By Sens. Jeff Holy, Mike Padden and Shelly Quick
By Sens. Jeff Holy, Mike Padden and Shelly Quick
Final yr’s legislative session in Olympia was disappointing in a number of methods, however there was no different main difficulty by which majority Democrats did extra harm to Washington than public security.
In the course of the 2021 session, the bulk get together within the Home and Senate handed “police-reform” payments, regardless of our warnings that they might negatively have an effect on regulation enforcement’s potential to maintain folks and communities secure.
When these anti-pursuit, anti-arrest crime legal guidelines took impact just a few months later, our predictions that crime would rise sadly got here true. Clearly, criminals found out officers couldn’t reply to 911 calls and different conditions like they might only a yr in the past. They realized officers may now not apply the usual of “affordable suspicion” when responding to an incident.
Information tales shortly surfaced throughout the state about how law enforcement officials and others in regulation enforcement couldn’t pursue and detain suspects due to these new legal guidelines. Frustrations have been felt by law-enforcement officers in our area, whose emotions got here to a boil final summer season when many gathered in Spokane to precise their issues.
Many individuals throughout Washington really feel much less secure at this time because of the brand new restrictions on regulation enforcement, which have clearly backfired. Statistics present that public security has already spiraled downward. Preliminary knowledge present Seattle reporting almost 1,000 extra violent crimes than in 2020. In King County, the reported variety of gunshot victims – together with victims of shootings involving felony gangs – has doubled from simply 4 years earlier, reaching an all-time excessive.
At a time when crime charges are escalating, site visitors stops are declining. This lower doesn’t imply drivers are doing a greater job of following site visitors legal guidelines. Sadly, this drop in site visitors stops ought to predictably end in extra drivers breaking the regulation with out dealing with penalties, which can imply extra accidents and extra deaths and accidents on our roads.
After listening to constituents’ issues, our Senate Republican colleagues made it a precedence this session to revive and improve public security by enhancing and even repealing the payments handed by the bulk final yr.
On Feb. 9, the Senate took a serious step towards fixing a few of the harm created by the passage of final yr’s “police reform” legal guidelines when it voted 31-18 to cross Senate Invoice 5919. That laws would restore a few of the public-safety instruments misplaced by law-enforcement companies flast yr. All Republican senators voted in favor of the invoice, as did a number of Democrats.
SB 5919 wouldn’t resolve the entire public-safety issues created by the bulk’s actions this previous yr. However due to Republican-proposed ground amendments that have been handed by the Senate, this measure is now stronger and would restore a few of the instruments that law-enforcement officers must hold communities secure. These ground amendments embody permitting officers to pursue a suspect automobile if they’ve affordable suspicion.
SB 5919 now could be earlier than the Home of Representatives. We hope our Home colleagues will no less than settle for and cross the model of the invoice that was permitted by the Senate.
After seeing the passage of legal guidelines that appear to be pro-crime and anti-public security, it’s time to swing the pendulum again towards letting law-enforcement officers do their jobs successfully so our communities will be safer.
Sen. Jeff Holy, R-Cheney, serves the sixth Legislative District. Sen. Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, serves the 4th Legislative District. Sen. Shelly Quick, R-Addy, serves the seventh Legislative District.