Two bills to polish and refine 2021 police reform laws clear Washington State House

A pair of bills intend­ed to “clar­i­fy” last year’s pack­age of police reform leg­is­la­tion have passed out of the Wash­ing­ton State House with near­ly unan­i­mous sup­port and are on their way to the Sen­ate for fur­ther consideration.

House Bill 1719 makes it clear that police can use less lethal alter­na­tives, spec­i­fy­ing that the pro­hi­bi­tion on .50 cal­iber weapons only applies to rifles as opposed to bean­bag rounds or less lethal muni­tions systems.

“The Leg­is­la­ture nev­er intend­ed to ban less-lethal alter­na­tives. In fact, in HB 1310 we explic­it­ly called for their use pri­or to employ­ing dead­ly force,” said prime spon­sor Dan Bronoske (D‑28th Dis­trict: Pierce County).

“I am hap­py we were able to pass this bill which will elim­i­nate any ambi­gu­i­ty in the statute and ensure that our law enforce­ment pro­fes­sion­als have the full range of less-lethal alter­na­tives to dead­ly force avail­able to them.”

The roll call on House Bill 1719 was nine­ty-five yea to zero opposed.

HB 1719
Mil­i­tary equipment/law enf.
House vote on 3rd Read­ing & Final Passage
1/28/2022

Yeas: 95; Excused: 3

Vot­ing Yea: Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Abbarno, Bate­man, Berg, Bergquist, Berry, Boehnke, Bronoske, Caldier, Callan, Cham­bers, Chan­dler, Chap­man, Chase, Chopp, Cody, Cor­ry, Davis, Dent, Dolan, Don­aghy, Duerr, Dufault, Dye, Enten­man, Eslick, Fey, Fitzgib­bon, Frame, Gil­day, Goehn­er, Good­man, Gra­ham, Gregerson, Grif­fey, Hack­ney, Hansen, Har­ris, Har­ris-Tal­ley, Jacob­sen, John­son, J., Kir­by, Klick­er, Klip­pert, Klo­ba, Kraft, Kretz, Leav­itt, Lekanoff, MacEwen, Macri, May­cum­ber, McCaslin, McEn­tire, Mor­gan, Mos­bruck­er, Orcutt, Orms­by, Ortiz-Self, Orwall, Paul, Peter­son, Pol­let, Ramel, Ramos, Ric­cel­li, Robert­son, Rude, Rule, Ryu, San­tos, Schmick, Sells, Senn, Shew­make, Slat­ter, Springer, Steele, Stokes­bary, Stonier, Sul­li­van, Suther­land, Tay­lor, Thai, Tharinger, Valdez, Vick, Volz, Walen, Walsh, Wicks, Wilcox, Wylie, Ybar­ra, Young, Jinkins

Excused: Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Barkis, Hoff, Simmons

House Bill 1735 makes it clear that police offi­cers can assist behav­ioral health work­ers. Police may use force, “sub­ject to the new­ly estab­lished rea­son­able care stan­dard, in behav­ioral health cir­cum­stances, for invol­un­tary treat­ment com­mit­ments, in instances of child wel­fare, and oth­er relat­ed cir­cum­stances,” the House Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus explained in a descrip­tion of the bill.

The roll call on House Bill 1735 was nine­ty yea to five opposed.

SHB 1735
Peace officers/use of force
House vote on 3rd Read­ing & Final Passage
1/28/2022

Yeas: 90; Nays: 5; Excused: 3

Vot­ing Yea: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Abbarno, Bate­man, Berg, Bergquist, Berry, Boehnke, Bronoske, Caldier, Callan, Cham­bers, Chan­dler, Chap­man, Chopp, Cody, Cor­ry, Davis, Dent, Dolan, Don­aghy, Duerr, Dufault, Dye, Enten­man, Eslick, Fey, Fitzgib­bon, Frame, Gil­day, Goehn­er, Good­man, Gra­ham, Gregerson, Grif­fey, Hack­ney, Hansen, Har­ris, Har­ris-Tal­ley, Jacob­sen, John­son, J., Kir­by, Klick­er, Klip­pert, Klo­ba, Kretz, Leav­itt, Lekanoff, MacEwen, Macri, May­cum­ber, Mor­gan, Mos­bruck­er, Orcutt, Orms­by, Ortiz-Self, Orwall, Paul, Peter­son, Pol­let, Ramel, Ramos, Ric­cel­li, Robert­son, Rude, Rule, Ryu, San­tos, Schmick, Sells, Senn, Shew­make, Slat­ter, Springer, Steele, Stokes­bary, Stonier, Sul­li­van, Suther­land, Tay­lor, Thai, Tharinger, Valdez, Vick, Volz, Walen, Wicks, Wilcox, Wylie, Ybar­ra, Young, Jinkins

Vot­ing Nay: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Chase, Kraft, McCaslin, McEn­tire, Walsh

Excused: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Barkis, Hoff, Simmons

The five rep­re­sen­ta­tives vot­ing no were all Republicans.

“HB 1735 pro­vides law enforce­ment agen­cies with the legal cer­tain­ty they need to assist des­ig­nat­ed cri­sis respon­ders, EMTs, and fire­fight­ers with trans­port­ing those in need of invol­un­tary treat­ment,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ali­cia Rule (D‑42nd Dis­trict: What­com Coun­ty). “Our des­ig­nat­ed cri­sis respon­ders often enter volatile and unsta­ble sit­u­a­tions. It is vital that they have the sup­port of law enforce­ment so that they can safe­ly pro­vide help and treat­ment to those who need it.”

“Over the past few months, I have met exten­sive­ly with law enforce­ment lead­ers, rank and file offi­cers, train­ers at the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Train­ing Com­mis­sion, Des­ig­nat­ed Cri­sis Respon­ders, men­tal and behav­ioral health pro­fes­sion­als, fire­fight­ers, EMTs, and cities to learn how the police account­abil­i­ty pack­age was being imple­ment­ed and to ensure that our first respon­ders had the clar­i­ty and sup­port nec­es­sary to do their jobs,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jesse John­son (D‑30th Dis­trict: Fed­er­al Way and South King Coun­ty), a leader on the cause of police accountability.

“I am hap­py that we were able to work togeth­er with all of these stake­hold­ers as well as the fam­i­lies of those impact­ed by police vio­lence to adjust and clar­i­fy our statutes to pro­vide the cer­tain­ty our offi­cers need to assist des­ig­nat­ed cri­sis respon­ders and men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als with invol­un­tary treat­ments and oth­er com­mu­ni­ty care­tak­ing func­tions. The goals remain the same, de-esca­la­tion and lim­it­ing unnec­es­sary police vio­lence while still allow­ing police to do their job.”

Both HB 1719 and HB 1735 are sup­port­ed by the Wash­ing­ton Coali­tion for Police Account­abil­i­ty. They will now head to the oth­er side of the rotunda.