Podcasts about pierce county sheriff ed troyer

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Last week, Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer acquitted by a jury of two misdemeanor false-reporting charges, stemming from an incident in January 2021.In the wake of protests about racial justice and policing, this case sparked strong emotions and a lot of attention.KUOW reporter Amy Radil is here to talk about the verdict and what it means.We can only make Seattle Now because listeners support us. Make the show happen by making a gift to KUOW: https://www.kuow.org/donate/seattlenowAnd we want to hear from you! Follow us on Instagram at SeattleNowPod, or leave us feedback online: https://www.kuow.org/feedback

For this Hacks & Wonks week-in-review, Crystal is joined by returning co-host: Seattle political reporter and editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett! The show starts with yesterday's acquittal verdict of embattled Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer whose trial followed familiar narratives of an officer fearing for their life, leading to a disappointing but unsurprising outcome. The release of Governor Inslee's proposed budget hints at Democratic priorities in the upcoming legislative session such as housing affordability, expansion of mental health services, and education. Meanwhile, with Washington state on track to hit a 25-year high in traffic deaths, Crystal and Erica discuss the need to address road design and a possible lowering of the legal blood alcohol content (BAC) level for meaningful improvements in road user safety. Finally, the two talk about the decisions of Seattle City Councilmembers Debora Juarez and Lisa Herbold to not run for re-election as well as a recent King County auditor report showing insufficient data collection by county diversion programs and plans for a 2023 assessment of the traditional criminal legal system for comparison. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Erica C. Barnett, at @ericacbarnett. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “Jury acquits Sheriff Troyer of false reporting in case involving newspaper carrier” by Jared Brown from The News Tribune   “Ed Troyer beat the rap, but can Pierce County's sheriff outrun the mistrust he's sown?” by Matt Driscoll from The News Tribune   “Housing, homelessness, and behavioral health: Here are some of Inslee's 2023 budget priorities” by Shauna Sowersby from The News Tribune   “Washington traffic deaths on track to hit 25-year high” by Christine Clarridge from Axios   “The Urbanist's Ryan Packer Discusses Worsening Traffic Safety Crisis on KUOW” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   “Seattle City Council President Debora Juarez won't seek reelection” by Josh Cohen from Crosscut   “Seattle Councilmember Lisa Herbold will not run for reelection in 2023” by Dyer Oxley & David Hyde from KUOW   “King County jail diversion programs not collecting enough data” by David Gutman from The Seattle Times   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I am Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we are continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a cohost. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's cohost: Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, cohost of the Seattle Nice podcast and author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery, Erica Barnett. [00:01:00] Erica Barnett: Thanks, Crystal. [00:01:02] Crystal Fincher: There are a number of things we can cover this week. We will start off with big news in Pierce County about Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer, who was acquitted on misdemeanor charges of false reporting related to an incident he had with a Black newspaper carrier in Tacoma. What happened here? [00:01:22] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I think you've probably been following this even more closely than I am - living close to, slightly closer to Pierce County than I do. But I - from the coverage I've read, Troyer was acquitted of false reporting in a situation where he had a confrontation with a mail carrier. Troyer is white. The mail carrier was Black - sorry, a newspaper carrier. And the confrontation led to - Troyer at one point called in police, something like 40 cop cars showed up - endangering this newspaper carrier. And he was later charged with false reporting - he claimed that he was threatened by this guy and that he was in fear for his life, gave a lot of conflicting testimony about this over the interceding months. There is body camera footage that indicated that his story was not exactly accurate. The police reports also conflicted with his claim that he was in mortal danger. And yet, a six-person jury - all men, mostly white - decided that he was not guilty of this offensive false reporting. And so he is now claiming that he was vindicated. [00:02:49] Crystal Fincher: I was not surprised to see Sheriff Troyer characterize this as a complete vindication and justification, that this was a political witch hunt against him by liberals - who hate police, as he would characterize that. I don't agree with that sentiment. But I do - I did see that there were a number of red flags in the beginning of the trial as I was watching it, just as a Black woman who pays attention to these things and who has seen these situations unfold - about the types of motions that were granted and not, the type of evidence that was allowed to be shared that the jury was able to hear and that the jury was not able to hear. Certainly in these situations, we as the public are privy to a lot more information, sometimes, than the jurors are. And so it was clear that we were going to get more information about the mail carrier's background, issues or incidences that may have happened before - even though he was basically the victim in this scenario. And we were not going to hear a number of things about the background and certain elements about Sheriff Troyer. And in those situations, we have so frequently seen those wind up in acquittals of law enforcement officers who are on trial - this is an area that we have notoriously had difficulty with. It's exceedingly rare - still - to see police charged in situations that look like they're worthy of charges. These were misdemeanor charges, they were not felony charges - and so we will see how this is. But some things that are not in dispute - Ed Troyer is currently on the Brady list of officers who are known to have been dishonest before, and that information needs to be disclosed and can color whether or not those law enforcement officers can testify in court or not, or have their testimony doubted because of prior propensity towards being a liar being shown. So from a layman's perspective, this definitely seems like an unjust result where there are known inconsistencies - he said that his life was threatened when he made that call, which of course - a response to a Black man - that's asking for a violent outcome in today's world and the incidences that we see. So it's just a challenge, and it just is always disappointing, even if not surprising. And just underscores that it is challenging to hold people accountable equally in our society - especially those who hold more power, have more money, or are in law enforcement. [00:05:41] Erica Barnett: Yeah - in the trial, Troyer's attorney kept referring to him as "a great man" and there was clearly this - or at least once referred to him as "a great man" - but portrayed him as this incredible, upstanding citizen who's protecting the people of Pierce County. And I think there was just this narrative of - how could this white sheriff have done such a thing? That's just impossible - look at him. And definitely playing into the sort of veneration of law enforcement and particularly white law enforcement. Again, I also can't speak to the jury's state of mind, but all those tropes came into play during this trial. And I think were probably very effective at convincing the jury that he could not have been guilty of the things that he was accused of - and seemed quite guilty of, in my opinion, reading the coverage. [00:06:40] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, there are some things that are not in dispute and that evidence has shown. He did say that his life was threatened when he did initially call in. And he says - I called the non-emergency number, then the other number. He knows the non-emergency number, he can call that - it still was with the goal of eliciting a response. And then did not repeat that, did not say that was the case when officers did come onto the scene. And that there were just inconsistencies in the story throughout, which even if that is aside from the level - from the issue of guilt or innocence under what the jury can consider in these circumstances, technically in that situation - it goes to how honest is a sheriff? How honest is law enforcement? And the one thing that I haven't seen talked about in this is - so we saw the sheriff deputy who took the report, which did contradict what - or which Ed Troyer ended up contradicting and saying that he didn't say some things that were in the report. What's the status of that deputy? Is that deputy in fear of reprisal, as we've seen in several other departments where people who do speak against their superiors or even their fellow law enforcement officers - have been ostracized, have been assigned to desk duty, less than ideal assignments, have in some situations not received appropriate backup, or been placed in harmful situations, or been allowed to be in harmful situations. So I do wonder what things are like within that department right now and what the conversations are about the deputies who contradicted what Ed Troyer said. [00:08:27] Erica Barnett: Yeah, that's a great question. [00:08:29] Crystal Fincher: That's concerning. So we will continue to see what is happening in the aftermath of this trial and continue to follow this as we see what happens. Now, we are in December - the legislative session is starting in less than a month and Governor Inslee released his proposed budget, which gives an idea of at least what he is focusing on, perhaps what Democratic leadership in the Legislature - and they have majorities - so what they're focusing on is likely to either pass or dominate conversation in the session. What did we see as Inslee's priorities in the budget? [00:09:12] Erica Barnett: I think the biggest priority is this proposal to raise $4 billion over the next six years to increase the housing supply across the state. Now that would require a statewide referendum because - although it wouldn't raise taxes, it would basically allow the state to issue more debt - and so statewide voters would have to approve that. $4 billion over six years - that's a lot of money, it's probably not up to the need - so we're talking about thousands of units of housing rather than tens or hundreds of thousands. But that's the big highlight. He also has proposed expanding Western State Hospital to 350 more beds, which would essentially open up a new facility for Washington state residents in crisis. So that remains to be seen - how that will, how that proposal will go, or whether there'll be controversy over expanding a large mental health facility that has had some problems in the past. And there's some climate commitment goals, of course - spending money out of the Climate Commitment Act, that recently passed. And again, as usual, Inslee is focusing on things like clean energy and electric vehicles - not so much on reducing the number of vehicle miles traveled or doing things to get people out of those cars, electric or otherwise. And that's been a consistency theme with him that he's been criticized for by transportation advocates, who say that the only way that we can meet our climate goals is to stop driving so much and stop letting our communities sprawl out into the hinterlands and the forests. So I think that may also be a source of discussion this session. Are you hearing about anything else, Crystal? [00:11:21] Crystal Fincher: I think I'm hearing a number of things that are consistent with what you're saying - a lot under the housing umbrella - certainly what you talked about are the headlines, some other action related to that. But there does seem to be a recognition that action is necessary to address the housing affordability crisis that we have across the state. A lot of times Seattle makes headlines for how expensive it is - and it certainly does appear to be one of the most expensive places in the state, certainly throughout King County. There are a few that top the list in the state. But also what happens in Seattle and in the major metropolitan areas impacts every city - impacts the suburbs and even rural areas - and impacts housing prices there. And so we've seen housing prices steadily creep up in suburban areas throughout the state where lots of people have traditionally looked to to find affordable housing. There are lots of areas that are no longer affordable for people who make an average income. And it actually looks like in the majority of areas, it's very challenging to find housing that an average income earner can find affordable, in addition to all of the other expenses in life - and so it is a concern. Education is another area where there has been a lot of talk and consideration of need. We saw a number of teacher strikes earlier in the year, leading into the beginning of the school year, where they talked about special education funding and special education programs - in particular - being at the top of this crisis. In addition to staffing concerns in several areas - definitely within special education, but also just generally in teachers and in transportation for school districts, which has forced a number of school districts to enact less than ideal bell times, school start times, or transportation schedules because of shortages of drivers. So I think that certainly from an advocate's point of view and from some legislators, they were trying to highlight that. And there does seem like there is some inclination to address some of the funding, but whether it will make a meaningful dent - or if there's enough support among Democrats in the Legislature to take this action - we will see. But I think that's going to be another area that gets a lot of attention. [00:13:53] Erica Barnett: I think too - just to jump back to housing and homelessness for one second, I think that the King County Regional Homelessness Authority is really going to be looking to the state for funding because the city and county didn't really up their funding this year. And so there's an open question of how much of that $4 billion might trickle down to - not only housing in King County, but housing specifically for people at risk of or experiencing homelessness in King County. And that remains an open question because we haven't seen all the details of this proposal yet. But I think that is something that King County is really going to be looking towards. And sometimes that money comes with strings attached - as we saw in the last legislative session, when the county got something like $49 million, $45 million for homelessness, or the King County Regional Authority did. But it has to go toward removing encampments, or rather resolving encampments and moving people indoors from highway overpasses owned by the state. So it'll be interesting to see how the local agency negotiates with the state over this money. And of course, it's not a given that it's going to pass because it does have to have voter approval. [00:15:06] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And then there's another item in the news that may also be related to action in the Legislature. And that was news that Washington traffic deaths this year are set to hit a 25-year high. How did you react to this? [00:15:25] Erica Barnett: Sadly, I wasn't terribly surprised. I think that we have a Vision Zero goal in the City of Seattle and there are Vision Zero goals in cities and counties and states all over the country - and that Vision Zero means zero traffic deaths or serious injuries by, I believe, 2030. We're obviously not at all on track and we've been headed in the wrong direction for a really long time. And so sadly, I wasn't surprised. I think that the pandemic - obviously, people started driving a little more recklessly because it was easier to do so with fewer people on the streets. But, I think this goes back to what I was saying about Inslee and his climate priorities. A lot of times the reasons for these fatalities when we do, we look at individual driver behavior and that is important - people are driving drunk more, there's just a lot of people speeding, and speeding in school zones. But that behavior always, or often, relates to the design of the road. And in this state, we have unfortunately - and in the City of Seattle and other cities, too - we don't really look at road design enough and we don't slow down the roads. It's meaningless to say the speed limit in Seattle is 25 mph on all arterials when you have these wide streets that make it very, very easy to go twice that or three times that. We're continuing to widen highways, we're continuing to widen roads that - we're building a giant highway on the waterfront here in Seattle. And so I think unless there's meaningful change to actually force people through design to slow down, we're going to continue seeing this trajectory, unfortunately. And just real briefly, I will mention - on the blood, on the alcohol-related deaths, which I believe Axios reported that those are also up dramatically. There is legislation being proposed this year that would lower the maximum blood alcohol level to 0.05, which is what they did in Utah - and that does have a direct correlation to lower traffic deaths. It happened when everybody - when all the states, for the most part, lowered it to 0.08, which is what we have now. So that can also make a difference. [00:17:54] Crystal Fincher: I hope - yeah, I hope it does. It looks like some other states are also inclined to move in that direction. You had mentioned earlier, before we started recording, that when many states lowered the blood alcohol level to 0.08, that traffic fatalities dropped at that time. So it goes to - it hopefully should follow that further lowering that blood alcohol level should also continue to decrease traffic fatalities due to alcohol - and just the reality overall that drinking and driving just don't mix at all. I think that there is the impression that buzzed driving is fine - there certainly have been media campaigns about buzzed driving is drunk driving. But it doesn't seem like that has really penetrated into the wide public. And, we have bars that let people drive home immediately after consuming however many drinks that they have. I've always thought - okay, well bars have parking lots - that just goes to follow that people are going to be driving after drinking and that seems suboptimal. And often thinking of that in context of the hysteria in enacting a lot of marijuana legislation - that we don't seem to treat that as consistently as we should. But it will be interesting to see how this follows. I also was not surprised to see the level of deaths in car accidents - in accidents with cars - being this high. And Ryan Packer with The Urbanist has reported for quite some time - and they also have a Patreon - but just the steady drumbeat of dismemberment and injury in their reporting on Twitter that I see come down my timeline - it feels like daily they are covering another pedestrian that has been hit by a car, someone on a bus that's been hit by a car. The frequency of it is just jarring. And sometimes, you see numbers on a paper and - but just the daily reminder of - oh, there's an emergency response and the details, getting the details of that response - this was a pedestrian being hit by a car in this place in Seattle. And it does seem to take place in some areas in Seattle more frequently than others. And it does seem like we need to intervene in road design. There was a video that was circulating online earlier this week of a car driving in a protected bike lane, meaning that they were on the other side of a barrier that - it seems like it should have been clear that you should not be driving on the other side of a barrier. The road markings would not have made sense in that situation that they were driving over - but the car was just driving down that - behind a bike. And it's things like that - to your point of road design has a lot to do with it. Lots of people are asking why were there not bollards that would actually prevent a vehicle from being able to access this area in that situation. But I do think that we need to pay a lot more attention to that at all levels of government. And I would love to see that being prioritized more. I know we're due to get a report in the City of Seattle from Mayor Harrell - I think it was in one of his executive orders, or something that I was reading the other day - that either in Q1 or Q2 of 2023, there's going to be a report on how the City of Seattle has adhered and progressed with the Vision Zero plan that they have enacted. So it'll be really interesting to see their evaluation of that and what the recommendations are moving forward to help improve pedestrian safety - in the City of Seattle, and also applying that to the rest of the state. [00:21:53] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I just flashback to Jenny Durkan, the previous mayor, unveiling with great fanfare - 25 mph signs on Rainier Avenue South, which remains one of the two deadliest streets in Seattle, despite this sort of nominal decrease that's supposed to make everybody start going slower. I do think penalties also are important - there are lots of problems with charging fines and penalties to people who don't, of lower income. But that said, something like a DUI, for example, is really, really not just stigmatizing, but actually it screws up your life. People don't want to get a DUI. And so it actually does provide a disincentive for people to drive drunk - the fact that a DUI is going to ruin your life for a while. And I think speeding - same thing. Speeding has become something that is very easy to get away with, particularly with less emphasis on traffic enforcement - things like that. So we've got to find a way - some combination of better road design and disincentivizing some of these poor behaviors and dangerous behaviors that actually put lives at risk to - beyond just saying, oh now the speed limit is 15 mph. Who cares if everybody's driving 50? [00:23:22] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. So we also got news this week - in Seattle - specific news about councilmembers, some councilmembers not running for re-election. As we head into these 2023 municipal elections where the councilmembers are going to be up, some of them said - a couple of them said - I've had enough. Who did we see say that they're going to be bowing out? [00:23:47] Erica Barnett: Debora Juarez, who represents North Seattle in District 5, has said - I would say all along since she was elected again - that she was not going to run again. So she mentioned very casually in a council meeting that - this is my last term. And that turned into a bunch of stories, but that was a pretty expected one. The one that was a little more surprising was down in District 1, West Seattle - sorry, wait, is that right? Yes, District 1. Wow. You would think that after all this time, I would know all the districts. In West Seattle, Lisa Herbold is not running for re-election after two terms. And she said that she was frustrated to see Pete Holmes being defeated after he was opposed by the far left and the far right, in Seattle terms. And so we ended up actually electing Republican Ann Davison as City Attorney. And she said - I don't want that to happen to me - essentially citing some reporting that she was going to be "primaried" from the left and just feeling concerned that she didn't want to go through that, and kind of felt like she had done what she came to do. And so now that seat's going to be up - and could be more. There's, of course, rumors that Kshama Sawant is not going to run again in the 3rd District, and haven't been able to pin down anybody else on their plans. But all seven seats are going to be up - all seven districted seats. So I think it's going to be a really lively election year. [00:25:30] Crystal Fincher: I also think it's going to be a really lively election year. We've already seen some people announce in some districts - or at least one announcement, I think, and talk of others who may be announcing. It'll be curious to see. I thought that the explanation from Lisa Herbold was a little odd and confusing. I think maybe - just from the political perspective - Pete Holmes didn't lose actually because he was a moderate. Pete Holmes lost because he ran a horrible, horrible campaign. [00:26:01] Erica Barnett: Well, he didn't campaign - that was the problem. [00:26:04] Crystal Fincher: He didn't campaign until the last minute. He took - looks like he took - it for granted. What the actual - I don't know what was in his mind or anything, but did not campaign, seemed to think that it was an automatic thing until the very end. And then gave some really odd and counter-productive interviews for his purposes. And he lost his race. I wouldn't necessarily say that he was beaten or if he would have campaigned like most incumbents do, that he would have lost there. So I don't know that the fear of that was actually founded. It wasn't like some mystical force came in and swept him out. He lost that race on his own. But I would say that I understand feeling like - I've done what I could do, the time is done. And feeling like maybe it's not that rewarding of a job in some circumstances - it's not easy to stand in front of the public and to hear some of the vitriol, to receive the threats that they receive. And they do receive threats and scary things happen. So I get not being excited to run again for re-election, but it'll be interesting to see how this all unfolds. The final thing that we'll talk about is just another thing in King County - and a story that King County jail diversion programs are not collecting enough data, which is just really curious to me - because this has been a conversation certainly in the City of Seattle, as the City has signaled both wanting to move forward with alternatives to traditional police responses, some that are more appropriate for people who may be unhoused or experiencing behavioral health crises. And evaluating programs that engage in those practices very tightly, but not evaluating the things that we're currently doing - like how does it actually compare to the traditional police response? It seems like we want to collect data on what everyone else is doing, but we get real skittish about collecting data when it comes to traditional police responses from police departments, or results from people who have been jailed or incarcerated. How did you read this? [00:28:24] Erica Barnett: Look, I am all in favor, actually, of more data. And I do think these are outside programs that the County funds, but the County does fund them. And so I actually - I think it's great to collect data on whether these programs are working. Now, I'm not sure that recidivism should be the only thing that we are measuring, and I hope that they will measure some other types of outcomes that are perhaps more meaningful, like outcomes that sort of measure a person's wellbeing. But I also completely agree that - if data is good, data should be good for everything. And so County Executive Dow Constantine has said that he also wants an assessment of the traditional legal system - I think that that is great. I think that needs to happen because we spend a lot more money on that system than we do on any of these diversion programs, individually or collectively. So I think that in terms of what gets covered and what gets attention, the idea that - oh my God, we're not following whether these diversion programs work is always going to get a lot of press. And perhaps other programs like jail-related programs, maybe things like Drug Court - I'm just pulling that out, so it's possible that has been assessed more than I am aware of - but just some of the traditional legal options should be submitted to the same scrutiny and should be getting the same kind of media coverage as these diversion programs because a lot of them are pretty small. And I will note in that auditor's report, it did note that some programs have been assessed and have been shown to be pretty effective, like the LEAD program, which is constantly getting called out - this last budget cycle, both the County Council and the City Council said, oh, we need to assess LEAD to see what does it do and does it really work? And it's actually a program that's been probably assessed more than any other diversion program in the system. So we also need to say at some point - hey, look, we assessed this program, it works really well - let's put money into these things that work well and not just constantly be raising doubts about the very concept of diversion, which I think unfortunately some of the coverage of this audit has done, by not also focusing on these other aspects of the legal system that we don't really scrutinize. [00:30:57] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. Completely agree with that. I think, to your point, more data is good - uniform data, consistent data is good - so you can actually compare apples to apples, and you understand the similarities or the differences in the populations that are being served and the outcomes in those specific bands of populations, and that you can compare them to each other. I think what everyone wants as the goal here is a safer community and more effective programs to help that happen. And so the more that we can find out about what that is, the better. We do ourselves such a disservice to leave out, to your point, what we do spend the most on, allocate the most resources to - in those programs that are usually already operating under a government umbrella, whether it's law enforcement, or courts, the jails - and getting good information there. So I hope that we do see consistent and uniform data collected as a general practice across the board at all levels of these programs in and without, because we are seeing data from throughout the country - from people who are experts like criminologists saying - that things like just strict incarceration don't actually get the job done. So the more that we can figure out what does create a safer outcome, what does reduce people's - what does reduce their likelihood of committing another crime, of victimizing someone else - we don't want that to happen. I think everyone wants fewer people to be victimized. I was reviewing articles from throughout the year and saw one characterization in something that's - moderates want to be safer, but progressives want reform. And it was just - how horrible and inaccurate is that framing? I don't know anyone who is pro-crime. I think everyone wants to get safer. And certainly we hear a lot about punitive solutions - just lock them up and enforce things versus others. I think that we all do ourselves a favor and we all increase the likelihood of becoming safer if we do evaluate everything across the board with the ultimate goal of what does actually result in fewer people being victimized. So hopefully this conversation continues in a positive way, that we do see that those programs that have been scrutinized frequently like LEAD with good results continue to get support, and others that do not result in fewer people being victimized don't. And we can shift those resources to things that do make us safe. And with that, I thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, December 16th, 2022. Hacks & Wonks is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. Our insightful co-host today was Seattle political reporter, editor of Publicola, co-host of the Seattle Nice Podcast, and author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery, Erica Barnett. You can find Erica on Twitter @ericacbarnett - that's if Twitter lasts for a while, we'll see what happens with that - and on PubliCola. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. You can also get a full text transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in these podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - we'll talk to you next time.

“Disappointing” and “troubling.” Reactions of one Tacoma pastor to the not-guilty verdict for Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer.

What's Trending: Someone in the CID is trading fentanyl for food stamps, are the unvaccinated paying more for car insurance and Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer is found not guilty. Big Local: Follow up on the Ed Troyer not guilty verdict and an ATM was stolen from a Port Orchard bank. // Grant Wahl's autopsy was released. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The state attorney general's office had charged Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer with false reporting and making a false or misleading statement to a public servant. On Wednesday, a jury acquitted him on both counts.

A jury has found Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer not guilty on two criminal misdemeanor charges. KNKX reporter Kari Plog has been following the case. She spoke with KUOW's Angela King about what we learned during the trial and what comes next for Troyer.

Reaction to the "not guilty" verdict for Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The trial of Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer is underway. He's accused of false reporting and making false statements about his interaction with a newspaper carrier in January of 2021. But if convicted, will he actually spend time in jail? Northwest Newsradio's Ryan Harris joins us with the latest. PLUS: Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema leaves the Democratic Party. AND: Former President Trump, still not accepting the results of the 2020 election, says the Constitution should be suspended. The Northwest Politicast with Jeff Pohjola: From this Washington to that one, Jeff Pohjola will explore the issues and politics of the week. Frequent guests and top analysts break down the news to get to the heart of what matters most.

For this Hacks & Wonks week-in-review, political consultant and host Crystal Fincher is joined by metro news columnist and opinion editor for The News Tribune in Tacoma, Matt Driscoll!  They start the show reviewing the criminal trial of elected Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer. Troyer is charged with false reporting and one count of making a false or misleading statement to a public servant in relation to his alleged harassment of Black newspaper carrier Sedrick Altheimer. This week, the trial revealed discrepancies in Troyer's account of the incident compared to the police report. This case hinges on whether the state can prove Troyer's actions were criminal, and it's anticipated that the trial will be sent to the jury next week.  Next, Crystal and Matt recap a new investigative report from ProPublica and The Seattle Times that reveals how deeply the state's schools are failing students with complex disabilities, sending many of them to for-profit entities with little oversight, leading to instances of mistreatment and abuse. In housing news, the Pierce County Council will vote next Tuesday on an affordable housing sales tax. The county needs more funding for affordable housing, and even though a sales tax is a regressive tax, it's the best available option the council has to generate additional revenue for affordable housing projects. The tax will require five votes to pass from the Council that includes four Democrats and three Republicans. In other Pierce County Council news, Crystal and Matt discuss the retirement of Council Chair Derek Young. They explore his political career, talk about his impact, and share their appreciation for how he handled the responsibility of being an elected leader. The trend of dangerous, sometimes violent protests against drag shows and drag story time events came to Renton this week, which saw a local brewery get shot at before their Drag Queen Story Hour event on Thursday. It's part of an increase of anti-LGBT and antisemitic hatred and violence happening across the country. The incident in Renton comes alongside  concerning reporting from KUOW revealing that the electrical grid in Oregon and Western Washington has been attacked six times since mid-November, with at least two of the attacks resembling the incident in North Carolina last Saturday. It's a foreboding sign of the rise of domestic terrorism in this country fueled by right-wing hate. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Matt Driscoll, at @mattsdriscoll. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “TPD officer testifies that Troyer reported no death threat to him. Next, defense's turn.” by Jared Brown from The News Tribune   “WA's schools are failing students with complex disabilities. It's happening in Tacoma too.” by Matt Driscoll from The News Tribune   “‘Kids Seem to Be a Paycheck': How a Billion-Dollar Corporation Exploits Washington's Special Education System” by Lulu Ramadan, Mike Reicher and Taylor Blatchford from ProPublica    “At Washington special education schools, years of abuse complaints and lack of academics” by Mike Reicher & Lulu Ramadan from The Seattle Times   “Pierce County needs an affordable housing sales tax. Will it get one next week?” by Matt Driscoll from The News Tribune   “Pierce County Council Member Derek Young Retires from Politics for Unknown Future” by Sara Thompson from Key Peninsula News   “Renton Brewery Shot Up before Drag Queen Story Hour” by Will Casey from The Stranger    “String of electrical grid attacks in Pacific Northwest are unsolved” by Conrad Wilson & John Ryan from KUOW   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full text transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we are continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's cohost: metro news columnist and opinion editor for The News Tribune in Tacoma, Matt Driscoll. [00:00:56] Matt Driscoll: Hello, thanks for having me - it's good to be back. [00:00:59] Crystal Fincher: It's great to have you back - enjoyed your commentary and insight last time, excited for it today. Well, there's a lot of news that we need to get to this week. I think the first thing that we will start off with a recap of is the trial of Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer. What is he on trial for and what has happened so far? [00:01:23] Matt Driscoll: Yeah. Well, first just a shout out to my colleague, Jared Brown, who's been in court covering this thing, following it on Twitter, and writing daily recaps - they've just been doing an incredible job in the courthouse. But yeah, our sheriff down here in Pierce County, Ed Troyer, he's on trial for two misdemeanor counts - one of false reporting and another of making a false or misleading statement. The reality of this - in general terms, if this was anyone else is - if convicted, he's facing maybe a little bit of community service and maybe a fine of some sort. It's not a big deal, in the sense of he was just an average person. But of course, it is a very big deal because he's our sheriff down here in Pierce County and there are a lot of complicated aspects of this case. Just to - if folks aren't following the case or haven't heard, which I kind of doubt at this point, but basically this all stems from an interaction he had with a newspaper delivery carrier. It's been so long now - I don't even remember exactly when that was, but I guess it was January - looking it up now - of 2021. A Black newspaper carrier in his neighborhood - Troyer basically saw him, thought he looked suspicious, started following him around. Confrontation ensued, Troyer ended up summoning a police response saying he had been threatened. It sparked a massive response, which was quickly kind of downgraded to a smaller response. But still, the bottom line was you had a huge police response, guns-drawn situation with a Black newspaper carrier who felt in danger for his life. And so that story, thanks to the reporting of folks at The Seattle Times and then at The News Tribune, got a lot of attention and led to the governor calling for an investigation into it. And eventually it led from charges from the state AG's office. So there's no charges down here locally, but Bob Ferguson jumped in and filed these misdemeanor charges. And that was a long time ago, and we're finally at the trial now. So we've been following it here for a couple of weeks - jury selection took a while, and now we're into actual testimony. And actually, Ed Troyer was on the trial, or on the stand, yesterday. So that was the latest interesting event in an interesting case, that's probably the most high-profile misdemeanor trial I can recall. [00:04:01] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. So Ed Troyer is an elected sheriff, not an appointed sheriff, like currently exists in King County - also makes just the issue of accountability more challenging. It's not a situation where - in the midst of this, there were inconsistencies that were revealed between Ed Troyer's initial account and what actually seems to have taken place, or what ended up in the police report about this. And in those situations, often - I won't say oftentimes - but in other situations, sometimes that could lead to accountability or discipline locally. That's a whole different issue when you have an elected public official and not someone who is subject to interdepartmental discipline or anything like that. So this trial is basically the accountability lever and - to the point of independent oversight - had to be initiated externally, because it wasn't happening just from the agencies in the jurisdiction. The prosecution presented their case and rested. The defense is now presenting their case. There were questions about whether Ed Troyer would take the stand in his defense. He has done so. And up until this point, where we're recording on Friday morning, the defense questioned him and now he is getting ready to face questioning from the prosecution. So we will see how this turns out, we will continue to follow this along. I don't think the trial is expected to last more than a few more days before it goes to the jury. Is that correct? [00:05:45] Matt Driscoll: It's been slow going - I think that's the expectation. They don't - there are no trials on Friday, no trial on Friday - so the next action will be Monday. You'll have the state cross-examining Troyer. And I should mention - that was a shoddy recap, I guess - because I've been living it down here in Pierce County for so long, it just feels like coming up. But the crux of this case basically is - when Troyer summoned police response, he said that his life had been threatened. And then when cops arrived, he told them that wasn't the case. So that's the crux of it - is whether he made a false statement, a false report that summoned this huge police response. It's almost like a swatting, mini-swatting situation. So it kind of hinges on that. At the end of the day, I think, there's going to be a big burden on the state to prove that this was more than - and I guess I'm a columnist, I can share these sorts of opinions - whether this was more than Ed Troyer being stupid, right? Like I think it's established that - what he, at least in my mind - his actions on that morning were not the smartest thing to do and were not what he should have done. But is that criminal or not? I think that's going to be that's kind of the crux of it. And I think it's going to be interesting to see what the jury decides there. My gut tells me it's going to be difficult, just given the nature of things to get all jurors to agree one way or the other, but we'll see. And that's why we follow it. [00:07:20] Crystal Fincher: It is why we follow it. Certainly I'm sitting here as a Black woman, who has seen these situations unfold, and feels that this newsletter, newspaper carrier was fortunate to escape this situation with his life. The kind of call and the kind of accusation made initially in the call is the kind of pretext to death and shootings - shootings called justified because they felt that they were threatened, particularly from Black men. So this call was - if this indeed happened the way it's alleged to or appear to have happened, was a risk to this Black man's life. And by just doing his job - to have someone who felt uncomfortable with this Black person in their neighborhood - followed them, basically stalked them down the street, and then initiated a confrontation - is just beyond the pale. And one, for anyone in that situation - he could have been any other resident on the street calling and saying their life was threatened by this person, and it would invite a massive police response - certainly for the sheriff of the entire jurisdiction. And is this behavior that we want to see, that we are comfortable with from the head of all law enforcement in that jurisdiction - even in the most charitable interpretation of this possible, which you kind of recap, where he's just being ignorant and ridiculous. Do we want this ignorance leading this agency? Is this the head that we want? Regardless of the outcome of this trial, I think those are important questions to examine and ask - for us to ask ourself - where is the bar that we hold elected officials and public safety officials to? And I personally feel that Pierce County deserves better, but we'll see how this trial turns out and we'll continue to follow it throughout. Also want to talk about a story that you talked about - that came from ProPublica, The Seattle Times also wrote about it - but about Washington schools failing students with complex disabilities. What's happening here and what have you seen in Tacoma? [00:09:52] Matt Driscoll: Yeah. I mean, this is just an incredible story. And first and foremost - I guess I did this last time too - but credit where credit's due - the reporting team there on Seattle Times and ProPublica on this story. It's just a jaw-dropping story. This is one of those stories where my wife and I were sitting - because they'd hit on Saturdays - and we're sitting around in the living room and she's actually reading the excerpts from the story because we're in such disbelief of what's transpiring. But the long and short of it is basically the state is obligated to provide basic education to students with complex disabilities. They're required to require basic education to all students, but including those with disabilities. And in certain cases, you've got children, students with disabilities that make it really difficult, if not impossible, to do that in a standard classroom or a standard school building. Districts across the state have done a lot of work to try to integrate students with disabilities as much as possible into regular classrooms. As a parent of a child with disabilities, I know the system well. But in some cases, when you're talking about - sometimes severe behavior stuff, sometimes it's medical, feeding tubes - any number of things that can require a situation where - what the state needs to provide can't be done in a classroom. So, long story short, districts don't have a lot of money. We don't fund education anywhere near as much as we should, and they have this obligation to serve these students. So what has transpired basically is a system that we've created in the state where these students are often - that work is outsourced to other schools. Many times they're for-profit schools - they're publicly-funded private schools, so private entities that then receive state funding to do this work. Districts send their challenging students there, the students that need this there. But with the story, the ProPublica-Seattle Times piece really revealed is just the incredible lack of oversight that happens there. It's basically on the districts to monitor each of their students, and the oversight from the state as a whole is really lax. Maybe districts know what's going on with their individual kids. Maybe they've got a couple in these situations, but the full picture is really hard to see. And that's what this investigation revealed. And what it revealed, shockingly enough, is that when you welcome in for-profit entities to serve our most vulnerable children, bad stuff happens sometimes. And there's some really bad stuff in this story. Some allegations of abuse and mistreatment, just some anecdotes that I won't - you should read the story, but some of the situations painted specifically in one of these schools, the Northwest, the acronym is SOIL - I'm going to of course forget what it stands for at the moment - but it's the largest one of these in the states. It's got three campuses, including one in Tacoma. Long story short, Tacoma has relied heavily on this school in particular over the years, going back to 2015. It has sent basically more funding to this Northwest SOIL school than any district in the state by a wide margin. And the unsatisfying answer here is - when talking to district officials, it's essentially - this is the system we have. It's not great. We would like to see it better, but we don't have the means to serve these students and we're reliant upon it. And so that's a really unsatisfying answer. It's an unsatisfying answer to parents, I'm sure, but I think the bigger picture is until we reimagine them and blow up this system we've created in this state, where we're essentially outsourcing this work to for-profit corporations and publicly-funded private schools where - we basically welcome situations like this, in my opinion. So that was a lot of rambling, but this story, it pissed me off. It makes me really, really mad. [00:14:10] Crystal Fincher: It's a shame. And the state unquestionably has a responsibility to provide an appropriate education, in the least restrictive means possible, to all students - including those with disabilities and complex disabilities. Funding has been a continual conversation in this. And the fact is these programs don't currently exist in public schools to the degree they need to serve all the entire population of students, including those with complex disabilities, because they don't have the funding to implement and support those. And as we see too often in these situations, if you ask me, for-profit companies then are there to fill that gap, they say. But what we see is that when profit is a main driver and not an outcome from a student is the main driver - predictably, obviously - we're going to see profit prioritized ahead of these students. And we're seeing them in these situations with shocking and abhorrent and abusive and harmful consequences. And are we comfortable? In the column that you wrote, you asked a very appropriate question. Are we comfortable abdicating our responsibility as the state to for-profit entities who already have a record that is troubling? Are we comfortable with this? Because this is the system that we have and there are reasons, multiple reasons, to be uncomfortable. Are we prepared to confront the questions about funding that are related to this? Are we prepared to meet the responsibility as the state ourselves, or continue to check a box saying - oh, we handed the student over to the Northwest SOIL School, which seems like an appropriate acronym at this point in time. [00:16:12] Matt Driscoll: School of Innovative Learning, that's what it is. [00:16:16] Crystal Fincher: Yes, and so it's just really troubling. Right now, there are no other options - so families are faced with the prospect of their kids not getting their constitutionally mandated education, or sending them someplace where they're at risk - that's the plain truth - where they're at risk. They're certainly at greater risk than in the school setting and other settings for abuse. But if they're in another setting, they're at risk of not getting an appropriate education. That is a choice that no family should have or should face, and we have a responsibility to do better. We have to talk about revenue. We have to talk about funding as part of that. And I hope the Legislature takes this seriously and meaningfully addresses this deficit and these challenges, because it's going to take action there to help solve this. But man, this is troubling. I'm happy you wrote about it. I'm happy that ProPublica and The Seattle Times did this piece, with so much investigation and legwork that it took - just really troubling. We owe our kids, all of our kids, a better education than this. We can do better. [00:17:34] Matt Driscoll: No, you're exactly right. And I think your prescription for what needs to happen is exactly right too - that's one of the frustrating things - talking to the local district. I felt obligated to call Tacoma and basically be like - you read this story, WTF. But you do that, right? And it's not a problem that they can solve by themselves - they can't, given the current structure, provide the services that they need to because they don't have the money and they don't have the staffing and they don't have the resources to do it. So Tacoma can't solve it alone. The Seattle schools can't solve it alone. It really does require a state response and really a complete rethinking of the way we serve these students - and most of all, bags and bags of money. And you would hope that reading something like this would inspire us to have those difficult conversations and would inspire that change. But the political realities of it make me fear that we're going to take half measures, we're going to increase our oversight of these - when what I really think we need to do is blow it up and work on the thing. Because the only option is not just for-profit. There are schools that do this work that are not for-profit. There are other ways to do this. So there's a school in Puyallup - I think it's the Olympic Academy or Olympic something or other, and this is really wonky stuff - but basically there are education regions and they can band together and they can create these schools - and it's not a for-profit thing, there's more oversight, there's more involvement, there's more district involvement. So it's not an unsolvable problem - what it takes is political will and a lot of money. [00:19:25] Crystal Fincher: That is true. And once again to reinforce, they're constitutionally mandated to provide this. If our constitution means anything, then that should motivate working to fix this problem. Also want to cover an issue that you also wrote about - Pierce County needs an affordable housing tax. It is going to be up for a vote in front of the Pierce County Council next week. What will this do? And is it going to pass? [00:19:57] Matt Driscoll: No, I don't think so. But first I want to just get your - as a King County person, are you shocked by the fact Pierce County does not have this tax? Because most people, many counties do. This is not like some rare thing. Is it mind-boggling to you to hear that we're still fighting in Pierce County about whether or not we should build affordable housing? [00:20:20] Crystal Fincher: Well, I may be a bit more familiar with Pierce County than a lot of people, so I find it not surprising at all in any kind of way. I think Pierce County is moving closer to there. Are they at the point where they're ready to pass this now? Questionable. But this problem is just getting so much worse for everybody that it's getting undeniable. And we are seeing, more and more, that voters are voting for people who are saying that they're going to take action. And seeing pressure even from entities who traditionally rail against any kind of taxes - no matter what kind of benefits they have, especially if people with money need to pay more taxes - that they're feeling pressure to at least come up with rhetoric saying that they want to address this problem. Because before, several years ago, I think people were comfortable not addressing this at all, or maybe not characterizing this as a problem for everyone. That's not possible anymore. This is a problem for everyone. And so now it's just the question, what are they going to do about it? And is this something that they feel moved to do? But just backing up a little bit - [00:21:34] Matt Driscoll: Let me answer your original question - I apologize. But yeah, so basically, it's a one-tenth of 1% sales tax in Pierce County, which would raise about $20 million a year - estimated - cost the average Pierce County resident about $16 a year, that then that money could be used for affordable housing or related services. Tacoma already has this tax, so we already do it here in Tacoma. A number of cities and counties across the state already do it - conservative and liberal - I don't know the exact numbers off the top of my head, but I know Wenatchee has it. Ellensburg has it. Spokane has it. Snohomish has it. Thurston has it. As you pointed out, I think we've passed the point of this being a problem that elected leaders feel comfortable ignoring. I think they know they can't ignore it. So in Pierce County, to pass this tax, what it's going to take is a supermajority on the Pierce County Council. So current makeup on the council is four Democrats, three Republicans. In my opinion, as a columnist, the reason that you've seen Pierce County move closer, as you alluded to, is because we do have a Democratic majority on the Pierce County Council now. So I think that's sped up some of these talks, some of this action. We do have a Republican Executive in Bruce Dammeier. But regardless, it's going to take five votes, by our charter, to get a tax passed - so they're going to need a Republican to side with the Democrats to pass this tax. It was passed out of committee last Tuesday. It'll be voted on on the 13th if it all goes as scheduled. And I anticipate a split vote - I think this is going to be a 4-3 vote. I think this is going to be very similar, for those who follow it - in Pierce County, our long trod towards enacting a behavioral health sales tax, which is very similar. It was a very similar situation. Counties, cities across the state already had it. It's money that goes to behavioral health services, mental health and addiction services. Pierce County drug our feet for years. We literally debated it for years and years and years. And we finally were able to get that fifth vote on the council to make it happen in 2021. So it took a very long time. I anticipate this is going to be a very similar thing. I think what's going to happen is, Democrats are going to make the case next week. It's going to be a rock solid case because anyone who looks around, I think, can see where home prices are, where housing prices are, our lack of affordable housing. I think the estimate by the county's own plan to address housing is they need something like 50,000 units affordable to those at 50% of area median income or below by 2044 just to meet the need, which doesn't even consider the housing that's needed to meet those above 50% of area median income, which is very low. I don't know Pierce County area median income off the top of my head, but it's it's usually around $50,000-60,000 depending on whether you're looking at individuals or families. This is not a wealthy county. This is hitting us hard. This is hitting us in Tacoma. This is hitting us in rural places. It's clear we need some sort of answer from the county - both to build the housing itself, and to help get federal money to address the problem. But no, I don't think it's going to pass yet. I think it's going to take a long time. I think the Republicans are going to express the things they're uneasy about, and they're going to go through the process of trying to answer those questions. I also anticipate it becoming more of a political football. If you follow Pierce County - listeners - clearly, you're very familiar with Pierce County, so I don't mean to suggest you're not - but for listeners, I know sometimes it seems like a weird, far off place. There's a micro home village for the chronically homeless that Republican County Executive Bruce Dammeier and his team very much wants to build. There are some questions about what the funding would look like for that. The current plan, as it's been described as basically a one-time investment of ARPA funds and then hands it over to private folks and donations. I think one thing that's going to - that you might see - is Democrats saying, if you want to build this, we need the tax. I wouldn't be surprised to see that. I also think it's just going to be one of those long bureaucratic processes where the Republicans need to prove to their base that they're not gung ho for a new tax, and they need to be won over, and they need all these guardrails that we talk about to ensure that the money is spent wisely and yada, yada, yada. I think eventually we'll get there, but I don't anticipate it Tuesday. So it was a long answer, but I think that's where things stand. [00:26:21] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think that's a decent read of the situation. What I would say - [00:26:25] Matt Driscoll: Decent, decent! [00:26:26] Crystal Fincher: I think it's a great, accurate read of the situation. I was about to say - I think you nailed it with its parallel to the behavioral health tax issue and debate, and how lengthy that was. And I think that's also instructive - for those who do want to see this implemented - on how to get that passed. As you talked about in your column, the pressure from the public was instrumental in getting that tax passed. And I think it will be instrumental in addressing this issue. And so for those who are listening, for the public out there - it is really important to contact your County councilmembers, to contact your elected leaders - even if you feel they're not inclined to vote for this, or if they are, to let them know what your situation and circumstance are, to let them hear your story. Anecdotes actually go a far way, a long way in addressing issues like this. A lot of times people don't understand the specific pain that is being felt by people put in these situations - how it impacts seniors on fixed incomes, veterans, those who are dealing with families with complex needs, the disabled community. People who are among the most vulnerable and in need of protection, who are some of the people who are least likely to be able to just meet an increase with a raise at work - if they're not working, if they're retired, if they're in different industries that are not keeping up with this kind of thing. A sales tax, I think across the board, you will find it's no one's favorite tax to implement. To be clear, it is a regressive tax. It is also the only lever that the county is afforded in this situation to be able to solve this. And until there are different avenues opened up at the state level, this is what the county is left with to be able to address this problem. And I think my read of the situation - a lot of people's read - is that this is the time to do everything possible at all levels to address this crisis, because it is a crisis. So it'll be interesting to see how this unfolds. It'll be interesting to hear, particularly what the Republican members of the council do say, as they deliberate this and discuss this in their meeting and in the public - and how they answer the concerns that their residents have. So we'll continue to follow this story also. [00:29:02] Matt Driscoll: Yeah, I agree. And just one quick point on that process - this is Hacks & Wonks. I was talking to some folks about the - why now, why we're doing it. And I think there is an importance, even if the tax isn't - even if it's not going to pass this time, I think it's helpful from a political standpoint to get the folks on that council on the record to say what their position is and why they're either supporting it or in some cases not supporting it, because that's exactly what we saw with the behavioral health sales tax is - once you publicly have that conversation and say what you would need to - because again, no one can deny the problem. Say what you would need to get there to support something like this - that kind of gets the ball rolling and you can start answering some of those questions. So I think it's, even if it doesn't pass next week, I think it's a starting point and it's a good first step. [00:29:56] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely agree. Another item I want to talk about today is with someone who the listeners of Hacks & Wonks are probably familiar with, because he has been a prior guest - is Pierce County Council Chair Derek Young is about to complete his final term on the Pierce County Council. He is being term-limited out and is stepping down and away from public life. And so I just wanted to just take a moment and see what your reflections on Derek and his term have been. How did you find his time in office to be? [00:30:37] Matt Driscoll: Yeah, it's an interesting discussion for me, in comparison for me, because he's been on the council for eight years now. So basically he arrived at his position about the same time that I arrived as a metro news columnist at The News Tribune. I'd been working at The Seattle Weekly previous to that, still lived down here - but so basically our tenure overlaps. So I basically covered him the whole eight years of his time on the council. And for Derek, for those who don't know - maybe it's been mentioned on the show - but he was essentially like the Parks and Rec's boy mayor of Gig Harbor on the council. I forget how young he was when he was first elected to the Gig Harbor City Council, but he was quite young. He did that and then later he ran for Pierce County Council and he's been there for eight years. So listen, from a journalism perspective, from a news perspective, I think we like to keep sources at an arm's length. We need to maintain skepticism, right? We can't become best friends with the people we cover. And certainly, Derek and I are not best friends by any means - but I will say - you interact with a lot of people in this job and you talk to a lot of people and you talk to a lot of politicians. And a lot of times they are, you can tell they're just feeding you soundbites, feeding you hot air, feeding you what the research says they should say. And Derek, I have just always found to be - one, he's really sharp on the policy stuff. He's one of those people that - I think it takes a special kind of person to get really into the mechanics of governments and just be really into it - excited about the procedures and the policy, but he's one of those people. He's really smart at that stuff and I just think he's really reasonable and really sensible, and those are things I appreciate in a leader. One thing about Derek is - there was a time when he was a Republican. And then he has since become a Democrat - now he's been a Democrat for many years now - but Pierce County is an interesting place, right? We've got Tacoma, which is this urban, progressive hub, and then you've got the rest of the county. And the bottom line with the rest of the county is it is either very moderate or red. And Derek is one of these people that can walk the line, that can get progressive things done in a county like Pierce County. And I think there's something to be said for that. I think we talked about the behavioral health tax already. I think Derek's a key reason that we got that. I think we're bringing up the affordable housing tax now, in part, because Derek's ending his term and they want to get a vote with him, even though his predecessor will likely - or the person who, I don't know, I always get those words mixed up - but the person who's filling his seat will likely vote the same way. I think it's as an honor to him - just the work he's done - they want to get a vote in before he leaves. So I think he's accomplished a lot. I think a lot of what he's accomplished has been behind closed doors in that kind of wonky way, that government work. I don't know how long we have to talk about this, but I was talking to Derek just last week about - I had an issue with a vote he took back in 2015 that would have allowed big box retailers up in Fredrickson. And I was all ready to rip him up on it because I was writing about Canyon Road and the way that has sprawl that's created. And I called him up and he was like - well, actually two years later we reversed that. It didn't get a lot of promotion because I didn't want to spike the football, but we were able to reverse that through just basic government maneuvering, the kind of stuff that most people don't see. And he's really good at that kind of stuff. So I think it's been a successful tenure and it'll be interesting to see what he does from here. [00:34:50] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And from my perspective, especially looking at the politics of things, I think Derek is one of the forces most responsible for the Democratic representation and the increase in Democratic representation that we've seen in Pierce County, certainly on the Pierce County Council. He has always prioritized developing leaders, recruiting leaders, and supporting other leaders. Like you said, a lot of his work has been done behind the scenes, which is absolutely true. And I don't think people really understand how much work he has done, both to build Democratic leadership in Pierce County and just on the nuts and bolts of building better communities. One of the cities doing the best job in the state, actually, in meeting their comprehensive plan goals to accept density is Gig Harbor. It's not an accident that that comes in the wake of the work that Derek Young did in Gig Harbor. And just understanding the nuts and bolts of building community, of understanding how you have to adequately plan for growth - or else there are lots of consequences - how regional planning is important to local outcomes and results in feeling that responsibility. Absolutely, I don't think the behavioral health tax would have passed without him. And doing meaningful stuff - he has taken his responsibility as a steward of public health for the county seriously. And has had to fight against a lot of opposition and weird forces, including through the pandemic, to maintain the capacity and ability to deliver on that responsibility. So I just appreciate his thoughtfulness. We don't agree on everything, but the one thing that I always find is that he's coming with a great understanding after a lot of conversations with folks in and throughout the community, that he is not making decisions simply based on emotion or rhetoric or what's popular, that he's really thoughtful and processes information and community needs in a really serious way, and really focused on outcomes and accountability - and I think that has shown. And so as I see him leaving, it certainly leaves a legacy that I think he can be proud of and that others are building upon. I think Gig Harbor and Pierce County are better off for Derek Young having served. So I just wanted to take a moment to talk about that and say I personally appreciate what he has done, and see him as an example for others to follow as they look at being an elected official in public leadership. [00:38:02] Matt Driscoll: Well said. I'm not going to gush about the guy on record - I just think that I'd lose street cred as a journalist if I just, if I just gushed. But yeah, he's very thoughtful and I've enjoyed covering it. It's been - it's funny to see - eight years of the overlap that we've had, but I've enjoyed talking to him. He's been a good source. You can always call him and he'll explain something to you, which I always appreciate because I do the Columbo thing, right - where it's - oh, walk me through this. And he'll always walk you through it. And those land use things, he's really sharp on those sorts of things. So yeah, I agree 100%. [00:38:36] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. And he's younger than a lot of people who wind up long political careers, because he did start at 21 in Gig Harbor. So excited to see what is next for him. Now, a troubling story this week. One of a few troubling stories, frankly, but there was a Renton brewery that was shot up before a drag queen story hour. This is a story that we're seeing unfold across the country, and we're not immune from it here in Washington state. There are a number of drag queen story hours. This one in Renton was one that caught people's attention, that actually had a lot of chatter online about it from right-wing sources railing against this. There's been a lot of unfortunate, inaccurate characterization of people who are just existing as trans people in the drag community - and characterizing them and people who patronize, support, associate with them - as "groomers" or "pedophiles," or somehow degenerate, morally unfit - blah, blah, blah, blah. This being used as a political tool by many people - attracting a lot of hate speech, threats of violence, dehumanizing speech - which we all know incites violence. And predictably, this has incited violence. Now there's no absolute clear tie. We don't know who did fire this shot into this brewery, but we are seeing a familiar pattern of hateful rhetoric, violent rhetoric - followed by violent action. We've seen it at hospitals that treat the trans community and trans children. We've seen it at other drag story, drag queen story hours, and now we're seeing it here. To be clear, these stories - it is literally a story hour - it's just a drag queen reading some stories. There is this assertion by right-wing forces that basically just existing as a drag queen - and they also say for the trans community and it's extending to the entire gay community really - that just existing in drag is inherently sexual and immoral, which is not the case. That's like saying just existing in a heterosexual existence and in particular type of clothing is inherently sexual. It is not, but that is the assertion here and it's being used to pass laws in different states to basically keep people from being able to fully participate in society and to ostracize them. This is part of a coordinated effort and goal that we are seeing, and it looks like violence and really this is terrorism. This is politically motivated violence, is part of the overall strategies and tactics that are being used by right-wing forces to fight against this. This happened in Renton. This attracted a lot of sympathy and support obviously from the community coming together to say this is unacceptable. We support you. There's a talk about a rally to support that in the community. There's no question that the broader community finds this unacceptable and abhorrent. The question is - how diligent are we going to be as a society and are investigative and law enforcement entities going to be in combating this? I think that's the question before us right now as a community - how intense are we going to be in standing against this? But it's unacceptable. I am not shocked certainly, but dismayed to see this happen locally in Renton, as it's happening across the country. And I'm dismayed at the acceptance of blatant hate and dehumanization of certain groups, whether it's the drag community, folks within the LGBTQ community - principally the trans community at this point in time. I think this is absolutely related to the rise in anti-Semitic talk that we see openly, and accepted, and that's being platformed around this country. Openly racist talk - we are seeing a renaissance of hate, and it is really dismaying. And it's going to take people not tolerating this in all of the spaces that they are in. If someone's making a joke as you're at the gym, if you're talking with your friends, if you're at work - wherever you're at, we can't tolerate jokes. We can't tolerate casual statements of hate. We can't tolerate dehumanization and othering and we have to make it absolutely clear that it's unacceptable to say that in our presence. People who espouse hate should be more uncomfortable doing that than they currently are, and we all have a role to play in that happening. Wondering what your take is on this, Matt? [00:44:18] Matt Driscoll: Well, just a hard pro sign I guess on everything you just said. I think you summed it up really well. I guess I feel obligated to note that I've read the story about this. I don't know everything about this specific instance, but I think broadly speaking - the picture you paint is 100% accurate. You see hate, I think you see it fomenting online. I think you see the way that that turns into real action and real harm and real danger and real terrorism. I do think that this constitutes as terrorism when things like this happen. And going back to a conversation we had before we started recording - obviously, you alluded to other places across the country where you've seen laws passed and those sorts of things and certainly those things are happening, but I think a big part of this is - you called it a renaissance of hate and I think these are desperate actions by people who are losing. I mean I think they're losing, and I think they know it and they feel it - and I think that this leads to - and this doesn't excuse any of it, just in case that's not incredibly clear - but I think they're desperate and it generates hate speech. And when you add in the internet where people are able to silo themselves off and the stuff just grows and grows and grows and grows, it eventually - and none of us should be shocked by this - it eventually jumps off the screen and moves into real life. And people get hurt, and people get killed, and lives are altered, and lives are taken. So yeah, I agree with you. I think the general level of acceptance of this sort of stuff in our society, and the way we talk about it, and the way we report on it, and the way we discuss it, and the way we think about it - needs to be more clear just how unacceptable it is. [00:46:27] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely agree. And to the point you were just discussing and we discussed earlier - they are losing. They are absolutely losing. I think one thing that we do need to recognize is that when it comes to marginalized populations gaining rights in this country - and there are another number of countries where this precedent has been set, but we don't need to look any further than this country - terrorism has been employed as a response to that. Okay, we can't do it at the ballot box, we're losing - so we're just going to enact violence to attempt to fulfill our needs. I mean there was a statement made in North Carolina that these acts of violence and terrorism will continue to happen as long as drag queen story hours exist - it's a pretty clear statement of motivation and intent. And we need to not be surprised by this, but be prepared for it. And to effectively fight against it at all levels - to hold our elected officials accountable for fighting against it, to hold our institutions accountable for fighting against it, and to hold ourselves accountable for fighting against it - in all of the spaces that we inhabit, all the places that we are, and the people who we associate with in any way. That this is unacceptable in all of its forms because we're not done with this. It's predictable that it was going to happen. We know that rhetoric like this results in violence and it's escalating. And either we're gonna take steps to counteract it or we're in for a lot more. We have to address this. And related to that - seemingly, are stories about attacks on our electrical grid here in the Pacific Northwest as we saw back East. We have had attacks on our electrical grid here in the Pacific Northwest. What has happened with these attacks? [00:48:35] Matt Driscoll: Yeah. Certainly I've just been - I think this is one of the - I know as a news person you get this weird kind of callous nature where you're like - oh man, this is a really interesting story - when it's actually a terrifying story, a really alarming story. But yeah, this story is all of those things, and I've just followed it like anyone - but basically, what we're seeing is what appear to be at least somewhat coordinated attacks on power grids across the country. I forget - where was the, was it Carolinas that - yeah. So and then we've had some up in this area as well - I think it was - KUOW did a really good kind of look into what's happening. And again - similar - going back to your point, I've just read the stories everyone else read, but certainly what seems to be happening - at least to some extent - is extremist online groups being involved with encouraging and instructing folks how to do this. And the people who follow online extremist groups then going out and doing it. And I want to be careful - because I, again, I've just read this item - we don't have an exact answer to what's going on yet, so I don't want to jump to conclusions. But I do think we can say that you know there does seem to be some online extremist group involvement with this to - helping to perpetuate it - and people are doing it across the country. And it's terrifying, not just because of the prospect of losing power and what that could do - and when we talk about losing power, we're talking about a whole lot more than just your lights going off. There's a lot of fairly obvious reasons why electricity is very - it's crucial to a lot of folks, including in medical situations and what have you, but it's again - it's just terrifying for the way you see just belligerent hate, the kind of hate that if you encountered it in-person, it would be like one person ranting lunacy on a corner. But online, the way people can self-select and can group, it becomes incredibly, incredibly dangerous. So yeah, I think there are similarities between this story and the one we just talked about in the way that online extremism seems to be playing a role in it. [00:51:08] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And it was in North Carolina - after gunfire attacks on two electrical substations - resulted in tens of thousands of people being out of power for days. This was not a brief interruption - schools were closed, traffic lights were dark, people who relied on refrigerated medication had it spoil. It is a horribly disruptive situation - our society runs on power at this point in time, and this was an attack on that. Here locally, there were six separate attacks in Washington and Oregon - the Bonneville Power Administration, Puget Sound Energy, Cowlitz County Public Utility have reported different attacks involving cutting through fences into these facilities, attacking infrastructure with gunfire, setting fires - really seems to be employing a number of the same tactics that we saw in North Carolina. And across these six different attacks here in Washington and Oregon - employing similar tactics across those attacks - so this seems to be a coordinated effort that we're seeing. Some of these resulted in more disruptive power losses than others. This doesn't seem to be some super sophisticated entity doing sophisticated things to disrupt this - these are people crudely breaking in, shooting up these facilities. It does invite questions about what can be done to harden the security of these facilities, where else may we be vulnerable - there are lots of conversations about just our infrastructure in our community for basic services and what can be done to better protect those, because evidently there are groups that are seeing those as principal and primary targets, no matter how many people it impacts. And it does seem like this tactic has now shifted to - we're targeting specific communities, but we're willing to make sure everyone feels pain in order to try and help achieve our goals. And it's causing pain, and we're - this is the tip of the iceberg, it seems. And either we do something to intervene right now, or we see this get a lot worse. The FBI has declined to comment on whether or not they're investigating these, but it's an issue and we've had several attacks here locally and it's just troubling. [00:54:08] Matt Driscoll: It's, yeah - troubling is the word for it, I would say. It's just, it's so fascinating on a lot of levels because as you mentioned, sometimes you see terrorism and it has a really specific target - and kind of the purpose of it can - you see it. With this, it's almost just chaos. It's almost just like the unraveling of society around us. I think you're right - the sole purpose of it is to inflict just damage, just widespread damage and it's almost - it's not specific, it's just trying to disrupt and harm people and create havoc and chaos for - from a small, small minority of people - assuming what we have is accurate with the ties that - again, feel desperate and are led to do desperate things. So yeah, the year 2022 - the year we had to start guarding our electric grids. [00:55:17] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. [00:55:18] Matt Driscoll: If you had that on your bingo card, I guess, you win. [00:55:22] Crystal Fincher: I hope we don't have it on the 2023 bingo card - I will tell you that much - I would love to nip this in the bud and get real clear that this is unacceptable everywhere. And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, December 9th, 2022. Hacks & Wonks is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. Our insightful co-host today is metro news columnist and opinion editor for The News Tribune in Tacoma, Matt Driscoll. You can find Matt on Twitter at @mattsdriscoll - that's two L's at the end. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter at @HacksWonks, and you can find me at @finchfrii, with two I's at the end. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

Another day of testimony is underway in the trial of Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer.

6am hour -- Democrats and Pres. Biden "throwing shade" at Iowa regarding the presidential primary voting, Oregon's Constitutionally shaky M114 running in to trouble even before the court challenge occurs, the story of the weekend is the Twitter documents that disclose the corporate censorship on content that hurt or negatively portrayed Democrats--including Joe Biden--during the 2020 Presidential election, GUEST: attorney Anne Bremner, defense attorney for Pierce Co. Sheriff, Ed Troyer, describes the contention in the criminal trial about what was threatened when Troyer approached what he deemed was a suspicious car in his north Tacoma neighborhood, why there may be one more proverbial shoe to drop in the trial, Oregon's AG wants a delay in voter approved gun-control law M114 that would require a permit to exercise a Constitutional right. 7am hour -- weekend version of the National Anthem by singer Ashanti has the music world buzzing, UW Husky football team will face former head coach--Steve Sarkisian--in Alamo Bowl game versus U. of Texas, Donald Trump's wild suggestions after Twitter documents show that Twitter censored content to benefit Democrats in 2020 and protect candidate Joe Biden from negative publicity, Democrats and Pres. Biden want to remove Iowa as the first vote in 2024 Presidential primary, the irony that Iowa--which is 84% white population--launched the Presidential campaign of Barack Obama isn't Black enough in 2024 for Democrats, new polling by Marquette University asks Republicans and GOP leaning voters who they prefer for President in 2024, the looooong pause before Dr. Anthony Fauci answers a news media question if he'd re-do anything as Director of NAID. 8am hour -- apparently Ye (Kanye West) is still very popular in Seattle after the updated listing of five most streamed music artists on Spotify, and then Bad Bunny makes a KVI debut, how Ye is able to manipulate social media and news outlets for attention to his anti-Semitic, abhorrent behavior; the WA Attorney General's office is under the microscope as the trial against Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer begins, the alleged threat in the Troyer encounter with newspaper delivery driver, "Cheap virtue signalling by Gov. and attorney general" doing favors for social justice activists.

On this week's Hacks & Wonks, Crystal is joined by Executive Director of The Urbanist, Doug Trumm. Crystal and Doug quickly run through news items about progress on Washington state's capital gains tax, a discussion on the worsening traffic safety crisis, and labor stories about Amazon's questionable fulfillment of a court order and the federal government's blocking a railway workers strike ahead of the holidays. Public safety news out of Pierce County includes the start of embattled Sheriff Ed Troyer's criminal trial and troubling news about an officer charged in Manuel Ellis' death having been flagged for violent behavior during their academy training. Doug and Crystal then discuss the gulf between reality and rhetoric that has appeared in media reporting on crime and law enforcement and how it reaches into electeds' handling of issues like decriminalization of simple drug possession at the State Legislature, outcry over a miniscule portion of the Seattle Police Department budget not being funded in the City of Seattle budget process, and the campaign messaging of the King County Prosecuting Attorney's race. On a hopeful note, Leesa Manion's solid win in the King County Prosecutor's race and her strong performance - across the county, across cities, and across legislative districts - serves as a referendum for voters rejecting punitive measures and signifies an appetite for root cause-addressing, data-driven solutions that work. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Doug Trumm, on Twitter at @dmtrumm. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “WA Supreme Court clears way for state to collect capital-gains tax” by Claire Withycombe from The Seattle Times    "The Urbanist's Ryan Packer Discusses Worsening Traffic Safety Crisis on KUOW" by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   “Labor board blasts Amazon's "flagrant" attempt to flout court order“ by Emily Peck from Axios    “Biden signs rail agreement into law, thwarting strike“ by Shawna Chen from Axios   “Criminal trial begins in Sheriff Ed Troyer's false-reporting case” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times   “Academy warned Tacoma of violent training episode by officer later charged in Manuel Ellis' death” Patrick Malone from The Seattle Times   “Washington should be a leader in ending the War on Drugs” by Mark Cooke from ACLU-WA   “Nelson, Pedersen, and Sawant Dissent Ahead of Final Vote on Seattle Budget” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   “Public Safety Politics and the Even Election Reckoning” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher - I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we are continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a cohost. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's cohost: Executive Director of The Urbanist, Doug Trumm. Welcome! [00:00:52] Doug Trumm: Hey, thanks for having me. It's such a busy news week - it's really going to be a slog to get through it all. [00:00:57] Crystal Fincher: Yeah we will make an attempt. I guess, starting off with some statewide news that isn't ultimately the news that everyone is waiting for, but kind of a pit stop along the way - the Washington Supreme Court clears the way for the state to start collecting capital gains tax. So what happened here? [00:01:16] Doug Trumm: It's still just an early - not a ruling, but just a decision on the Court's part - not to issue an injunction. But hey, that's a really good sign because if the Court was leaning towards invalidating the capital gains tax, they probably would have issued an injunction. But at the same time, you don't want to read too much into these tea leaves, but certainly the fact they can start collecting the tax makes this start to feel pretty real. [00:01:41] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I would agree - don't know what's going to happen yet. I think lots of people are hoping that we do get a favorable ruling for the capital gains tax, but there still is the big issue of whether this counts as, officially, an income tax, which would make it unconstitutional under our Constitution. Many interpretations show that it is not, but we are waiting for the ruling to definitively decide that from the Supreme Court, which I think we're anticipating getting early next year. Is that the case? [00:02:14] Doug Trumm: Yeah, that sounds about right. And there's a lot of ways they could rule. But yeah, certainly one of - the hope, I think, is that they would create a new category of - income actually being income, which in our state - oddly, it's not. So that's what creates this huge hurdle to doing progressive taxation - is that it counts as property, and property you have to tax flat. And progressives - we're not trying to argue for a flat income tax. We want a graduated progressive income tax. So if they get a really favorable ruling, that will open the door to that and suddenly there'll be a lot more options on the table and hopefully Democrats actually take them. [00:02:53] Crystal Fincher: I definitely hope so. Also in the news, one of The Urbanists' own, Ryan Packer, was on KUOW discussing what is really - our own crisis here locally, and a nationwide crisis in traffic safety. What is happening here? [00:03:13] Doug Trumm: Yeah, Washington state really echoes the national trend. And the national trend does not mirror the international trend, which - most industrial nations are getting much safer. They've used the pandemic, sort of as a catalyst in a way, to encourage people to take transit, or walk, or bike or - hey, the roads aren't as busy, let's do this project now and make the streets safer. That's really not the approach we've seen in the United States and in Washington state. We've kind of spun our wheels and we've let projects kind of get behind schedule because of the pandemic. And that's happening globally too in some cases, but usually the vision's only getting sharper. So this is reflected in the data and the New York Times had a piece about this this week - Emily Badger - and the US is up 5% during the pandemic in traffic fatalities. But almost every other major nation, it's going down significantly - so it's a bad case of American exceptionalism. We were so excited for our transportation reporter, Ryan Packer, to be on KUOW to talk about this - their reporting is really raising this issue locally a lot. And they really, at all these meetings where some of these decisions quietly get made, whether that's a transportation safety advisory commission or some obscure regional body. But mostly, there's little efforts here and there to improve safety, but we're not seeing the wholesale re-envisioning of streets or strategy that has really been effective in other countries and bringing down collisions and deadly crashes. [00:05:04] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think so. And we continue to see this tension here, in the United States and locally, between designs that are car-centric being more dangerous for everyone else on the road. And investments in transportation, in pedestrian mobility, bike and transit access and mobility - and it seems like the more we design roads and transportation through ways principally for, primarily for cars and prioritizing their needs above everyone else's, that we come out with these outcomes that are just less safe and too often fatal for all of the other kinds of users. [00:05:50] Doug Trumm: Yeah, exactly. And the American system doesn't even treat pedestrian safety as a category of car safety when they give out their gold, whatever-rated car safety awards. If - you can have a three-ton car that maims pedestrians, but if the person inside is fine - oh, that's safety rated - great. So there's certainly federal stuff, but Ryan and The Urbanist, in general, we've really focused on - what are these projects at the City level? Unfortunately, the clear epicenter of this crisis in Seattle is Southeast Seattle District 2, Tammy Morales' district - and she's been a champion. She's recently told me - hey, I didn't think I was going to become the traffic safety person when I first ran for office, but given my district, this is - I really am. And she didn't say this, but implicit in this is our Transportation Chair hasn't really been focused on that - Alex Pedersen - and we'll probably get into that some more when we talk about the budget, because that's - the investments we're making aren't completely safety-focused, as you alluded to. And we have projects queued up to make it safer to bike and walk in D2, but there was just a wave of delays - projects pushed back one year, two years from the original timeline. There's supposed to be a safe bike route through Beacon Hill, there's supposed to be a safe protected bike lane on MLK Way - but those projects are behind schedule. As far as we know, they're still happening, but if you were - if this area is responsible for over half of the - D2 is responsible for over half of the traffic fatalities in the whole city - the last thing we'd want to be doing is delaying those projects in that district. [00:07:39] Crystal Fincher: Seems so - it doesn't seem to make much sense - same with just connecting sidewalks and neighborhoods that people have been waiting for decades to happen and still hasn't. So long way to go there. Also this week, we had a number of events, news happen in the labor realm - couple of items that affect us locally. One - so Amazon just had a ruling from the National Labor Relations Board directing them to correct some of their action, which they still seem to be just not doing. What's going on at Amazon? [00:08:19] Doug Trumm: Yeah, they think they're kind of above the law when it comes to this. They were supposed to read out this ruling saying - hey, you can't be fired for union organizing, or even having discussions with union organizers, or being union-curious. But instead of just following the order to the letter of the law and reading that out to all their employees, they chose specifically the shift change and then just played a video. So the Labor Board was pretty upset about that because this was a court order, they were supposed to follow it - but they weaseled their way out of it in a very corporate lawyer-y kind of fashion where theoretically just maybe - if you squint your eyes, does this qualify for following the order? I don't know. Alexa, read order. I don't know how you could get - this ruling actually to get to the people, but they're figuring out a way not to do it. [00:09:16] Crystal Fincher: One of the interesting things here - employers are responsible for letting their employees know what their rights are. Amazon has bent over backwards not to do that. This is another example of it. We also see Starbucks bending over backwards to be hostile to the union and we continue to see those actions, and then being called out by the National Labor Relations Board also. And this week, of course, we saw - yesterday - Congress take action to avert the railroad strike by passing legislation that still denies railroad workers any kind of paid sick leave, which just should be the most basic thing that every employee everywhere is entitled to. And just beyond disappointing to me personally - to a ton of people - that we had particularly a Democratic president and right now a Democratic Congress who acted against workers and against unions and their ability to take sick pay. It's just bad all the way around, and it feels like they were thrown under the bus because of the threat of bad things happening if they strike - instead of that being the key that says, wow, these really are essential employees. And hey, there have been billions in stock buybacks recently and hundreds of millions of compensation over the past few years for executives. Maybe they can also spare a sick day and to pressure the companies to provide that very, very, very basic thing for employees. Just very disappointing for me personally. How did you feel about that? [00:11:01] Doug Trumm: Yeah, that was disappointing and Amtrak Joe really let us down. I think it's odd that employees are held hostage to how valuable their work are, right? Their work is, right? Because everyone's - we can't have rails shutting down right in the middle of the holiday crisis when all these companies are trying to make a ton of money for themselves and have a strong Q4 and really try to get some blood flowing in this economy. But instead of going - oh yeah, so I guess we should pay those workers well to make sure that happens, and give them the sick time they're asking for and the benefits - it's just force it through because we create a vision of a crisis if they are actually allowed to use their union rights. So it just goes back to 1880s again of the rail barons and the laws that they got passed - that they're able to compel the workers in this way and have Congress step in. But it certainly is not - hopefully not the end of the story. Hopefully they can actually get real sick pay, especially in a time of a lot of viral spread - both in the COVID realm and really bad flu season. This is upending their lives when they get sick and it doesn't have to be this way. So it's disappointing, and I saw Mayor Harrell decided to pile on with that and say it was great that they'd broke the strike, and work in that he still supports workers' rights and everything - I think you can't have it both ways in this case. You can't One Seattle your way out of this one - you're either with the workers or you're not. [00:12:46] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, pretty cut and dry there. And what I just think is so shortsighted is that this policy is partially a response to being short-staffed. They are already facing staffing shortages. We are already at the breaking point where if - right now, under the current staffing levels, if an employee is sick, if someone does miss a day, that can create chaos in the system because there aren't enough people to cover. And this just perpetuating a system that is hostile to workers, where workers can face discipline for any unplanned absence - and people get sick and families get sick, as we all know - this is an inevitability. That if you're subject to discipline for that, they're seeing more people just leave, instead of have their career of however many years or decades end with them being disciplined for taking care of their sick kid. So we are already setting ourselves up for massive disruptions by making this worker shortage worse. We see things like this happening in education, in healthcare, in transportation - across the board - with public transit systems and others. So we just need to really take a look at what we're doing here and - are we setting ourselves up for the same problems that we swear we have to take action like this to avoid, when really we're just making it more of an inevitability that it does eventually happen. I hope we all learn from this and do better and hold our public officials accountable for doing better. Also in the news this week, speaking of holding public officials accountable, the criminal trial for Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer just started. This is the trial about him making a call, that was allegedly a false report, accusing a newspaper delivery person - a Black man who was delivering newspapers - of being suspicious, acting nefariously. He said that his life was threatened by the newspaper carrier, which does not - at least through all the reporting initially, did not seem to be supported by other accounts in what happened. He ended up being charged and now the trial has began. They sat the jury. Opening statements happened. Testimony has begun. What has happened in this trial that's been notable so far? [00:15:22] Doug Trumm: They use the same strategies they always use, it seems like - it's pretty clear that this police officer clearly didn't act as you'd want someone to act. Now he's trying to get out of it claiming - okay, I did feel threatened or I did. And it's how it plays out every time and a lot of people were willing to go along - suddenly this violence incident that this Sheriff deputy caused - suddenly it's not his fault because something else, and it just seemed like hopefully we're finally learning from that. But we've seen a lot of other cases where it's enough for some people to exonerate someone. I don't know - it's frustrating that this is how it always goes, but maybe eventually this line will go stale. [00:16:13] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, we will see. This is one where it's interesting because - for the day job and for this podcast, following the news is useful. But for my own personal sanity, this is a situation where often I find my inclination is to disconnect from - definitely the daily news, the drumbeat of news about this - just because some of the early signals, decisions, indications from this trial feel really familiar to me. Meaning that - man, we've seen so many of these trials end and the police officer, sheriff ends up being found not guilty, gets off regardless of what looks to be very obvious evidence to many people in the public. And I just - this will be very disappointing once again, if that does happen, but we will see what happens with this trial and continue to follow it for you all. Also, there was news that came out about an officer that wound up being charged in Manuel Ellis's death, having a very violent episode previously, and that not being heeded after that was communicated to the Tacoma Police Department. And so tragic. Can you detail what we found out here? [00:17:44] Doug Trumm: Yeah, I really encourage everyone to read about this story because it really makes you question how these systems are working and how this can happen. Because this officer - Rankine, I think is his name - was in the police academy. They identified that he had an issue with violence and with - I forget what they called it, "code black" or something like that - basically just shutting down and going tunnel vision, not hearing the outside world once he's in that mode. And it's related to his combat service as a veteran - obviously, that's a complicated issue - we're very, very glad that people serve, but that doesn't necessarily mean we want to put them on the frontlines interacting with the public if they have these unaccounted-for issues that are identified by the police academy. The police academy trainer decided to write a note, his superiors after a couple of days forwarded it to the Tacoma Police Department who was sponsoring him to be in this police academy and said - hey, we're worried about this guy. He had this violent incident where he shot someone during a training simulation who was not someone - the training simulation was supposed to be how do you de-escalate the situation, how do you - and the person was not cooperating, to be clear - and it was a virtual simulation. But the trainer was - why did you do this? And he couldn't really explain it because he went blank or whatever, and thought he had done fine because, I guess in the military, that's what he was conditioned to do and had seen a lot of violent episodes - but hadn't really made the connection that now you're in a civilian setting and you're supposed to be de-escalating situations instead of fighting your way out of them. And what ended up happening, despite the police academy issuing this warning saying - hey, maybe don't take this guy actually - the Tacoma Police Department still took him, didn't really make any accommodations, or - it's not clear that they warned his - the rest of the people he'd be working with, basically just treated him like one of the guys. They did put him on desk duty initially, but I think that's just what rookies kind of do. Then they put him on patrol with another rookie and it was not even a couple months - it was less than a year - and he had already, this happened. It was clearly a tragic incident waiting to happen and it did happen. It leaves us with a lot of questions like - is the police academy - is a little note in your file enough, or should he fail out of the academy? That's one odd thing about this case - they didn't fail him. The other odd thing is that even with this big warning, this huge red flag, Tacoma PD didn't do anything and now they're stonewalling the reporters from The Seattle Times and all the other newspapers that are knocking on the door, and they're just kind of clammed up about it, but it's clear they messed up in a big, big way. [00:21:03] Crystal Fincher: It's just one of those things that makes you want to once again ask - what are we doing here? If there is behavior that is so violent that you feel that you need to warn someone else not to hire him, why are you passing him? To the question that you just asked, why does that person pass the academy in the first place? Why was that not heeded when they were hired? Okay, they were hired and brought onto the academy. Why was no corrective action taken, no additional guidance? And yes, this wound up very predictably. The warning was given because it could be foreseen that this would wind up in unjustified violence to a member of the public - which it did, resulting in that person's death. This is a person, right? And it's just - if we can't weed out someone who even before they get in the system are demonstrating unacceptable violence - violence that you have to tell someone to look out for - what is the point of anything? There is this characterization by people, who I believe are acting in bad faith largely - that any kind of talk of accountability is antithetical to safety, it makes us less safe, it's hostile to police officers, and is not worth pursuing. And if we do, we're making life harder for them. If they're saying this is what belongs in their ranks, if they're saying that this is acceptable for passing and getting in, and then hiring without anything - then this is unacceptable. They're saying - they've said that their own policies were violated - this is seemingly saying that the warning came from them not meeting their own standards. If they can't hold themselves to their own standards and weed people out who don't fit that, then someone else has to. And evidently those aren't really their standards if they can't adhere to them. So someone has to, otherwise we're just letting - in this situation - basically killing machines out onto the street. And we have to do better. And it just makes no sense that we are entertaining people who say that this is bad for police officers. Acting against policy should not be bad for them. If so, we should have discussions about the policy, but this doesn't make any sense. And if their job truly is to protect and serve, and someone is acting completely against that, then acting more in concert with that and making sure that happens should be a welcome development. And over and over again, the public continues to vote for real accountability and reject those kinds of disingenuous arguments that - hey, you got to "back the blue" or nothing else. People can be happy to have a police officer there, that they're happy to have a police officer when they call 911 and show up, and still believe that there should be guidelines for their conduct and behavior that guide them and that they should be held accountable to - just like everyone else with every other job in this society. It just is so infuriating that - hey, this is predictable, it's foreseeable. And just with a shrug. [00:24:50] Doug Trumm: Yeah, and it wasn't his first time - [00:24:52] Crystal Fincher: Right. [00:24:53] Doug Trumm: - using basically a chokehold-type thing. And he had another I-can't-breathe incident and they just were like - oh well, it happens. And if he says - oh this person was threatening or violent - they kind of just, even though after the whole George Floyd thing - there's one thing that I thought was kind of the lowest hanging fruit - okay, we probably shouldn't use chokeholds anymore or knee on people's back, but this is exactly what this guy was doing. And he suffered no consequence for it until he killed someone. [00:25:27] Crystal Fincher: Acting against policy. And as we have seen with so many of these incidences, that there have been several occasions where officers who wind up killing someone - use violence unjustifiably, use violence against policy in situations before the killing occurs - which there is no discipline for. It is time for them to be held accountable to the job that the public believes they were hired to do. Just like all of us. That's not hostile. That's just common sense. So we'll see how that continues. It is just another infuriating, devastating, tragic element of Manny Ellis's death that is just - it's tragic. [00:26:21] Doug Trumm: Hopefully we learn from it. And I think it relates to how we get so breathless and just completely operate on fear and desperation - we have to hire, we have to reach some sort of set number of cops and then we'll feel safe. But when you get that desperate and you just want to add ranks so you can put out your press release to claim victory on that - you're hiring the bottom of the barrel. If we were serious about safety, we wouldn't worry so much about that number as flunking people out of the academy who are killing machines. You have to put accountability ahead of "let's just hit a number," "here's the right response time," "here's the right number of officers" - those are important things, but you can't get so blinded to them that you're taking terrible cops. [00:27:13] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and that makes the community less safe. The academy warned that - Hey, putting this officer on the street may make the community less safe, this is acting against public safety, we don't want people to be victimized unjustly by violence - and that was the warning that came with this officer - and look. We'll continue to see how this happens. Also kind of teeing up this week were some articles just talking about the War on Drugs - how much of a failure it has been - which is very timely because in this upcoming legislative session, which we're starting to see a flurry of activity with. And our new legislators now down in Olympia - and getting set and oriented and all of that to start the session next month - is that the Blake decision, which a couple years ago the Supreme Court basically decriminalized or invalidated the law that criminalized simple possession of any substances. Our Legislature subsequently acted to bring a uniform policy across the state and kind of instituted a new method of criminalization - some of it was lighter criminal penalties, but still criminal penalties for substance use and possession - in the face of a ton of evidence and data that shows that - Hey, criminalization is actually not an effective intervention. We've seen the entire War on Drugs. We've seen what has happened there. If we actually treat this as a public health problem and not as a criminal justice problem, we are much better off. There was a survey of Washington state voters - a poll taken - and in that poll, 85% of likely voters - the poll was in June 2022 of this year - 85% of voters believe that drug use should be treated as a public health issue and not a criminal justice issue. And this really sets the tone and provides a mandate for our Legislature, which has to take up the Blake decision and the Blake legislation again this year - because there was a sunset provision in it that is now up this year - to actually make good on this policy. How did you read this? [00:29:45] Doug Trumm: It seems like the public's at a different place than some of the very serious, centrist, establishment Democratic leaders on this who are - the likes of Chris Gregoire, who are saying - Oh, we really need to get - go back to our old policy where - it was drug possession was fully criminalized and it was just one strike and they could, people could be locked up for simple possession. And I think they portray that it's really important to dealing with downtown disorder, or crime, or whatever. But that's not really where the people are at, and this three-strike provision probably does make it, if you're only listening to cops, annoying - 'cause they feel like these warnings are letting people off the hook. But with jails being pretty full right now, you start running into this problem of where are are we putting people? We've done this drug war thing a long time, it hasn't really worked, the people are ready for a public health approach instead of a punitive lock-them-up approach. We just saw that with the election of Leesa Manion for King County Prosecutor that - the people went with the person who was willing to do diversionary programs that try to get people help and not load them up with jail time and fees, but instead give them an opportunity to get back on their feet and better themselves and think about rehabilitation instead of just ruining someone's life. I think the people are ready to take a different approach - I don't know how far folks, both in terms of the State Legislature and the public, if they're - maybe not ready for a Portugal-style solution, but I really think they're ready to have that conversation rather than just go back to the old way of doing things. I think the - maybe one of the things will come up is fentanyl - it really is a scary drug in terms of what it can do to a person and how likely it is to overdose - I'm sure they'll try to use that and maybe fentanyl is treated a little bit differently than other drugs, but it seems like a lot of substances doesn't - I don't know why you immediately lock someone up for having possession of a set quantity. It's sort of like - we got to get this person help, but jail isn't help. [00:32:11] Crystal Fincher: And jail doesn't help, and it actually does more harm than good in this situation. It makes our streets less safe. People are less stable, more prone to commit crime, when they get out - and more prone to continue to use. We've seen all of this and again, this is just about possession. This doesn't impact any laws on selling, or distributing, or anything like that - those still remain and that's not part of this discussion. But it would be good for them to act in alignment with where the evidence and data show - we are made more safe, and people are made more healthy and less likely to use and abuse drugs and other harmful substances. So we will continue to follow this throughout the legislative session and see what happens. Also big news this week - the Seattle City Council passed their budget. What did we get? What are the highlights and lowlights of this budget? [00:33:19] Doug Trumm: Yeah, it was a marathon day to wrap up the amendments and do all the speeches on Monday and Tuesday - I guess the really marathon day was the Budget Committee last week. It always is a slog at the end and it's tough to know everything that's happening, but ultimately the budget is - there's a lot of different takes on it, there's a lot of perspectives. But ultimately what happened is largely - Mayor Harrell's budget is reflected in the Council's balancing package. They did make some significant changes, but nothing enormous. And the issue that they're dealing with is that there is a large budget shortfall. It started out at $141 million at the beginning. And then they got the news that the projections had gotten a lot worse late in the game - so that any hope of Council just adding a bunch of new investments in evaporated, once they got that forecast that Real Estate Excise Tax was going to be way down - that was the main thing that took a bite out of the budget. And we use that REET money to fund a lot of our infrastructure investments in this city. So from a transportation focus, I was pretty disappointed to not see more investments in street safety. They did make some. Councilmember Tammy Morales really fought for her district - as we mentioned earlier - epicenter of the safety crisis. So she got a proviso to make sure that they improve the bike lanes in Southeast Seattle to have harder infrastructure, so you can't just run over those flex posts and injure someone on the bike lane or the sidewalk. That's one positive add, but it was just a proviso, so hopefully SDOT does the right thing and implements it rather than kind of wiggling out of it. But by and large, transportation didn't get a ton of adds and Mayor Harrell's budget didn't make a ton of new initiatives or pushes there, so that's one thing that fell victim to that shortfall. But a lot of the action was around public safety and that's where we saw a lot of the grandiose takes on - especially on the centrist side of - Oh, this was a disaster. End of the day, the Council funded 99% of the mayor's SPD budget. They're making a really big deal about this 1% - and within that 1% that the Council did do cuts was the ShotSpotter gunfire detection surveillance system, which has a really - it has a track record - it's been implemented in a lot of cities and that track record is not very good. It doesn't really, there's no correlation to it decreasing crime, leads to a lot of false calls - those false calls can then cause over-policing of communities of colors where they're implemented. And it has in, in instances, led to violent altercations between cops who are like - Oh, the gunfire thing said there was a gunshot here. And sometimes it's slamming a car door, or firework, or something - could set something off - or backfiring car, I guess. So what are we doing here? This is not evidence-based practice - Council made the budget safer, but if you listen to Councilmember Sara Nelson or Councilmember Alex Pedersen, who voted against the budget, and then some of the press releases that were fired off shortly after - the Chamber actually sent the press release before the final vote, but right after the Council briefing. They said - this is, these are public safety cuts. And the other big thing that happened was - there's 80 positions that were unfilled of actually 240 total unfilled positions at SPD, because they're having a hard time recruiting faster than they're losing officers, which relates to a national trend of a lot of attrition and police officers and not as much new people entering the profession. But they eliminated 80 positions off the books - because when they leave those 240 empty positions, that means that those, that money goes into SPD's budget every cycle. And it throws out the balance of the whole thing because you're - basically all the extra money goes to SPD instead of just being in the General Fund for them to debate and figure out where to go. It can go back into public safety investments and that's what happened this time, even with the eliminating the budgets. But basically a lot of people tried to turn that into - they were cutting officers - but they fully funded the mayor's hiring plan, which - they're going to hire 125 officers, which they hope - that's then 30 new, net new officers. But that wasn't good enough for those two councilmembers and for the Seattle Chamber of Commerce. So they both kind of opposed this budget. And that seemed to be pretty upsetting to Budget Chair Teresa Mosqueda, because she had worked with both of those Councilmembers Nelson and Pedersen and had put their amendments into the budget - some of them. And she thought that spirit of compromise would lead them to vote for it, but they did not. And so it almost - this budget almost failed because it needed six votes. It only got six votes because of those two defections, plus Councilmember Sawant makes it her tradition and has always voted against the budget. And she's coming at it from the opposite direction of - Hey, let's invest more in social services, and let's tax the rich, and increase the JumpStart payroll tax - is her argument, the last few years. And she specifically said - I'm not chucked in with Pedersen and Nelson. So yeah, it ended up being kind of a mess messaging-wise, but largely this budget was reflecting Harrell's priorities, plus a few of the Council's. And it made the most of a really downward trend in revenue - and that was by virtue of JumpStart payroll tax kind of papering over some of the holes, and also then letting them make a record investment in housing. So housing definitely did well. There were some Green New Deal priorities. And it's a really big budget, so I'm kind of - broad strokes here - but if I'm missing anything, Crystal, let me know. But yeah, it felt bizarre to me that the the debate about it was so far from the reality. And I guess these few million dollars in the police budget are enough to cause these votes against, and the Chamber to be really upset, and saying this is public safety cuts. But it largely seemed like much more collaboration and kumbaya between the mayor and most of the council, with Budget Chair Mosqueda and Mayor Harrell complimenting each other about how well they work together. [00:40:35] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. I think what we're seeing is reflective of some of the reality versus rhetoric that we see on a national level, that we see with conservative Republicans, even the MAGA Republicans, where the rhetoric just doesn't match reality. But the rhetoric is a tactic to eventually shift people's perception of what reality is. It doesn't matter what happened if you just keep saying something else happened - Oh my gosh, this is, you know, horrible. We didn't get anything we're asking for. We need to move in this completely different direction - people start to absorb that and pick that up. As we saw this week with the New York Times - basically admitting without participating, pointing the finger at themselves - saying, Yeah, rhetoric about public safety was really disjointed from the actual facts. There are tons of stories, but when you look at the actual crime rates, they weren't actually high. Media did this. And they very conveniently left out that they were at the top of the list of media doing that. But it felt like that's similar to this conversation. This rhetoric is completely detached from what happened in the budget and from what's happening on the ground - yeah, majority of what Harrell asked for was in there. One notable exception was the ShotSpotter technology as you covered, which actually didn't have a big, a huge price tag compared to some other things. But it's still money that, especially in a shortfall, can be better spent to make people safe. And I think that's where a lot of people are at right now. It's just - lots of people are worried about safety, but where they continue to vote, and how people on the ground continue to vote in elections is - yes, we do want our communities to be safer, but we recognize that the public safety equation is bigger than just policing. We have to talk about interventions that are appropriate for the crises that we're facing. Just sweeping and moving around and criminalizing people who are unhoused is not making that problem any better, it's making it worse. So instead of investing money continually in sweeps and in criminalization and carceral solutions - Hey, what if we actually use that money to put people in houses - that actually is a solution to that problem. Other cities are doing that with success. We could be doing that. Hey, if people are having behavioral health crises, what if there was actually treatment available for them and a way for them to get the issues that they have addressed? Jail is not that. Arresting them is not that. And we still have, and prior to some of the heel digging-in that police unions have done over the past few years, there were tons of officers and unions who admitted that freely - hey, we go into a situation where someone's called us and someone is having mental health issue - jail isn't going to do anything for that. If anything, it may destabilize that situation more and put them further away from help and make that situation worse. We actually need interventions that are appropriate for the challenges that we're facing. We have to deal with extreme poverty. We have to deal with people who are in crisis. We really do not need to deal with it like New York is signaling they're going to deal with it - in mandatorily incarcerating people. We see that we have problems here in our state and a lawsuit that's currently being filed with people with behavioral health problems struggling in our current jail system and not getting their needs met, and their whole process is being delayed sometimes with no foreseeable end because we don't have enough resources in that direction. So people want that, but they don't want this continual one note - Hey, it's either police or it's nothing. And we'll see where it's going - as we hear a siren in the background here, appropriate - but yeah, it's just the rhetoric doesn't match the reality. The saddest thing is that the public sees it and our leaders are behind where the public is at - and they keep asking and they keep voting for something different. And we have leaders that are just stuck on the same thing, and I think that frustration and tension is growing. And it feels like they're ratcheting this up for the 2023 City elections coming, and they're going to try and make this a flashpoint for those conversations. But I think that's not a very wise strategy, because the public has not been going for it. We just had an election where it's pretty clear they did not go for that argument in many different ways at many different levels. This is not just a Seattle thing. This is a King County-wide thing, a State of Washington thing. And it's time that they take heed instead of pushing on, just kind of - despite all reason and evidence to do this. [00:46:15] Doug Trumm: Yeah. It's pretty clear they're telegraphing this is their signal when you have your press release fired up before the budget's even officially passed. And in the case of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, that these are public safety cuts. Nelson - and Pedersen is the one who's up for re-election - they really complimented the way he voted on that as far as voting down this budget over this tiny, tiny bit of disagreement over the police budget that they blew out of proportion. Apparently deleting these 80 out of 240 unfilled positions - you know, sending the wrong signal and is - people, the public trust has been damaged now. And it's just - get me to the fainting couch - they can add back these positions anytime. No other department in the whole city would ever have this many, anywhere near this - 240 empty positions - you just keep the money. And they get to - SPD gets to put it wherever they want in their department, basically, because of the way they don't eliminate those positions, and just Council and the mayor - tell them which parts they wanted - who would run an organization this way? If you don't have, if you're not paying for something - why are you still paying for it? It just, it - I dunno - it drives me nuts. It goes back to that sort of frenzy and the sort of fear mongering around crime - where if we don't just heap gobs of money at the police department - we're not talking about Defund, we're not talking about reducing the amount of - the headcount at SPD. We're just saying - how are you spending this money? Can we spend this money wiser? If we have less officers, we need to be spending the money wiser. We can't just have it be a slush fund, like we saw in - I think it was 2018 or 2019, right after they passed the budget - the average police compensation went up to like $157,000 per officer. This one officer made over $400,000 because they were just letting the overtime fly like hotcakes. And an officer working 80-hour weeks - is that making us safer? It doesn't really seem like the way to do it. You kind of put yourself in between a rock and a hard place because they also fight the alternatives - they say they're for a mental health professional showing up for those crisis calls, but then they block the program to actually set up an alternative emergency response. And that's what SPD has been up to the past few years. As Councilmember Lewis and Mosqueda and others have fought to set up - like Denver has - a alternative response, and they make up excuse after excuse. They say maybe the police actually have to be there. They dispute their own study that showed that most of these calls could be done without an armed officer there. But yeah, it just - there's nothing evidence-based or strategic about this kind of election-based fearmongering, just kind of opportunistic way of dealing with this problem. People wonder why this problem is festering - there has been a troubling trend over the last nine years - of corporate mayors that the Chamber and all these other centrist forces and Seattle Times have endorsed. They're not making the problem better, but they keep running on it like they are. So it really is - it's created a weird thing. And I wrote about how this sort of relates to us holding our mayoral and council elections in odd years when the electorate is smaller and they can kind of dominate the debate among this crowded, smaller electorate - tends to be more homeowners, tends to be wealthier and whiter than the population at-large. So it works in the odd year. But as we saw with voters passing even-year election reform - they're not asking for these elections to be in odd years, they'd rather them be in even years. And the County is going to make that move for Executive and Council races, and a few others like County Assessor - county-level races. But we actually need state permission to do that for the municipal level. So hopefully we get that because if we're going to solve this problem, it makes sense to have the broader segment of the electorate actually weigh in on that rather than purposely choosing a low turnout election to make all these decisions. So that's one thing I hope happens out of this, but don't hold your breath because I think they like it that way. [00:50:54] Crystal Fincher: They absolutely do seem to like it that way. And you did write a real good article breaking this phenomenon down. It's just frustrating to see voters - they are frustrated about public safety. They do know that we could be doing better, while seeing people continue to make decisions in the opposite direction. And when they are given a voice, it's definitive in one direction. And we just - the King County Prosecutor race that we just had was really a referendum on this entire argument. And mirrors what we saw in 2020, with the King County Charter Amendments. This is not just a Seattle thing. This is a countywide thing. One of the things I think people try and dismissively do i - oh, this is just, it's only a thing in super liberal Seattle, progressive Seattle, and no one else wants this. And we continue to have voters say - no, no, actually this is what we want - all over the county. And places where their electeds really are under the impression that - hey, the public, maybe they do just want more police officers, or I'm afraid to say anything different because they may not accept it. Public's already there, as we continue to see. And my goodness, in these Council elections coming up, there could not be a more clear mandate of movement in one direction in literally every district in the City. To enormous degrees - Leesa Manion's victory was large throughout the county. Yes, in Seattle - it was decisive and humongous. And in each of the council districts, it was - it was just really - it's just really something. I'm sitting here working in elections and you try and understand where voters are, understand where policy is - what's effective, where things need to move - and they're actually in alignment. And the barrier is - there seem to be some in media who are very stuck on not wanting this to happen, and a number of elected officials who believe them. And it's just continuing to be frustrating. But we see, in so many cities and so many districts - whether it's City Council districts, County Council districts, cities, precincts - across the board, they prefer a balanced, comprehensive approach to public safety and outright reject what we heard from Jim Ferrell - the more punitive - Hey, we need to crack down on things, make crime illegal again - understanding that punishment doesn't equal safety. And we would all rather be safe. We've tried punishment for decades and it has not resulted in a safer community for all of us. It has actually hurt it. And people want to be safe. They want to do the things that make us safe, and they understand - more than where a lot of leaders do - what the evidence says about that. So it's just really interesting. Was there anything noteworthy or unique that you saw in election results about that? [00:54:20] Doug Trumm: Yeah. I think it bears underscoring that the - very, very much the same coalition that was behind Republican now-City Attorney Ann Davison was the people behind Jim Ferrell, who was also a former Republican. Now, they both claim that they're Democrats now, but very much still act like Republicans. And there was a lot of Democrats - Sara Nelson endorsed Jim Ferrell and it didn't seem to help him very much in Seattle because, or her in Seattle - it helped her opponent, I guess, his opponent in Seattle. Leesa Manion cleaned up in Seattle - and that was part of her victory, but she won by 18 points. So it wasn't just Seattle, although Seattle was her strongest base of support. So it really seems like what an odd-year electorate does - electing a Republican in Ann Davison to be their City Attorney. And it's odd that we elect city attorneys - it doesn't really need to be that way. But they worked people up about crime and they did support Ann Davison, but in a much larger electorate just one year later they overwhelmingly supported Leesa Manion who's very much - let's stay the course, let's keep these diversionary programs. So whatever mandate Ann Davison thinks she had is absolutely gone. And all these people who are calculating - oh, maybe we can, maybe this whole region is just going to go tough on crime. It's just not happening. And the even-year election helps - we had reasonably good turnout. But the numbers are such that I wouldn't want to be Ann Davison going up for re-election, but hopefully we can get some of that turnout bump into the council elections because that's really what's at play here is - we've seen what an even-year electorate wants, and can we make that also what an odd-year electorate wants? But yeah, these crime narratives aren't connecting in the even year. Leesa Manion just did surprisingly well, considering - the way the race looked beforehand. One poll showed them tied right before the election, but clearly - A) their polls might've been a little bit overestimating support - and some of that goes into people didn't think that young people would turn out. And young people did turn out in relatively high numbers in this election. And hopefully that's a sign of things to come as well. It's just - that's what happens in odd years - why they're so much more conservative - is a lot of that younger vote kind of fades and a lot of communities of color and renters also fade. So you're left with the rest, which is the more conservative side of things. But it doesn't - people can - if we make clear what the stakes are, we hopefully can sustain some of that even-year turnout, but it also just - election year reform also would make this a lot simpler. So I can't underscore that enough. It drives - yeah, it's sort of odd that we are stuck in this predicament of - it's clear what people want, but because of odd years, we have to fight twice as hard. So yeah, I think these results really are - suggest potentially that 2021 - in Seattle's case - where we saw a lot of centrists come into power, might've been a bit of an outlier. It doesn't necessarily mean all these people are weak in their re-election hopes, but all the talks about Seattle's now drifting conservative - I don't see it. [00:58:02] Crystal Fincher: And there was a backlash and - I feel like I've been on a small island, with just a few others, who have said the entire time that that race was an outlier. One, Seattle is different than a lot of other areas. If there really was a wholesale pushback on that, we would have also seen that in suburbs, we would have seen that in different areas. We actually saw the opposite happen in suburbs, where they elected - a number of suburbs elected more progressive officials than they ever had before - who were speaking strongly about making the community more safe with comprehensive public safety policies and really rejecting the punitive policies. The race in Seattle was an odd race - you had an incumbent who lost in the primary, you had two really unknown people who both - didn't really consider themselves to be Democrats, so there were unalignments. You had massively different levels of spending and different levels of voter communication. And, from a political consulting point of view, you have to talk to all of the voters who are voting in the election. It's wonderful - and canvassing and doorbelling is great - but you just cannot canvass a city as big as the City of Seattle in one election cycle. And that's what we saw happen. There was a lot of canvassing, but a lot less direct voter communication. You may make it to 50,000 people with that canvassing, but you got to talk to the other 200,000 - and that happens with direct voter communications. And they were just massively, massively outspent. And the spending that did happen was really late for the progressive candidates, so if you aren't known, and if your opponent can define who you are - and spends half a million dollars doing so - that's going to carry the day and it did. But that is a unique kind of nuts-and-bolts-of-campaigns thing that was apparent to a lot of people before the election results. So that's not just hindsight is 20/20 things - those were, as that was shaping up - that was concerning to a lot of folks who were looking at and participating in those elections. And so we had before that, the 20 - well, we did see a direct public safety vote in the King County Charter Amendment votes, which wound up largely like these wound up. And just looking at these 2022 King County Prosecutor results - again, people try and characterize this as a Seattle thing - but Renton, Newcastle, Mercer Island, Sammamish, Issaquah, Bellevue, Bothell, Kenmore. Those cities are not what I think a lot of people would group into the Seattle progressive bucket, and were firmly in the side of Leesa Manion and rejecting punitive public safety policies. As we look at the Blake decision and people, looking at - well, people are scared, it's really worrisome to look at that. We're talking about - the 45th, the 48th, the 41st, the 11th, the 33rd LDs, right - these are not Seattle-based LDs. These are North and Eastside, Vashon Island, like these - everywhere around the county, voters are very decisively saying - we want to move in a direction that evidence points will make us more safe. And I just really hope that our elected officials stop listening to some of the detached rhetoric and start looking at the evidence and what their constituents are saying - because those who aren't are going to pay a price. And it's really important to take a look at what results actually are, and tether ourselves to reality here, and call out the reporting and the characterizations that are not tethered to reality. That's going to be an important thing. [01:02:33] Doug Trumm: Hey, there was this Seattle Times editorial this morning that was mad at Bruce Harrell for not being louder about the huge public safety cuts to his budget - the 1% that we mentioned earlier. Why isn't he getting in the arena? That's what Blethen and his buddies said, and it's - okay, that's crazy - first. But also, maybe this is saying that some of the politicians see the writing on the wall that - okay, this isn't like a home run issue for them like they maybe thought. They have to kind of actually try to moderate and have compromise and have a truly, comprehensive public safety plan instead of putting lip service to the alternatives and just being all police all the time. I don't know if that's what went into the thought of Harrell not getting into the arena, like the Seattle Times Editorial Board asked him to, but yeah - it certainly is unhinged. And it - Fox News always has a ton of crime coverage right before elections, and then it drops in half - there's been a study on this and after the midterm. So suddenly it's not prime all the time when you turn on Fox News - there's a reason for that. It's calculated, it's manipulation, it's election manipulation. And a lot of these other papers, including The Seattle Times, do that as well. I haven't seen the studies see that it's dropped in half, but that's part of the whole game and it's part of why the playing field isn't even. But I think, eventually, you have to have actual truth to what you're saying, or it starts just not connecting where we're at then. [01:04:17] Crystal Fincher: Well said. And with that, we thank you all for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, December 2nd, 2022. Hacks & Wonks is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. Our insightful co-host today was Executive Director of The Urbanist, Doug Trumm. You can find Doug on Twitter @dmtrumm - that's two Ms at the end. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can find me @finchfrii. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you soon.

Testimony in the trial of Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer sometimes veered into the absurd Thursday, as police witnesses described investigating the possible “malicious” throwing of a newspaper, and another officer admitted to called the sheriff “a douchebag” for dragging them into a high-profile incident.

A jury has been selected and attorneys on Wednesday delivered their opening statements in the trial of Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer.

URSULA'S TOP STORIES // Jury selection beginning for Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer's trial // WE NEED TO TALK. . . about looks versus other intangible traitsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last week, a judge ordered Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer to stay 1000 feet away from a local Black newspaper carrier. The carrier, Sedrick Altheimer, had filed an anti-harassment protection order against Troyer. And this isn't the only legal trouble Troyer is facing. Yet Troyer is still in office. And he says he plans to stay there.

On today's Week in Review, Crystal is joined by Seattle Times political reporter Jim Brunner. For police news, they first cover an update in the on-going saga of Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer's harassment of a Black newspaper carrier, then they break down the newest revelations in the controversy surrounding the missing text messages between former mayor Jenny Durkan and former Police Chief Carmen Best. In elections news, Crystal and Jim discuss activist Glen Morgan's volunteer group that's going door to door looking for illegal voters, and look at the motivations behind a Sequim lawyer's frivolous election fraud lawsuit. Finally, they explain how the end of Roe v. Wade will have major consequences for abortion access in WA state, even though our state constitution gives us the right to it.   As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Jim Brunner, at @Jim_Brunner. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “Court issues no-contact order against Sheriff Ed Troyer citing unlawful harassment of Black newspaper carrier” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/court-issues-no-contact-order-against-sheriff-ed-troyer-citing-unlawful-harassment-of-black-newspaper-carrier/    “Ex-Seattle Police Chief testifies that she deleted text messages in bulk” by Lewis Kamb from Axios: https://www.axios.com/local/seattle/2022/06/08/ex-seattle-police-chief-deleted-text-messages    “Lawyer's email told all Seattle police employees to preserve texts” by Lewis Kamb from Axios: https://www.axios.com/local/seattle/2022/06/09/lawyers-email-seattle-police-employees-preserve-texts    “Group doorbells WA homes, searching for illegal voters and drawing complaints” by Jim Brunner and Joseph O'Sullivan from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/group-doorbells-homes-across-washington-searching-for-illegal-voters-and-drawing-complaints/     “WA Attorney General files bar complaint against Sequim layer over ‘frivolous' election fraud case” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times:  https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/wa-attorney-general-files-bar-complaint-against-sequim-lawyer-over-frivolous-election-fraud-case/     “The Tiny Shelter Monopoly - Residents Want More Options And More Oversight Over Seattle's Preferred Shelter Model” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/news/2022/06/07/74780685/the-tiny-shelter-monopoly    “End of Roe v. Wade looms large in Idaho, where women are likely to seek abortions in Washington” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/end-of-roe-v-wade-looms-large-in-idaho-where-women-are-likely-to-seek-abortions-in-washington/    Transcript Transcript will be uploaded as soon as possible

Two Pierce County Sheriff's Department (PCSD) deputies were shot south of Spanaway Tuesday during a SWAT operation.The 40-year-old suspect, identified as Jeremy Dayton, was shot and killed, according to a spokesperson for the Pierce County Force Investigation Team.Deputy Dominique Calata was in critical condition Tuesday night and died Wednesday, according to the PCSD. Calata, 35, has a wife and 4-year-old child at home and has been with the department for the past seven years. Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer previously said the community would "need to prepare for the worst," when it comes to Calata's condition.LIKE & SUBSCRIBE for new videos everyday. https://bit.ly/3fs6dBU

On this rebroadcast, Melissa Santos from Crosscut joins Crystal to talk about her deep dive into Washington State's Brady List, which is a list maintained by prosecutors of cops with credibility issues which may compromise their testimony in court. In her research she found that nearly 200 cops in our state have such credibility issues. They also get in to how recent laws may affect police accountability in Washington State, what happens when a police officer's account of an incident differs from other accounts, and how the media could more responsibly report on official police accounts of an incident.  As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's guest, Melissa Santos, at @MelissaSantos1. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources Crosscut resources on Brady list investigation: https://crosscut.com/brady-list-investigation   “Nearly 200 cops with credibility issues still working in Washington state” by Melissa Santos: https://crosscut.com/news/2021/04/nearly-200-cops-credibility-issues-still-working-washington-state   “How fired cops win their jobs back: arbitration” by Melissa Santos: https://crosscut.com/news/2021/04/how-fired-cops-win-their-jobs-back-arbitration   “How public records gave us a window into WA police misconduct” by Melissa Santos: https://crosscut.com/inside-crosscut/2021/04/how-public-records-gave-us-window-wa-police-misconduct   “3 WA families on how new police laws could have helped their loved ones” by Melissa Santos: https://crosscut.com/politics/2021/05/3-wa-families-how-new-police-laws-could-have-helped-their-loved-ones   “Recapping the 2021 Legislative Session and Uncovering Washington Police Credibility Issues: A Double Episode – Melissa Santos – Crosscut - #127” from the Nerd Farmer Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/recapping-2021-legislative-session-uncovering-washington/id1223805236?i=1000519554971   “Full investigation of Manuel Ellis' death casts new doubts on Tacoma officers' stories” by Patrick Malone: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/full-investigation-of-manuel-ellis-death-casts-new-doubts-on-tacoma-officers-stories/   “Tommy Le May Have Been Shot While Facedown on the Roadway, May Not Have Even Had a Pen, Documents Show” by Carolyn Bick: https://southseattleemerald.com/2020/10/09/tommy-le-may-have-been-shot-while-facedown-on-roadway-may-not-have-even-had-a-pen-documents-show/   “Opinion: Remember Tommy Le” by Senator Joe Nguyen: https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/06/14/opinion-remembering-tommy-le/   “Newspaper carrier who was confronted by Sheriff Ed Troyer files $5 million legal claim against Pierce County” by Jim Brunner: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/newspaper-carrier-who-was-confronted-by-sheriff-ed-troyer-files-5-million-legal-claim-against-pierce-county/   “How Headlines Change the Way We Think” by Maria Konnikova: https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/headlines-change-way-think   Transcript [00:00:00] Lisl Stadler: Hi, I'm Lisl, the producer of Hacks & Wonks. Last summer Crystal interviewed Melissa Santos, an exceptional journalist from Crosscut, about her investigative reporting regarding what's called a Brady list - a list that prosecutors keep of law enforcement officers who may have legal credibility issues. Since Melissa started writing about this, several counties around Washington state have changed the way in which they treat reports of officers who have had shaky relationships with the truth, but others have not. As we are currently in Legislative Session again, we thought that this would be an interesting episode and issue to revisit. You can find out more about this investigation at crosscut.com/brady-list-investigation. Additionally, there you can submit information about an officer experience you've had, or ask questions that you'd like answered about policing in our city and state. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show. [00:01:11] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks, I'm Crystal Fincher and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at OfficialHacksAndWonks.com and in our episode notes. Well, I'm really excited to have you join us today because lots of people are familiar with your reporting. You are known for doing very in-depth, long form reports and really diving into the details of issues - reporting thoroughly. And you really outdid yourself this time by doing a long-term investigative series on officers on the Brady list in the State of Washington. What motivated you to even do this story? [00:02:08] Melissa Santos: Well,, I had known about these lists, where essentially these are lists prosecutors have of officers that have some sort of issue - an issue that often deals with their veracity, whether they tell the truth, not always, but sometimes. And especially after George Floyd's death, and we were seeing, sometimes, the initial narrative surrounding what happens during police uses of force especially isn't later found to be exactly what happened or some details are different. And sometimes we've been hearing a long time also - families of police shooting victims saying that they don't think the official story is right. So I just figured, if we have known officers who may have issues with truth, to the point that prosecutors keep lists of them and have to tell defense attorneys about this past issue, then it's worth finding out who those folks are, why they still have jobs, what the issue was. And so that's why I started on it last summer. [00:03:16] Crystal Fincher: Right, and so as you covered, the Brady list is a list of officers who for some reason, their truthfulness has been called into question. What types of issues, or is it just lying that lands you on the Brady list? Are there other types of behaviors or activities that put you on there? [00:03:34] Melissa Santos: Lying is the most common, or some sort of dishonesty. There also though, I mean, if you demonstrate racial bias and there's some documented incidents of that, you can get on the Brady list. I'm not sure that every officer that is suspected of having some bias is on this list - there's only some that are on there. But also, uses of force get some folks on there as well. If there was deemed to be some sort of questionable or excessive use of force, they could be on the Brady list. The other things that get you on there are - maybe they don't really think you lied - exactly, intentionally - but somehow your official report really doesn't match the other evidence. Especially if it's dash cam video - if your reports do not match official dash cam video, and there's some discrepancy that seems like it could potentially affect the outcome of a case. That's something that has to be disclosed - that will put you on the list. And I mean, prosecutors will say this list is just an administrative tool by which we kind of keep track of officers for whom we have to send out notices to defense saying, "Hey, you should know about this past thing." Because it's a due process issue - they should have all the evidence that might indicate a cop's credibility is in question. And that can relate to future cases if the cop, maybe has been less than truthful in the past or there's suspicion that they were. [00:05:04] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And it is important to really consider and talk about why the honesty and integrity of officers is really important and why this list is necessary. You just talked about it being a due process issue - and certainly in a trial, if there is reason to doubt the testimony of an officer, oftentimes that can be the determining factor on whether someone is viewed to be guilty or innocent. An officer's word is taken as truth universally. And that, in issues of guilt and innocence, you can dramatically impact and infringe upon someone's civil rights, their constitutional rights if you don't tell the truth, and that can result in them going to jail. It can be a lot, to some people, simpler. It could be, hey, maybe they didn't take a report of a crime seriously, and it depends on whether insurance is going to cover something, or their employer covers something, or whether or not they eventually wind up arrested. They have so much control and influence over people's lives and what happens to them that they should be, and theoretically, are held to a higher standard when it comes to their conduct and their honesty. And so this list is saying, hey, these officers have not met standard of high conduct, and we need to consider that - that we can't automatically take their word as being truthful and honest, which has also been an issue in reporting overall. And I know you've had conversations, there was a great conversation you've had on the Nerd Farmer Podcast about this, talking about how reporters take officer's words as fact. And how after incidences, it can be an officer, an "officer-involved shooting", when an officer shoots and often kill someone. Or they do something and they come out with their statement about what happened - that has, as a default, been reported as fact. Is that practice changing - is that practice, do you think, worthy of being changed, and have you seen that talked about in reaction to your piece that you did? [00:07:27] Melissa Santos: I think in the last couple of years, especially, I feel like there has been a broader discussion in the media about how to use police statements. But I do think there's pressure, especially for daily media outlets and newspapers, to get a story out quickly, immediately. And the police statement really is all you have at first, most of the time. And so I just think that that needs to be presented in the proper context. And not just kind of - I think that we've kind of been a little flip with being, like, "We said, 'Police said.' That it was the police who said it." Yeah. But I think that we might need to be more explicit and say, "This is the police's side of the story. We don't have other witnesses to tell their side of the story right now. So this is only..." I think we might just need to call that out a little more clearly, rather than just a small attribution and assuming readers can follow that. And certainly readers can follow - they're smart - but people read things quickly. So, I just think that you need to stop readers and say, "Hey, this is all the information we have. We're working to get more. This is what the police say. There was some..." Especially now since we have the internet, there's usually some sort of, not all the time, but sometimes there's conflicting reports from the scene from social media. And I think maybe that can be acknowledged too. And I just think that it does need to be considered. Because I think the original press release from George Floyd's killing was like - it was not saying that Derek Chauvin stood on his, put a knee on his neck for nine minutes, right? It was like, "Oh, he died of natural causes after an altercation." It was something like that, right? Or he died of respiratory failure, or something like that. It wasn't like, "Respiratory failure because our person was constricting his airway with his knee for nine minutes." That was not what it said, right? So I think we're all learning we need to be more cognizant that the police story is not the correct story, but all the time. However, there's been people saying this for a very long time. So I think media is a little slow to catch up on that. Sometimes that first statement may be accurate. I mean, it's not always inaccurate necessarily, but certainly there's enough instances where it has not been an accurate depiction of what happened during a use of force incident that there's reason to question whether you should just run with that narrative in the very beginning. [00:09:51] Crystal Fincher: Oh, absolutely. I mean, we've seen that here locally recently. We saw it with Manuel Ellis, we saw it with Tommy Le. We saw it with Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer, where their account of events does not match up with that. I think your point of putting it in context and the need for media to independently work on verifying that narrative - that is one reported perspective, that should not be the only reported perspective. It should be noted that if that hasn't been able to be independently verified or verified through reporting by other means, that that is called out and explicitly said. I think that's helpful. [00:10:45] Melissa Santos: I think we also need to be mindful of updates to stories, because that's a lot of times sort of how the industry has worked - well, we do a new story and we fix things. I mean, it wasn't inaccurate, that was what police said. That's what we said that was what police said. So that story is still somewhere in the ether. Again, the internet lives forever, basically for the most part. So those older stories can still cloud the truth of the actual matter if they remain up and aren't clear about what actually happened. So I think that there needs to be more deliberate going back and saying - and sometimes you still see this - we have a new version, we have more updates to this story that we've put here. Maybe for integrity's sake you may not want to delete the original story, right? That's not something we generally do. But something at the top saying - We've gotten more information. The updated information is here. You should go there. So people don't find some old story in a vacuum that doesn't have all that important context. And that's something we need to look at as well. [00:11:38] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. And certainly, also underscoring the importance of headlines - people can discern information, but it is also a reality that a lot of people don't read full articles or they may not have time to read through every article - so rely on headlines sometimes, and may get back to the information to get more detail or may not. So I hope that there is widespread thoughtfulness and consideration being given to putting that reporting in more context and not just treating that as a factual account that just gets passed through and kind of transcribed without it being verified, or at least explicitly noted that it hasn't been, that that is a perspective. Back to, I guess the issue of the Brady list overall, do all officers - how comprehensive is the list? We have a list of around, is it around 200 officers right now? [00:12:44] Melissa Santos: Right. About 200. A little under 200 right now - statewide. [00:12:48] Crystal Fincher: Do they feel like that covers the number of officers there? Are there still glaring holes? Or how hard is it, or how easy is it for an officer to wind up on that list? [00:12:58] Melissa Santos: So I do think it varies a little by jurisdiction. But I will say in general, most officers don't get on the list for nothing - just for some casual, maybe they did something, maybe they didn't. I do not think that it is easy in the sense that you have to have some sort of concrete evidence usually. I don't think that prosecutors will put officers on this list of cops that may have issues, issues that have to be disclosed to the defense, without some sort of evidence that something went wrong or that there was some sort of fishy activity. So getting that evidence that a cop lied, for instance, that doesn't always come forth. So it's not always clear that a cop lied, so it's rare to actually have something really specific, like we saw proof that what they said did not match what actually happened. So that's somewhat rare, so that influences who goes on the list and who does not go on the list. It also is dependent a lot on what police agencies report upward to the prosecutor's office. I mean, most of this is based on police officer disciplinary procedures. And if the police agencies do not have a sustained finding of misconduct, of dishonesty, then often that does not end up putting an officer on a prosecutor's Brady list, even if maybe there is some evidence that someone might think, well, wait, wait, wait, wait. I think that that actually was kind of messed up and maybe that investigation didn't actually turn up what it should have. So you're depending on the police officer disciplinary process, which in some cases I think some people would argue does not always kind of identify officer misconduct as reliably as it should, since it's the department investigating its own officers. So that's one issue. And defense attorneys just say that, no, there's all of these officers we kind of know have issues that are not on this list. And so it's an undercount in that respect. And I should add that the 200 or so officers that I identified are ones that are currently working. There was a lot more that were on the list, but maybe have left law enforcement and things like that. So we actually kind of took a look to say, who is still around? Because theoretically if there's officers who have lied or have used force and they've been fired, you're like, okay, well maybe that's an appropriate response. But they still end up on prosecutor's lists in case they get another job in law enforcement or the prosecutors don't keep up with all the personnel stuff sometimes. So, yeah. So we actually narrowed it down, but there are almost 200 still working in the state. [00:15:41] Crystal Fincher: So is it fair to say that usually officers wind up on the list when their own departments have found that there has been some kind of dishonesty or misconduct? [00:15:51] Melissa Santos: Yes. The vast majority of the time that's what I found. In fact, I think that King County even has a system by which they have a pending list, a pending sort of, well, we're seeing how the outcome of this investigation plays out. And if the allegation is not sustained, that they won't end up even necessarily end up on the permanent list. So there certainly is some due process in that respect for officers. I've definitely have gotten some emails saying, oh, people can get put on this for anything. I don't think that's necessarily true. At the same time, there are cases in which a defense attorney brings something forward, being like, I looked at this guy's personnel file and this seems to be like you should've told me about this. And that sometimes will cause a prosecutor to say, yeah, that should actually be something that puts you on our list, even if the police agency did not deem it a problem. I think one example of that is someone I actually used in my story - is a deputy in Whatcom County, who had used a really racist - he just said something really racist on Facebook about Native Americans. It was kind of joking about genocide. It was very bad. So his department didn't discipline him for that. I actually have inquired and I got an answer after my story ran that there was no discipline involved. And that came from a defense attorney who said, "I found this on my phone just looking, when I was looking up the key witness against my client, and you should know about this." And then so the prosecutor said, "Yeah, it does seem like it meets the legal requirements of something we need to disclose, so we are putting him on our list. But I really trust his testimony and I'm going to continue to call on him as a witness." They often say, this technically meets the criteria for something I need to turn over, but I have not had any issue with this cop and I trust that person. [00:17:46] Crystal Fincher: Oh, the old, "I never had a problem with them, so they're not a problem for anyone" excuse, which we've all seen work out so wonderfully. I guess another question I have is, I've certainly heard reports and seen reports before that there can be misconduct that happens or a finding of some misconduct or lying, and that doesn't always make it or stay on an officer's record or in their personnel file. How does that affect or impact who winds up on the Brady list? Can there be actions or findings of misconduct that don't make it to the file, or that are erased from the file, and then that can prevent them from being on the list? [00:18:34] Melissa Santos: In general, it depends on the county. But for instance, I'll use King County as an example. That's one case in which they told me they would not remove someone for their list. If it was something like, "Oh, an arbitrator said, 'We think this punishment was wrong, and we think you should not have disciplined this person.'" But finding the fact didn't change? And everyone agrees this happened, but it wasn't worthy of discipline or something like that. This is one reason why I actually did this story, because I realized the prosecutors have a repository of records on cops that sometimes their own departments may not even have anymore. Especially because in some cases, the police agencies, completely independent of the police contracts, an officer may have left pretty recently, but those disciplinary records are destroyed after usually six years. So even if it was at this point, 2014, 2015, something someone did in their last jurisdiction, that jurisdiction doesn't have those records anymore in a lot of cases, I found. But the prosecutor's office did. So that's one reason I wanted to look at these records, because police disciplinary records are not very well-maintained. I think that's changing with the new law that just passed, it's supposed to hopefully change. But yeah, that was one reason. The prosecutors actually were better about keeping these records than the agencies themselves in some cases. [00:19:58] Crystal Fincher: There seem to be so many loopholes, and we seem to be relying on people and agencies self-investigating and self-reporting, and there don't seem to be many exceptions to that. Looking forward, how are people - what has been the response to your story? How are people looking at the utility of the Brady List? And is there any responses that you've heard about how to make this list better, more comprehensive and more reliable? [00:20:33] Melissa Santos: So I'm waiting to see if this - there is a new law they passed. I wouldn't say it was in response to my story, it was well in the works at the time I wrote. But there was a law that passed that said that police agencies have to send any findings of misconduct to the prosecutor's office within 10 days of their discovery of those incidents. So that's something the prosecutors say, "Okay, that would help us, because right now we don't feel like we're always getting them in a timely manner." Because even though the cops are supposed to turn that stuff over under the case law - that really should happen. They were saying, "Well sometimes it's like, they might turn them over once every six months, or maybe they send over a batch yearly or something." The prosecutors think that could get them in trouble, because they're assumed to know everything that the cops do. Because again, they're all part of the prosecuting law enforcement team. So that new law, maybe it will help. I still think that it's dependent on the disciplinary - I guess we'll see. I think there is a little bit of wiggle room for how, whether the agencies think it's reportable misconduct or not - that law tries to clarify that - like, "You need to report stuff like this, lying, or if an investigation starts, you need to send it over." I'm interested to see how it's implemented on the ground, that's all. And I'm not sure it solves the issue of - something else I'm looking into right now is whether prosecutors always do their job. That was a little too much to get into in my first story, but do they always turn over what they're supposed to to the defense, even for people on their list? Some defense attorneys tell me no, that they don't. They think it's very relevant that this cop lied sometime ago, but they didn't get a notification like they were supposed to from the prosecutor's office, is what some have told me. And I'm going to look at trying to find out how often that happens, that's a little hard to pin down. But there's a lot of ways in which it can still break down, I think, even with this new law potentially. [00:22:47] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I'm glad you're looking at doing that story. Certainly just from attorney friends that I have, have heard stories of that happening. And you alluded to earlier, the very close relationship between police and prosecutors, and those prosecutors relying on the testimony of police to make their cases in sometimes. Sometimes it is the police making their case, and so there seems to be an incentive to present that cop in the best light possible, and to cover up anything that could jeopardize their case - which would be misconduct or lying from an officer. So I'm excited to hear that. Looking at, from what you've reported, as you're looking at the process, what do you see could be put into place to make it more reliable or strengthened? What are the biggest loopholes, or areas of opportunity for improvement? [00:23:49] Melissa Santos: I understand the prosecutors have a workload. I don't think they're just mostly sitting around on their butts not doing anything. I'm not sure how this would exactly necessarily work, but I have a defense attorney who said she just looked at the guy's public Facebook page and found this, and the prosecutor had not had that in their file or anything on this cop. Maybe the prosecuting office does need to take a bigger role in saying, "Maybe we need to do a little more looking at our witnesses ourselves." Because it is a constitutional obligation for them to turn over exculpatory evidence, stuff that could clear someone or affect the outcome of someone's case. They have to do that. I think the prosecutors take that seriously, in general, but I'm not sure how much they're taking it upon themselves to look for stuff that should be disclosed. I've kind of been told, "We can't do our own disciplinary investigations. How are we going to do that? We have to rely on the cops for that." But maybe there's at least some cursory work that needs to be done, or someone in each office that just looks up every witness and finds more stuff on the prosecutor's end. I'm not sure - if that's not feasible, but it does seem like that's where things go missing sometimes in this process. And still could, even with this new law. So that's happened. And then there's also this element of - I'm just really unclear how determinations are made that someone's bias or use of force merits them putting on the Brady List. Because I think that there's plenty of people in our community that would argue that there are more than half a dozen officers who have demonstrated bias in a way that maybe should be mentioned in future cases that they're a witness on. But I only found maybe six or eight cases that were people on the Brady List currently for bias. So that seems like it could be low potentially. That determination is a little fuzzy, I think to me, how is that determination made? I don't know though that there's that many formal determinations of sustained finding that you were racist in the police world right now. And also, uses of force - there's not that many officers on the list for use of force, even though theoretically they should be. And I suspect there's a few more cases that maybe didn't make the list, where officers might have used force in a way that defense attorneys would want to know about in their past. [00:26:22] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, you make some really good points. And even to your point, it does seem like most people involved in the legal system, prosecutors included, are largely acting in good faith. But the institution sometimes present some obstacles, and it seems like the job of a prosecutor, and investigating, and how they interact with police - 30 years ago, looking up their social media history was not a thing. Seeing if dash cam video or body cameras matched up to their account was not a thing. And so there's just a lot more to look into and they just may not have also expanded their practices and have the daily resources, given their workload, that accounts for being able to look into all of that. But maybe that should be happening, maybe they do need to really explore how to make sure that they're looking at all available evidence to help account for that. [00:27:26] Melissa Santos: I actually thought of something else. In fact, there's a couple of people who got added to the Brady list apparently because of my going around asking everyone for their list, basically. That sort of indicated to me that there was some lag time, I guess, in people being added to the list. That's even on the prosecutor's end, apparently, I think. Or maybe they were like, "Oh, we really should get an update on this guy. Whatever happened with this?" Yeah, I think that there's some potential for wiggle room there. I will say there's some instances when prosecutors were really concerned about a cop and the prosecutor saying, "This is a problem. We need to put that person on our list," happened independently of officers. But that was not the majority of cases. It was only a handful that I saw and had records on. [00:28:17] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. It also seems like there is a problem with, okay, we only keep records for six years, or however long that is. If an officer changes jurisdictions, we just may not know that they had some egregious things on their record from 2013. Seems like we do that for folks on the other side of the criminal justice system, and if there is something on their record from 2010 or, really anytime, that that counts against them in terms of what they're charged with, how they're sentenced. And if it seems like that should be a factor taken into consideration for people who are defendants, certainly other people involved in that - that should be consistent. And, wow, 2014 just does not seem that long ago to be discounting what people are doing. [00:29:12] Melissa Santos: Right. I was talking - early 2010s, there are some records I don't have. There was a guy who was police chief in one small town that oversaw some really, really bad management of stuff - evidence was just lying around the squad room. Actually, mishandling of evidence could get you on the list too. This was really rampant, bad. An auditor came in, he ended up leaving the department - but that works in another department now. And this, this changeover, he left that department in 2012 or something. There's records I can't get anymore from some of that. Yeah, it doesn't seem like that long ago, really. But I will say there's this new bill. I was asking how much will this really help? This bill that deals with officer decertification, making it so it's easier for the state to pull an officer's license does kind of set new rules for union contracts to not allow them to destroy or remove files from people's personnel records because this actually happens as well. Sometimes officers can request after two years or something - sometimes it's as low as two or three years to have something removed from their personnel file. And all that might be in there then is a letter saying, "This officer asked for this to be - some disciplinary action to be removed." And I think that in some cases you can still get those records by asking a different department somehow, but it obscures the process at the very minimum, even if those records in some cases may be attainable somehow else. And so that's something that will change apparently with this bill. You won't be able to have contracts that let officers remove stuff from their files as often, at least. [00:30:51] Crystal Fincher: I thank you all for listening to Hacks & Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler with assistance from Shannon Cheng. You can find me on Twitter at @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H F-R-I-I. And now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type in "Hacks & Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our mid-week show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time.

This week, we revisit our conversation with Pierce County Council Chair Derek Young discussing what's up in Pierce County. They discuss the vast differences in funding available for transit and other public projects in King and Pierce counties, how Pierce County and Tacoma are absorbing the population overflow of those who can't find affordable homes in King County, how the Pierce County Council is approaching investigations into police misconduct, and how one governs as a Democrat in a county where there is a substantial Republican presence. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's guest, Pierce County Council Chair Derek Young, at @DerekMYoung. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “‘Home in Tacoma' Advances with Recommendation to Eliminate Single-Family Zoning” by Stephen Fesler: https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/05/26/home-in-tacoma-advances-with-recommendation-to-eliminate-single-family-zoning/ “Zoomers Flock to Tacoma over Pricey Seattle” by Brandon Zuo: https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/03/17/zoomers-flock-to-tacoma-over-pricey-seattle/ “Tacoma on the Move: Pierce Transit's Vision for a Growing City” by Rubén Casas: https://www.theurbanist.org/2018/09/17/tacoma-on-the-move-pierce-transits-vision-for-a-growing-city/ “Two Tacoma officers involved in Manuel Ellis' death named in excessive force claim” by Allison Needles: https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article252735288.html “Newspaper carrier who was confronted by Sheriff Troyer files $5 million legal claim against Pierce County” by Jim Brunner: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/newspaper-carrier-who-was-confronted-by-sheriff-ed-troyer-files-5-million-legal-claim-against-pierce-county/ “State attorney general launches criminal investigation into Pierce Sheriff Ed Troyer” by Will James: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/newspaper-carrier-who-was-confronted-by-sheriff-ed-troyer-files-5-million-legal-claim-against-pierce-county/ “Facing charges, Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer uses dog whistles to play the victim" by Matt Driscoll https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/matt-driscoll/article255184512.html "Report: Tacoma could diver many emergency calls to civilians” from The Associated Press: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/report-tacoma-could-divert-many-emergency-calls-to-civilians/   Transcript Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show we talk to political hacks and policy wonks to gather insight into local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work and provide behind-the-scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at OfficialHacksAndWonks.com and in our episode notes. So today I am thrilled to welcome to the show Pierce County Councilmember Derek Young. Thanks for joining us. Derek Young: [00:00:58] Thank you for having me. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:00] Well, I really was excited to have you on the show because you are on the Pierce County Council, you're a former Gig Harbor City Councilman. You're really vocal on Twitter, you're really visible in advocating for what Pierce County needs. Most of the audience for this show is in Seattle - familiar with Seattle and King County issues and probably less familiar with Pierce County issues. One of the biggest differences is - in Seattle, as we're talking about all of these campaigns right now, really it's what kind of Democrat are you? Are you a moderate Democrat or a progressive Democrat? Different story in Pierce County. There are actually Republicans. Republicans that support Trump. Republican Republicans. And governing is much different. A lot of the rhetoric is much different. So, what is it like, especially in the context of comparing and contrasting it with Seattle, serving on the Pierce County Council and what are your priorities that you're dealing with? Derek Young: [00:02:07] Well, first of all, thanks. I feel like this is the part where I say, "First time, long time." I appreciate you bringing me on because, yeah, listening to you - being in the shadow of King County politics I think is a little weird for us because we're obviously a very urban county near by, and we're very affected by what happens in Seattle and King County. And so, for example, you're obviously talking a lot about housing, transportation, growth politics in Seattle. That lands really hard on Tacoma-Pierce County. And so we very often are dealing with the repercussions of decisions that are made outside of our capacity. And so that centers a lot of what we deal with here, and that's kind of on a bipartisan basis. We have to figure out how to absorb the housing that isn't built in King County. It turns out jobs - you can have all this growth, but housing is where jobs go at night. And so that means you have to build the housing here. So, we're picking up the slack. We have to provide the transportation, and we don't have a regional transportation system contrary to popular belief. We have a very localized and regressive transportation system that hurts people, frankly, in South Sound. So, we have to figure out how to work through all of that while we watch all of these incredible light rail stations and BRT intersections get built while we still wait to be connected to that. On the more partisan side though, we, as you said, have Republicans here. And for big chunks of the county that tends to be the way they vote. We have a Republican County Executive and so just like King County, they're separately elected and run countywide. And then we have a 7-member Council. Before I ran against and defeated an incumbent, the Republicans actually had a 5-2 supermajority. That tells you a little bit of the makeup there. We recently took the majority, so we now have a 4-3 majority on that. But, as I regularly point out to people, my district, which covers the west side of the Sound that's in Pierce County - Gig Harbor where I'm from, as well as parts of North End and West End Tacoma - it hadn't been held by a Democrat since 1980. So, there are some changes that are happening in that direction, but the east side of the county, I think, reflects a lot of the national trends that you've seen towards the party in that end. So, the way that plays out is - in the social services that counties are supposed to provide, very often on behalf of the state but often we should be doing our own local thing. So, we just recently passed the behavioral health tax - we're one of the last counties to do that. We really have a Public Health Department which - I chair the Board of Health - that has been underfunded for years and we're trying to make some changes there. Obviously the pandemic brought that out a little more. We're getting into children's services for the first time which is something I'm super excited about because who doesn't love kids? Trying to make sure that they have the tools they need, but also we know it has downstream effects. So, there's a bunch of things that are happening more on the social side. And then finally environmental. Pierce County is - and the reason I ran in 1997 for City Council was growth management. And we were the poster child for sprawl and we're still dealing with the ramifications of those decisions made, frankly, back in the early 90s. And trying to deal with that, and environmental consequences, and those issues. So, we got a lot going on, but the good news is that the Council's personality has changed, I think, for the better. We were pretty dysfunctional there for a few years and so even some of my Republican colleagues who I disagree with, we're getting along great. And that's pretty productive. Crystal Fincher: [00:06:35] That is productive. I remember some of those extremely dysfunctional times and it is good to be able to move forward on a number of these issues. I do think the pandemic made plain how much of a need there was and helped to bring some people along. You brought up a great point early on just about you being affected by what King County does. Talking about transportation, we're in a conversation now about Sound Transit and delaying, continuing to delay, a lot of what was scheduled to be built in Pierce County. And people are paying for it now. They may not see the benefits of that for another decade or two. What is funding transit like? What is that conversation like? And I guess in looking at working with King County and working around King County, what would you ask of King County and what are you forced to do with these delays in a regional system? Derek Young: [00:07:40] It's a great question and gets to, I think, some of where I disagree with some of my colleagues in King County. But I have to back up a little bit to explain this. One of the tragedies of the last 20 years in the Legislature, where I've worked representing cities and counties down there for a number of years - either my own, our association, or even as a contract lobbyist at one point. And we have not only the most regressive tax code in the country, which I think most people know, but what many of your listeners may not be aware of is that it's the localization that really lands hard on communities that don't have the same level of wealth as some of the cities in King County. So, let's take local transit for example. It used to be that about a third of the funding for local transit came from the state, which is the way most states do things. It's the logical thing to do. In Washington, basically the Initiative 695 and the Legislature's response to that, basically eliminated that. There's very little state funding. Most of it's either federal passthrough or regional passthrough from the Feds. So, what that meant was they gave us something called local option. "Local options" are the two words that I want to hear the least from the Legislature ever because what that means is the way you can serve your community is what you can raise locally. So, if you're a poorer county, like Pierce County, I can only raise for every one-tenth of 1% sales tax, about 60 cents on the dollar what King County can. So, I have higher need but less money to do it with. Does that sound progressive to you? Does that sound like something that - the tax code that you would want as a liberal Democrat? No, of course not. But it's just fine for a lot of King County Democrats because they're piling up so much wealth there that they get to buy a lot of stuff. I always picture when I go through my budget - King County must be diving into piles of gold like Scrooge McDuck because they forget more money than I can try to scrape together to put a sensible system. So, the second part is that because we have poor service, people don't value that transit as much. So, we've had trouble passing the last three-tenths authorization. So, that means we have two-thirds of what most other counties have and it only raises about 60% what King County can. So, our system is really starving and it barely provides basic services. So, I'm a regular transit rider. My bus comes once an hour. If you had a bus in King County that went once an hour, there'd be riots. So, that's the kind of problems that we have. But you would think a regional system - that wouldn't impact. This is where a perversely named sub-area equity law in state law comes into effect. This was the idea of Rob McKenna back when he was on the King County Council - concerned that, basically the suburbs, were going to subsidize Seattle. Obviously since that time - this is back in the old days when Seattle hadn't had this explosion of growth - the reverse has happened in fact. So, what that means is that we can only spend for regional transit what we can raise locally. That's why you haven't seen the connection through South Sound, and I include in that South King County - honorary South Sound membership in South King County. Crystal Fincher: [00:11:02] Thank you. Derek Young: [00:11:03] It hasn't gone through that zone or into Pierce County where we have our own. So, we've really struggled to connect to the system that - as people that are in the service industries and lower-wage tech workers get pushed further and further away from where their jobs are, they've been pushed away from where transportation can connect them effectively. It's really a terrible system. If you were to sit down and design this as a regional system, people would think you were nuts. But this is what we have. And each year I kind of scream at the top of my lungs to fix it. The problem that this really gets put into hyperdrive is when we get some federal funding, which we've had recently, we distribute it based on what King County calls fair, and that means we're going to base it on service hours. Well, if I'm starting out with a tenth of the service hours that you can provide there, that means you're taking up almost all of the money in these other places where you've already concentrated all this wealth. So, we got basically 10% of the federal funding for our transit system and for our Sound Transit projects that King County did. If you don't think that's just morally abhorrent and outrageous, I don't know what to do. That to me is wrong and we have to fix it. But we've gone through two cycles now at Puget Sound Regional Council where that's exactly what's happened. Crystal Fincher: [00:12:30] So, how does it get fixed? What needs to happen to fix it? Derek Young: [00:12:34] The first thing is it's got to start with state legislation. And here's the part where I hate to put this on raw parochialism, but because our Party that is in control of both chambers is concentrated so much in King County, there hasn't been a lot of movement and a lot of support for changing that setup. The second thing that I do appreciate and I want to call her out because she's been a great leader to try to fix this overall tax structure problem, and that's Representative Noel Frame. I don't think at first she was thinking as much about the local impacts of the tax structure problems that we have, but she's been super open to it since we started talking and realized how this is hurting people, not just in Pierce County by the way - that this is happening in a number of different places, where it doesn't make sense to base all of our services on what you can raise locally. We actually just fixed this basically with schools. That's essentially what we had done with our school systems where we said, "We're going to rely on your local levies to determine what kids deserve." We didn't think that was right with schools. We shouldn't think that's right with basic social services like behavioral health, funding for early childhood, or transit, or any of these programs. Crystal Fincher: [00:13:53] Well, I hope it is something that is taken up in the Legislature and that is going to be fixed because it is fundamentally unfair. And it ultimately inhibits and drives down support for regional solutions for a variety of things overall. And drives up the, I guess, I don't want to call it jealousy because it's not jealousy, but just some of looking at Seattle and going, "Man, you guys get everything and we're sitting out here outside in the rain with no cover and no one seems to be noticing." You talked- Derek Young: [00:14:28] I'll give you one example that really highlights this. There is one BRT highway intersection in Kirkland that is going to cost upwards of $135 million. That is more than the entire Bus Rapid Transit line that is being built - covers, I think, a dozen miles - in Pierce County. One intersection that's going to serve a few hundred people versus ours that's going to serve thousands. And our funding was in jeopardy until the federal government stepped up. That's how outrageous this disparity is. And so, yeah, I'm hoping we can get some common sense to this. But it is sort of frustrating to watch. And that's why when ST3 came up for the repeal - for the nearest brick to pick up and throw through that window, if they're not getting the services that they think they're paying for. And then they look up north and don't realize they're not actually funding those systems, but I guess that's what you're saying is - it isn't jealousy, it's that I'm getting hurt and we should stop that. Crystal Fincher: [00:15:37] We're also dealing with, as you said, King County's failure to manage sprawl - people being people being priced out of Seattle and King County - moving further away, being forced out of the City, and forced further away from the City in search of more affordable housing, both rentals and owned homes. And so now we're also continuing to see headlines in Pierce County that housing prices continue to rise. Are you looking at the same kind of housing cost increases that King County has been experiencing? And how do you prevent that from happening? Derek Young: [00:16:17] Yeah, in answer to your question, we have. At one point, Spanaway, which is in unincorporated Pierce County outside Tacoma, was the hottest housing market in the entire country. That's not a normal thing. That's pretty far out. And it tells you the kinds of pressures that are being put on the system here. We have absorbed more than our share of the population growth. In fact, if it had not been for the fact that Pierce County had - A) coming out of the Great Recession, a large housing glut - meaning when I first joined the Council in 2015, our big problem that we were dealing with was abandoned homes, which sounds crazy now but we had a lot of them. So, that basically absorbed some of the pressure and then we've grown a lot. So, we've added a ton of new housing. Tacoma right now is looking at a plan called Home in Tacoma which is going to basically transform a lot of their single family homes zoning into more accessible, and it's based on where transit support is. And so it'll cover most of the city. That's the kind of thing that we need our major metropolitan cities doing in general. It's our regional growth plans. Seattle just announced that they're going to change the name of their single family zoning. They're changing the name. Now, I understand why they're saying it's exclusionary rhetoric - that's great. But when I first saw the headline I was like, "Oh my God, this is what we need. They're going to get rid of their single family zoning." They're changing the term, but it'll continue to do the exact same thing. Crystal Fincher: [00:17:53] Okay. I saw you post on this. I will say, in fairness, I saw the announcement by Council President Lorena González, who's also running for mayor. And actually one of the things we've talked about on Hacks & Wonks before is - there does seem to be universal agreement among mayoral candidates, and there will be a new mayor in Seattle, that the need to actually end exclusionary zoning is there. They have different plans to approach it. So, yes, changing the name. But I will say that they are not talking about simply stopping at a name change. They are actually talking about changing the policies. Derek Young: [00:18:33] And when they do I will be there to applaud them. In fact, one of the things I miss most about regional government was when we lost Mike O'Brien. Mike was a great partner negotiating our regional strategy and what basically - which was aimed at Seattle, forcing it to accept more housing. And I watched even a couple meetings where he was at where he was getting the - strong feedback might be the way to put it. It was tragic because he's such a nice guy that -and decided not to run again. But we need that leadership on the Seattle Council. I don't get a say in those elections, but I joked for a while - now that I know that residency is maybe not a requirement, maybe I should run for Seattle mayor so I can blow up their zoning code. Crystal Fincher: [00:19:26] Well, I am rooting for the blowing up of the zoning code, and I am actually with you in terms of - dealing with rhetoric is entirely insufficient. It is actually changing of the policy that is going to be impactful for people on the ground. Derek Young: [00:19:41] And by the way, I should say it's a good idea to change that. I understand why the name is - it's always good to police our language a bit and realize where that came from. I just wouldn't send out a press release over it. Just do it. Crystal Fincher: [00:19:55] I get it. We have had a number of interesting press releases lately. In terms of dealing with exclusionary zoning in Pierce County, where are you on that? Derek Young: [00:20:06] So, we are following basically what we believe to be smart growth practices. And so most recently we had what's called our Centers and Corridors proposal. It was in our last Comm[unity] Plan update and Development Reg changes. So, where we have access to high capacity transit, and this is a term that we have in our regional plans going through Puget Sound Regional Council - that means frequent high capacity, something more than a regular bus route. It's got to be either Bus Rapid Transit or light rail. And along those corridors, so basically within half a mile, we're allowing very large scale development. Originally it was going to be unlimited and just let the market decide. But Tacoma and us had a disagreement. Tacoma wanted to make sure that their downtown was protected and they were going to have more growth concentrated. It makes sense. The line starts there, so it's a good idea. And then we'll also add more as we add more high capacity transit. That's trying to pull back from the outlying areas where there's more sprawl and really try to build healthy, sustainable communities that are walkable, have good access to public transportation, and don't require you to drive everywhere. This is trying to turn the corner on an auto-centric model that we have in Pierce County that forces everyone, including people who really can't afford it, to buy a car. Crystal Fincher: [00:21:35] In terms of high capacity transit routes, lots of broad agreement across the state. In terms of single family or neighborhood residential, where does zoning stand on that in more developed cities that are not predominantly rural in Pierce County? Derek Young: [00:21:56] Yeah, so, there's still quite a bit. And that's why I kind of called out Tacoma's work to try to - they're going to basically try to pass this this year. That's the recommendation from their planning commission. I think they're close. The pushback began. I kept telling people to wait for it. That's why we all, the Executive and the Council, unanimously sent a letter basically applauding their work because we're like, "We need you to do this so that we don't keep pushing more growth out in the outlying areas." But, yeah, we need - I guess the way I would put it is the urban core. And that's the places where we do have that infrastructure. So Lakewood, University Place, Puyallup, Tacoma, and urban and incorporated Pierce County - those are the areas where you find that. And we're trying to concentrate as much growth there as possible. That means rezoning, in some cases, the single family zones. We already had quite - our moderate density housing already allowed for a lot of that flexibility. I think we need to go further in some of the cities. So, we need our city partners in Lakewood, Puyallup, UP, frankly, to step up along with Tacoma. I think we're getting there. Everyone seems to be - unlike my frustration in King County where some of the cities just ignore their population distribution, ours at least seem to say, "Okay, we'll plan for that." Now, this isn't Sim City. You can plan for it, the market has to come to it. The second thing is that we're just now getting into serious - we have some money to start doing some major investments in public housing, which is something we really haven't done. The degree to which, and this is a compliment for King County, since I've said a few negative things. You all have invested a lot in public housing and are poised to make some bigger ones. We're just dipping our toes into it right now. So, we're working on those plans and we'll start our own developments. We'll start building much more public housing than what we have right now. Crystal Fincher: [00:24:00] Well, and that's really exciting to see. And it is encouraging to hear you talk about - hey, cities, even cities with Republican leadership in Pierce County, are planning to absorb growth and are planning to meet those goals. And that there does seem to be some unanimity and agreement on - hey, we do need to absorb density. May not be agreement everywhere, but hey, if we're along a transit line we need to support the density on that route. That seems like a positive thing that should not be odd for every community to be advocating for and expecting. In terms of the conversation around public safety, policing, we have certainly talked a lot in King County, throughout Washington. Pierce County is no different - whether we're talking about Manny Ellis or talking about Sheriff Troyer and his, as I will put it, setting up a Black man newspaper deliverer to potentially be killed - by saying his life was actively being threatened and seemingly not being honest about that. Where does, I guess specifically in those two cases, the Council stand and where are things moving, with the understanding that you may be limited in what you can talk about because you're on the Council and actively dealing with that? But overall, do you think policing is where it should be? And the conversation around public safety is where it should be? And how should it be different? Derek Young: [00:25:34] Yeah. I'm glad you asked because I'll go to the part that will be difficult for me to elaborate too much on, and that's the current investigation into Sheriff Troyer. We did two things. First of all, I was heartbroken when I heard that story because all I could think was - how would I have felt if I saw this swarm of officers showing up to what they believed to be an officer in danger? And then I also can't put myself in the shoes of a Black man. And so I would have been nervous enough. I can only imagine what he was experiencing there. So, we said - right away, my thought was let's use our public - an elected sheriff is only accountable to the people. The problem is that the people don't have investigatory powers. So, we, as the branch that most closely represents them, do have that. We have subpoena power. We do have the ability to compel testimony. So, let's basically hire someone who will conduct an independent investigation, find out what really happened, get into the details beyond maybe what the newspapers were able to uncover, interview folks. And then basically issue that decision and say, "Here's what I have found." We'll make it public. This is unusual for government. Typically when you know you're going to be sued, you don't do discovery for the other side. But I felt the public's interest was in this case not just financial. It was to get to the bottom of the matter and we'll deal with that. So, as we expected, we did have a claim filed and we expect a lawsuit. So, that got paused because then we found out that the Attorney General was launching a criminal investigation. And when I say paused, it didn't mean that he stopped doing work. It's that it - basically the gentleman that we hired is a former US Attorney, so he has prosecutorial background both at the local level and federal level. He basically said, "Hey, it's going to be hard for me to interview witnesses while this is criminal, or interview Sheriff Troyer himself. So, let's wait for that to wrap up for those. I'll pause." But he's continuing to do some work. We expect that to wrap up in the next couple weeks - both the criminal investigation and the civil one. That's about what I have now and that's not just because I'm being cagey. I actually don't know many details because we're trying to keep this very independent. And that's to avoid that partisan problem. The second thing I'll say is that - on the Manny Ellis case, this is one where all I can say to the Ellis family is - his death was a tragedy and shouldn't have happened. It's also clear that Pierce County badly bungled the investigation, starting with the death inquest and the medical examiner's office. Even the way they communicated with the family was a shame. And then the way it got turned over to the prosecutor's office where we discovered there was a deputy on the scene. So, we had - the investigation was conducted by an involved party. That's when we all said, "This is why we've been begging you to set up a state agency. You can't have local agencies investigating each other." There's too much - if there isn't actual conflict, there's an appearance of conflict. And we have to rebuild trust in law enforcement. We have to remove both. So, I'm glad the State Legislature authorized that, but it was too late for this case, so the AG took over and obviously made their criminal decisions on that case. And I don't think it's actually concluded. Those were the charging decisions that were ready. So, I'll just say, from Pierce County's perspective, we have to fix what was broken within our departments. I will say this is something where the Executive and I agree 100% - where he's trying to make sure their processes are fixed. We have created a Justice Review committee that is looking through every of our procedures throughout the criminal justice system - starting with law enforcement, going through the judicial system, prosecution decisions - and we're beginning to make some of those decisions. I will say the Sheriff's department, surprisingly to me at least, had already adopted a lot of the best practices that you hear, in terms of we basically don't use any no-knock warrants. The place where we did see a need for change was vascular restraints. The Legislature took that. So, we're looking at other places where we need to make some changes. The biggest one though is - the intersection of people in crisis, dealing with having other needs, ending up in contact with law enforcement - is a big problem in Pierce County because we've lacked those social services. So, we've been trying to push more into diversion, avoiding contact with law enforcement. And frankly our law enforcement's always asked for that. They will tell you, "You ask us to do too much. We're not experts in dealing with people in crisis. So, let us deal with the security of an emergent dangerous situation, responding to a crime. Don't ask us to show up when someone is apparently just in crisis on the street corner, at a bus stop, or whatever. That's a place where someone trained with that can show up and help them and probably be more successful." Crystal Fincher: [00:31:18] Yeah, I think that's an excellent point that gets lost in a lot of these conversations - in that police themselves, for a long time - I think some of it has quieted down a little bit for fear in this entire conversation. But man, for decades they've been saying, "This is something that we could do without doing. This is actually - we don't have the tools to address mental health crises, some issues of addiction, some issues around homelessness. There are actual issues here that we can't solve. Sometimes we have nothing to do at the scene." And their addition to it only makes it worse and more complicated, and complicates the job that they're trying to do. So, in the conversation around looking at some of these responses - looking at overall staffing tied to 911 calls overall and maybe not tailoring that to the types of calls, do you think that there should be more movement in terms of tailoring the actual size of the force? Not focusing so much on patrol, as in investigation and targeted actions, and using some of the money that is now funding this entire infrastructure of response to things that they have said before they don't want to respond to - could be better spent on social services? Derek Young: [00:32:41] This is where I kind of get off the bus in terms of the overall movement here because not every - no two departments are created equal. This is the way I'll put it. Basically Pierce County has about a third of the number of deputies that SPD, Seattle Police, has for officers and they cover a much larger territory. So, they've been well understaffed for a long time, and last summer I had joked a number of times that we already defunded the Sheriff's department, we just forgot to do the second part where you actually try to build up the services that would replace that need. And so I don't think we can look at every department as being the same. In my district, where we have a rural detachment, basically 60,000 people on two peninsulas are covered by two deputies as minimum staffing. They're both 30 minutes-plus away from help if something bad happens. We can't reduce that. It would be dangerous not only for the deputies but for people in calls they're responding to because if they feel alone, which they very much are, you can run into problems. We had a deputy killed in exactly that situation in the mountain detachment not long ago. We think the reason he broke protocol and didn't wait for backup to go into a home where there was a home invasion is because he was familiar with it, knew the help was 20 minutes away, and there were children present. Or would have thought there might be. So, he entered the home heroically and ended up losing his life. And so we really don't have the capacity to make further reductions. But what we can do is add to that. Again, getting back to behavioral health tax, trying to add treatment. We're trying to build up co-responders, have alternatives. We have both an emergency response and a proactive response. It's important to go out in mobile teams and meet people where they are and begin to transition them to more traditional services. In many cases we've seen some success where someone has been living in unacceptably inhumane conditions for a long period of time, and we've been able to get them help and to a situation where they have stable housing and get their needs met, their medical conditions met. So, this is going to take some time. It's going to be complicated. It's going to be expensive. But I think what ultimately you will see in most departments is that you will save money by treating - basically going upstream, treating the problem not the symptoms. That's where we've been stuck for too long. And I hate to say this - I don't want to say that anything in the last year we should be glad for. But the one thing about the pandemic and the resources we're seeing from the federal government, is for the first time we can make that initial investment that we haven't been able to afford before, and then show that there's savings there that we can then pay for the ongoing expense. That's always been a difficulty. I have known for years that instead of jailing people, permanent supportive housing is cheaper and in many cases would solve the problem that was going on there. But we've never been able to afford to take that money and invest it in something else. It's too complicated to get set up. So, now we have that opportunity. This is like an intervention in our system to reset things and hopefully make some improvements. So, I know this isn't going to go nearly as fast as a lot of people want to see. And believe me, I would love to move faster. But I think things are moving. And the good news is, even in places like Pierce County that are politically mixed, we are seeing a lot of bipartisan work on this. And so I'm actually really proud of us on a couple of those issues. My colleagues that I may disagree with on occasion, we're finding places to work together on this. Crystal Fincher: [00:36:45] Well, I certainly appreciate the time that you've taken with us today to speak about this, to help educate people about Pierce County and what it is like to govern there, the issues facing Pierce County and the state, and what we can do in terms of advocating and maybe nudging all of our legislators to say, "Hey, you know how we are letting other transit, housing, funding languish in the rest of the state? Let's not do that. We'll actually all end up better if we do that." Helping to equip us to have those conversations. So, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Derek Young: [00:37:18] Thank you, and you're always welcome down in Pierce County. Crystal Fincher: [00:37:21] Well, I'm there often. So, here we go. Thanks. Talk to you soon. Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones, Jr. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I, and now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type in "Hacks & Wonks" into the search bar, be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. You can also get a full text transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced during the show at OfficialHacksAndWonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time.

Jack is joined by KIRO's own Heather Bosch to share a Feature on A Families Determination After A Devastating Wildfire. // Jack is joined by his buddy Dr. William Zinnanti MD, PhD to discuss Vaccines for children and if they are worth it. // Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer pleads not guilty to misdemeanor charges. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At about 2 a.m. on Jan. 27, 2021, Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer called police dispatch to report a man in his neighborhood who he said threatened to kill him. The man, who was Black, turned out to be delivering newspapers. Troyer later told a Tacoma police officer the man hadn't actually threatened his life. Here's the audio of that 911 call.

Well, it's been a busy 10 days in Pierce County! The Attorney General filed criminal charges against Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer, and then the County's investigative report on the Sheriff's conduct was issued. While...

Today Hacks & Wonks Week in Review is back after a brief hiatus! Crystal is joined by Co-founder of the Mercury Group and previous Chief of Staff to Mike McGinn, Julie McCoy to discuss the charges filed against Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer by Attorney General Bob Ferguson for falsely accusing his Black newspaper carrier of threatening his life leading to an overwhelming police response, the case for the Attorney General conducting an investigation into Jenny Durkan's deleted text messages, and analysis of new polling out this week of the election coming up on November 2nd and what the campaigns should be doing to reach the voters they need to win.  As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Julie McCoy, at @mcjulie87. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer charged with false reporting in January confrontation with newspaper carrier” by Jim Brunner and Christine Clarridge from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/pierce-county-sheriff-ed-troyer-charged-with-false-statements-in-january-confrontation-with-newspaper-carrier/  “Criminal charges filed against Pierce County sheriff” from the Washington State Office of the Attorney General: https://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/criminal-charges-filed-against-pierce-county-sheriff  “Durkan Destroys 10 Months of Text Messages in Apparent Coverup” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist: https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/05/13/durkan-destroys-10-months-of-text-messages-in-apparent-coverup/  Polling results from the Northwest Progressive Institute, via The Cascadia Advocate: https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/category/elections  Candidate Forums: Previously Recorded: Seattle Mayoral Public Safety Forum conducted by the ACLU of Washington: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=1228402674346629  Upcoming on Saturday, October 23rd: The Great Debate 2021 conducted by Urbvote, Rainier Arts Center, and The Emperors Group: https://www.facebook.com/events/529623018366265/   Transcript:  Transcript will be uploaded as soon as possible.

Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer is under legal attack from Bob Ferguson and Jay Inslee. Barri Weiss: We Got Here Because of Cowardice. We Get Out With Courage //  In-N-Out blasts S.F. over vaccine mandate shutdown: 'We refuse to become the vaccination police for any government.” // CNN Touts Abortion as Vital for Underage Girls, No Reason to Regret See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer has been charged with two misdemeanors by the Washington state Attorney General.

Local activists Halley Knigge and Nathe Lawver join host Evelyn Lopez for a discussion of recent events involving our Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer. From calling out more than 40 police units from across the...

The top headlines from The News Tribune in Tacoma, Washington, for April 26, 2021, including COVID-19, Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer and new state laws regarding drug possession.

Jacks recap looks at the biggest story of the day including how Governor jay Inslee directs the Washington attorney general to investigate Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer. // Jack has William Zinnanti MD, PhD on to discuss the latest in Covid-19 Vaccines. // Good News! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What's Trending: Lawmakers want elected officials to be the ones to OK police to use tear gas, and Washington is in a fourth wave of COVID, how will you handle it? Gov. Jay Inslee has formally directed state Attorney General Bob Ferguson to open an investigation into Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer, and Cori Bush dishonestly accuses America of stereotyping all black people. Paul Krugman says the GOP made up riots over the summer. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Friday, March 26th 8:00PM Eastern/ 5:00PM Pacific https://www.blacktalkradionetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Exclusive-Target-Of-Womans-Racist-Rant-At-Davidovich-Bakery.mp4 The Context of White Supremacy hosts the weekly forum on Neutralizing Workplace Racism. Federal unemployment numbers suggest the lowest unemployment applications since the Covid-19 pandemic began. However, this does not signal the end of the economic catastrophe and workplace disruption associated with the pandemic. Last week we discussed a black male delivery driver who was terrorized by an off-duty White enforcement official, Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer, in Washington state. Sheriff Troyer is being investigated, but these type of incidents are a daily occurrence because of White Supremacy. This week in New York, a White Woman, Queens, New York's Stephanie Denaro, refused to wear mask and proceeded to verbally berate a black bakery worker. Denaro's has reportedly been banned from the establishment. #WorkplaceSafety INVEST in The COWS – http://paypal.me/TheCOWS Invest in The C.O.W.S. - https://cash.app/$TheCOWS CALL IN NUMBER: 720.716.7300 CODE 564943# The C.O.W.S. Radio Program is specifically engineered for black & non-white listeners - Victims of White Supremacy. The purpose of this program is to provide Victims of White Supremacy with constructive information and suggestions on how to counter Racist Woman & Racist Man. Phone: 1-605-313-5164 - Access Code 564943# Hit star *6 & 1 to enter caller cue

Friday, March 19th 8:00PM Eastern/ 5:00PM Pacific The Context of White Supremacy hosts the weekly forum on Neutralizing Workplace Racism. Gus was out and about enjoying an almost-Spring day in Seattle. He stopped to view The Seattle Times, and noted the cover story featured a black male, being terrorized while delivering papers. 24-year-old Sedrick Altheimer was accosted by an off-duty White man, Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer, while delivering papers earlier this year. To make matters worse, the white officer lied and told dispatchers that Altheimer threatened to kill him. In the 12 months since the coronavirus strangled the planet, there have been a plethora of incidents where black drivers have been threatened, attacked and detained by random White citizens. It is imperative that any non-white people who work as delivery drivers create a high-quality code to neutralize these sort of violent encounters. We also discuss the topic of "burnout" on the job - what burnout means and what non-white people can and should do to nourish mental health and wellness. #WorkplaceSafety INVEST in The COWS – http://paypal.me/TheCOWS Invest in The C.O.W.S. - https://cash.app/$TheCOWS CALL IN NUMBER: 720.716.7300 CODE 564943# The C.O.W.S. Radio Program is specifically engineered for black & non-white listeners - Victims of White Supremacy. The purpose of this program is to provide Victims of White Supremacy with constructive information and suggestions on how to counter Racist Woman & Racist Man. Phone: 1-605-313-5164 - Access Code 564943# Hit star *6 & 1 to enter caller cue