are my responsibility, I took them home to work on them, somehow they got lost."

The department promised an investigation, but after five months the case is still unsolved. Some officers, including Colman, question how seriously the department wants answers.

"And I think an apology is due too, to all 125 officers, maybe even a written one," says Colman. "But some kind of an apology and an assurance this is not going to happen again."

Neither Chief Kerlikowske nor any other administrators with Seattle Police would talk about the lost files case -- not even to tell us how they are now securing such documents so this won't happen again.