Washington lawmakers’ push to reform policing begins with hearing on changes to tactics
Members of the public weighed in Tuesday on a bill that would restrict and standardize tactics police officers are allowed to use across Washington state, including banning chokeholds and preventing law enforcement agencies from buying or using tear gas.
Washingtonians who have lost loved ones to police violence spoke at the first public hearing on one of many pushes by lawmakers this session to increase police accountability and transparency. Law enforcement groups that testified largely voiced opposition and a patchwork of objections to specific aspects of the bill.
A police tactics bill is part of an agenda the House of Representatives Policing Policy Leadership Team rolled out Tuesday alongside the Washington Coalition for Police Accountability. The sweeping package has its roots in work that began in the summer, when resounding calls for police accountability rang out in Washington and nationwide after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.
House bills mentioned at the Tuesday roll-out include one that would establish a statewide de-escalation standard; bills to establish an agency to independently investigate killings by police, deaths in custody, and sexual-assault allegations (as proposed by Gov. Jay Inslee); and a bill that would in part add more community representation to the state criminal justice training commission and expand the grounds on which an officer can be de-certified.
Three bills from the package are scheduled for public hearings in the House Public Safety Committee yet this week, and there are more efforts aimed at police reform in the state Senate.
“This problem requires solutions at the highest level,” Rep. Debra Entenman, a Covington Democrat who is on the Black Member Caucus, said at a virtual press conference Tuesday afternoon.
“Unnecessary police violence and a complete lack of accountability for that violence has eroded the community’s trust in law enforcement. When entire communities do not trust the state-sanctioned power over life and death, public safety is in peril.”
What’s in the police tactics bill
House Bill 1054 “sets a baseline” statewide for acceptable police tactics and the equipment that can be used, said sponsor Rep. Jesse Johnson, Federal Way Democrat and vice chair of the House Public Safety Committee, at one of the first public hearings of the mostly remote 2021 legislative session.
“I want to begin by saying that we believe the vast majority of our law enforcement officers do their jobs with honor and with respect to the profession,” Johnson said. “However, we know that systemic racism exists across all of our institutions, including law enforcement.”
When certain tactics are used at all, Johnson has said, they’re too often used disproportionately on communities of color.
The bill would ban officers from using chokeholds and vascular neck restraints. It would ban them from using unleashed police dogs to arrest or apprehend. Law enforcement agencies also would be prohibited from acquiring or using tear gas.
Agencies could no longer acquire or use military equipment such as machine guns, mine-resistant vehicles, grenades, and missiles.
Washington law enforcement agencies have received equipment ranging from office chairs to mine-resistant vehicles through a federal military surplus transfer program that provides excess goods for the cost of shipping, storage, and maintenance, according to U.S. Defense Logistics Agency data.
Those that already have equipment would have to return it to the federal agency where they got it or destroy it by the end of 2022.
The bill also prohibits officers from intentionally obscuring identifying information on their badges and bans no-knock warrants. And it restricts vehicle pursuits — in part prohibiting firing on a moving vehicle unless there’s an imminent threat of serious harm from an occupant’s use of a deadly weapon.
Support and objections
At Tuesday morning’s hearing and at a press conference about the broader policy agenda, family members of people who have been killed by law enforcement officers advocated for policies in the bill. They are part of the Washington Coalition for Police Accountability that formed this year out of a legacy created by De-Escalate Washington, which supported Initiative 940 to create a good faith test to determine when the use of deadly force by police is justifiable, require police to receive de-escalation and mental health training, and require law enforcement officers to provide first aid.
Among the family members to testify was Sonia Joseph, mother of 20-year-old Giovonn Joseph-McDade, who was fatally shot by Kent police in 2017 after a vehicle pursuit. She said her son’s death happened the same month a King County sheriff’s deputy fatally shot Tommy Le and Seattle police officers fatally shot Charleena Lyles.
“We need to draw the line on tactics that have been used recklessly, like hot pursuits and shooting at moving vehicles,” Joseph said. The bill, she said, “will save lives.”
Trishandra Pickup, a member of the Suquamish Tribe, focused her remarks on the experience of indigenous people in Washington state. She told the stories of Cecil Lacey Jr., who died in a struggle with a Snohomish County deputy, and Stonechild Chiefstick, the father to four of her children who was fatally shot by officers.
“Please enact this law, we must start to address the history of policing and take off the table those tactics that oppress and demoralize entire communities,” she said, holding a photo of Chiefstick up to the camera.
Others voicing support included Spokane City Council President Breean Beggs, on behalf of the Association of Washington Cities and the City of Spokane, and Carlos Bratcher, a member of the Coalition and former King County deputy.
Representatives of several law enforcement groups, though, raised issues with parts or all of the bill. They landed on a spectrum of positions when it came to specific objections.
The Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, for example, supported limiting the use of no-knock warrants but not the outright prohibition.
The Washington Fraternal Order of Police, which claimed an “other” position regarding the bill, rather than opposed, said the group is in total support of the no-knock warrant ban. The Washington Council of Police and Sheriffs also is not opposed to that piece.
James McMahan, policy director for the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, opposed the bill, arguing its language would put the safety of the public and officers at risk and take away options for de-escalation.
Arman Barros, an officer with the Port of Seattle Police Department, testified on behalf of Teamsters Local 117 members.
He argued chokeholds should be banned, but vascular neck restraints, when done correctly, can help safely gain compliance from someone resisting commands. He also took issue with language in the bill that implies police can’t use deadly force on a fleeing driver who uses their vehicle as a weapon.
“Everyone involved in this bill has the ... best interest of the public in mind,” Barros said. “However, this bill does not appear to consider officer safety.”
Throughout the hearing, Rep. Brad Klippert, R-Kennewick, raised questions and concerns about the bill — at one point asking Joseph if she had evidence that, as she had said, police wouldn’t have pulled over her son if he were white. Klippert has been a deputy sheriff in Benton County for over two decades, and was a deputy in Pierce County before that.
Reached by phone after the hearing, Klippert said the bill seems to be written by people who don’t totally understand what officers do or why, and that he’d like to help create greater understanding. He resists the idea of taking away less-lethal tools.
He said he also believes there are “isolated instances of racism,” but that in his experience he hasn’t “personally witnessed any systemic racism” by a law enforcement officer.
“I would love to work with the sponsor of this bill and anyone else to make this bill a great bill that will serve everyone in the state of Washington,” he said. He cares about good law enforcement, he said, and wants to make it so anyone calling 911 can believe someone they can trust is going to respond.
At the press conference Tuesday, Rep. John Lovick said he would feel safe as an officer if proposed changes pass. Lovick, a Mill Creek Democrat, served as a State Trooper for 31 years and described himself as a “Black, brown, and blue man” — a Black man with a brown skin tone who wore the uniform for decades.
“I do not think it goes too far,” Lovick said in response to a reporter’s question. “I think it’s time that we have some changes, and these are the changes that I think will be best for the citizens of the state of Washington.”
Rep. Roger Goodman, who chairs the House Public Safety Committee, said in a phone interview that they’ll meet with a wide-ranging group of stakeholders and he hopes the tactics bill will be voted out of committee as soon as possible.
“I don’t believe this is the type of legislation where those who are concerned about it are unalterably opposed,” he said.
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