Pass bill that would hold police accountable and make us all safer

The news that King County prosecutors won’t charge police officers involved in the death of Jaahnavi Kandula is sadly not surprising. The 23-year-old graduate student was struck last January by a Seattle police officer speeding to a reported overdose. Adding insult to injury, Kandula’s family had to hear audio of Seattle Police Department officers joking about the incident, suggesting her life had “limited value” and that the city should “just write a check.” No monetary settlement can bring back our loved ones, nor will it create a path to justice.

Experiencing a mental health crisis should not mean you will die at the hands of police officers. Being pulled over for a traffic stop shouldn’t risk, or end, your life. When a young woman is killed by speeding police, she should not be the subject of banter by law enforcement. When our humanity and our rights are not respected by the very people sworn to protect us, we are all in danger.

In 2019 my brother was stopped, shocked with a Taser and shot 16 times by Vancouver police on a busy street, all while seat-belted in his car. Carlos had been on the way to pick his child up from school. Since 2015, police have been responsible for one of every six homicides in Washington. Those dead children, spouses and parents are disproportionately Black, Indigenous and brown. My brother’s death, like others caused by unnecessary police violence, was preventable. Our family will never be whole again.

Initiative 940, passed in 2018, changed the standard for justifiable use of force and made prosecution of police at least possible. A slew of reform bills aimed at preventing police violence and holding police accountable were enacted by the Legislature in 2021 and were steps in the right direction. Tragically, the proof continues to mount that we still haven’t achieved the changes we need. 

Washington lawmakers have the opportunity right now to break down the barrier of the inherent conflict of interest between local prosecutors and police departments. House Bill 1579 would establish within the state attorney general’s office a mechanism for independent prosecutions of criminal conduct resulting from police use of force. 

Nationally, police are only prosecuted in 1%-2% of cases where they’re accused of killing civilians, and even more rarely do those prosecutions result in convictions. Here in Washington, the prosecution of three Tacoma police officers accused of killing Manny Ellis was just the fifth criminal trial of police officers charged with homicide in the past 100 years, even though an average of 30 people are killed by law enforcement in our state each year. The acquittal of the three officers provides further evidence of the barriers to justice that remain.

Police violence isn’t about a couple of “bad apples.” All the de-escalation training in the world isn’t going to change a culture or break a departmentwide pattern of misconduct and racist policing. Police involved are rarely investigated; they are not fired; they are not charged or prosecuted. When law enforcement officers face no consequences for their actions, there is no incentive to reform. 

When police violate our right to drive without the fear of being wrongfully harassed or, worse, gunned down, they are fostering distrust. When they kill a member of the community they are sworn to protect yet remain in their jobs, they are proving there is no accountability.

Only by putting systems in place to hold police accountable for their actions can we open the door to justice. Families who have lost loved ones to police violence are calling on lawmakers to build systems that will hold police accountable and make all of us safer.