OLYMPIA, Wash. — Washington lawmakers are considering a proposal that would take use-of-force investigations out of the hands of law enforcement officers and turn them over to an independent agency.
HB 1267 has made its way through the House of the Washington State Legislature. The bill would create an Office of Independent Investigations to examine the use of deadly force by law enforcement.
Right now, most incidents that result in a person's death or serious injury are investigated through an uninvolved law enforcement agency. Under the proposal, the new office would be independent of police and sheriff departments.
Activists say that change is needed to restore the community’s faith the states officers and sheriffs.
“There’s been a lack of transparency, there’s no trust between policing and community,” said Katrina Johnson of Washington’s Coalition of Police Accountability. “It was severed a long time ago, and the only way to restore that is to do something different.”
The next step for the bill is to go through the Senate, and activists are continuing to push people to maintain pressure.
The Washington Association of Sheriffs & Police Chiefs sent KING 5 their written testimony on HB 1267, saying that while they support the need for an independent agency, they can’t support the bill as written.
The group said they are concerned over some key aspects of the proposal, such as making the Director of the Office a political appointee.
Law enforcement agencies hope for a clear definition for the role of the agency and they want to make sure that the office is completely free of political influence.
“Well, some of them just don’t want change,” Johnson said. “But the more progressive law enforcement officers that are really out there, and really trying to do right by community don’t really mind this, there’s like little things that they want to see done differently, and amendments that they try to throw in there, but I think good cops actually want to work with good cops.”