CHEHALIS, Wash. — A prominent Washington lawmaker is calling for action following a KING 5 investigation about why search warrant results revealed dozens of drugs and contraband inside the youth prison, yet administrators didn't tell police.
The hidden drugs in the facility were among other issues flagged by local officials in a letter to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.
Senator John Braun (R-Chehalis) said he’s disturbed by the recent story that revealed a state agency refused to cooperate with Lewis County drug detectives, and that the office of Gov. Inslee declined to intervene.
“I’m calling for an investigation,” said Braun, the Republican leader in the Washington State Senate. “There’s the potential for significant illegal activity occurring inside a state agency, and that agency isn’t fully cooperative with law enforcement, that’s shocking."
KING 5 obtained body camera video from an August search of the Green Hill School in Chehalis by the Lewis County Joint Narcotics Enforcement Team (JNET). The footage showed drug detectives seized more than a hundred evidence bags containing fentanyl pills, marijuana, cell phones and at least one shank (homemade knife). Search warrant documents say the items were seized inside the facility since 2017 and stored in padlocked lockers in the laundry room.
Administrators at Green Hill, the state’s maximum-security facility for juvenile male offenders, did not call police in more than 100 felony cases, according to records.
“By statute, they are not allowed to hold on to it. They are supposed to turn that over to law enforcement,” said Centralia Police Chief Stacy Denham, who assisted JNET detectives with the raid.
“We need to dig into this. We need to have long term real solutions that protect those that are incarcerated and protect the (Green Hill) staff and build trust in state government,” said Sen. Braun.
He’s calling on the Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) and the governor’s office to cooperate with JNET’s ongoing investigation into how drugs were smuggled and distributed in Green Hill.
KING 5 reported that the police chiefs and mayors of Centralia and Chehalis sent a letter in June raising concerns to the office of Gov. Inslee. That was two months before JNET sought a search warrant from a Lewis County judge.
Inslee’s office responded that most of the issues raised in the letter were being resolved and declined to refer complaints about drugs, staff misconduct and lax security procedures to the attorney general’s office. That reply triggered the search warrant application and subsequent raid on Aug. 31. Police say Green Hill staff cooperated fully when detectives arrived on site.
When asked by KING 5 about why his office brushed off the concerns raised by Centralia and Chehalis, Inslee responded, “I can assure you we have made improvements there, in part because some of these concerns have been raised.”
“That is not true. Nothing has been fixed,” said Denham, Centralia’s police chief.
Braun said he intends to monitor law enforcement’s investigation and will decide whether hearings or bills before the legislature are appropriate.
In a statement just before airtime, Inslee spokesperson Jaime Smith said:
We take allegations about potential misconduct at any of our state agencies very seriously. The issues in the June letter from local police departments regarding incidents from spring 2022 are separate from the September 2023 situation surrounding the search warrant, but your coverage implies they are the same and that the governor was misleading in his response to your questions about the latter. I hope your follow-up coverage can clarify that the letter we received from law enforcement officials was NOT about challenges accessing evidence.
There is a years-long pattern of collaboration and cooperation between Green Hill and local law enforcement. The sheriff himself notes that the search warrant is the first and only he knows of – it’s still unclear from the information I’ve gathered and your own reporting if or why that search warrant was necessary. Our unequivocal expectation is that in any instance law enforcement requests information or evidence from our agencies that they comply within the bounds of the law. Green Hill is rightfully tightening up protocols around when and how they communicate with local law enforcement to prevent this situation from happening again.
I’ll also reiterate that there is no law I could find that prohibits the storage of contraband at the state’s juvenile facilities (although, following this incident, Green Hill officials are updating their contraband protocols in partnership with Chehalis PD to ensure appropriate disposal). If your sources are making allegations that our agencies are breaking a law, I’d appreciate if they could cite their sources. Bring me the receipts and I’ll happily look into it. Right now all I have are press releases.
Speaking of press releases… Senator Braun’s eager attempt to inject himself into a news story is hardly worth commenting on. His longstanding concern about the facility was confirmed when I did a quick online search of “John Braun” and “Green Hill” and this was the only story that popped up.
View the body camera footage obtained by KING 5 here:
