Olympia seeking residents to help with use of deadly force investigations

The city of Olympia is accepting applications for six positions on a new Citizen Representatives for Police Use of Force Events Board, created in response to the 2018 passage of Initiative 940 by Washington voters.

Among other mandates contained within the initiative intended to place stricter controls on the use of deadly force by law enforcement, it requires investigations of deadly force incidents to include two citizens from the jurisdiction in which the event occurred, for the purposes of transparency and ensuring fair representation for all interested parties.

The online application portal is open through Sept. 11 and available on the city of Olympia website. Interested parties must meet criteria: They must live within city limits and be able to pass a background check allowing them to view unredacted police reports.

The General Government committee is expected to interview finalists during the first week of October, and the city council is slated to hear recommendations for the initial three-year terms on Oct. 20.

“They’re not actually getting into the crime scene, they’re not interviewing people, but they are helping in the selection of the investigators,” Olympia Police Lt. Paul Lower said. “Citizen representatives also get to sit in on briefings given to the chief of police during those investigations. They just become kind of an observer of the process.”

Lower later clarified that citizen representatives will have a hand in choosing which OPD detectives are made available to participate on a regional team that will investigate all uses of deadly force by law enforcement within their departments. Information published by the City of Olympia states that OPD employees and their immediate family members are ineligible to serve as citizen representatives.

A regional investigative team similar to the one required by I-940 already exists in Thurston County. The Capital Metro Independent Investigations Team includes representatives from the police departments of Olympia, Tumwater, Lacey and Yelm. Investigations looking into incidents such as the July 22 officer-involved shooting in Tumwater do not include detectives from the same agency as the officers whose actions are under scrutiny.

Having six citizens available to fill two slots for an active investigation allows for the possibility that some members may not be available due to other commitments or conflicts of interest, Lower said, as well as the potential for more than one investigation to be open at the same time. Those appointed to the board would be required to attend the Olympia Police Department Citizen Academy and other training to familiarize themselves with some of the tactics and processes during an investigation.

Olympia is still working to finalize the training curriculum for I-940 citizen representatives at the same time it works to populate the advisory board. The Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission was to release detailed guidelines earlier this year, but COVID-19 scrambled those plans, Lower said.

One reason the city is hustling to get people on board by the end of October is that if a deadly force incident happened in Olympia without a designated roster of citizen representatives, it would fall to Interim Police Chief Aaron Jelcick to determine which citizens serve in that role for the ensuing investigation.

“We’ve talked about it, and would reach out to some of the many civic organizations we are involved in and look for volunteers,” Lower said. “We might look to the Hispanic Roundtable or the West Olympia Business Association, you name it, and then the chief would likely select one or two folks he felt comfortable putting on board.”

This story was originally published August 24, 2020 at 5:45 AM.