De-Escalate Washington submits signatures for Initiative 940 at rainy event in Olympia

Wash­ing­ton State is slat­ed to have at least one pro­gres­sive idea on the Novem­ber 2018 bal­lot fol­low­ing today’s sub­mis­sion of sig­na­tures for Ini­tia­tive 940 by De-Esca­late Wash­ing­ton, a broad and diverse coali­tion of orga­ni­za­tions that is seek­ing polic­ing reforms to reduce the use of dead­ly force in our communities.

I‑940 “would require spe­cif­ic train­ings for law enforce­ment; man­date a duty to pro­vide first-aid; and change the stan­dards for use of dead­ly force, includ­ing a ‘good faith’ stan­dard and requir­ing inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion”, as not­ed by its amend­ed bal­lot title, which was approved by court order back in the sum­mer.

I‑940 requires that all cur­rent­ly sworn law enforce­ment offi­cers under­go vio­lence de-esca­la­tion and men­tal health train­ing begin­ning a year fol­low­ing the date the ini­tia­tive goes into law, makes ren­der­ing first aid a respon­si­bil­i­ty of police, and pre­scribes a “good faith” stan­dard for use of dead­ly force.

It also man­dates that each use of dead­ly force be investigated.

“Where the use of dead­ly force results in death, sub­stan­tial bod­i­ly harm, or great bod­i­ly harm, an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion must be com­plet­ed to inform the deter­mi­na­tion of whether the use of dead­ly force met the objec­tive good faith test estab­lished by this sec­tion and sat­is­fied oth­er applic­a­ble laws and poli­cies,” states Part VI of the ini­tia­tive (Sec­tion 7, sub­sec­tion 5D).

NPI sup­ports I‑940 and is a mem­ber of the De-Esca­late Wash­ing­ton coali­tion, which was able to gath­er over 360,000 sig­na­tures using a mix­ture of vol­un­teers and paid sig­na­ture gath­er­ers dur­ing the lat­ter half of 2017.

Coali­tion mem­bers gath­ered at the Unit­ed Church­es of Olympia to cel­e­brate a suc­cess­ful sig­na­ture dri­ve before march­ing over to the Sec­re­tary of State’s Elec­tions Annex on Union Street to drop off box­es of peti­tions. The march took place in the rain, but that did not put a damper on the event, which was months in the making.

Speak­ers at the coali­tion’s press con­fer­ence accom­pa­ny­ing the turn-in includ­ed Lisa Earl and James Ride­out (the moth­er and uncle of Jack­ie Saly­ers), Uyen Le and Xuyen Le (the aunts of Tom­my Le), Mar­i­lyn Covar­ru­bias (the moth­er of Daniel Covar­ru­bias), and Kat­ri­na John­son (the cousin of Charleena Lyles).

The received peti­tions will soon be imaged by the Sec­re­tary of State’s Elec­tions Divi­sion and sub­ject­ed to a ran­dom sam­ple check to ver­i­fy that the ini­tia­tive has met the min­i­mum sig­na­ture thresh­old, which is 259,622.

Because I‑940 is an ini­tia­tive to the 2018 Leg­is­la­ture, it will first be pre­sent­ed to the House and Sen­ate dur­ing the leg­isla­tive ses­sion for hear­ings and a pos­si­ble vote. If the Leg­is­la­ture does noth­ing, I‑940 will appear on the Novem­ber 2018 ballot.

The Con­sti­tu­tion gives the Leg­is­la­ture oth­er options. Law­mak­ers can put I‑940 on the books itself by giv­ing the ini­tia­tive an affir­ma­tive vote in both hous­es (no guber­na­to­r­i­al sig­na­ture required), or craft an alter­na­tive to I‑940 that would appear on the bal­lot along­side the orig­i­nal mea­sure. Vot­ers would then decide whether to approve the orig­i­nal mea­sure or the Leg­is­la­ture’s alternative.