King County Executive responds to protests

King County Executive Dow Constantine responds to the ongoing protests in Seattle, Bellevue, and throughout the county.

This is an edited transcript of Bill Radke's conversation with King County Executive Dow Constantine on Wednesday, June 3, 2020.

I want to start with these protests against police brutality, inequitable policing of Black people that are taking place everywhere. What do you want to say to people who have who've taken to the streets to make their protest?

To those who have taken to the streets to peacefully protest and demand that America fulfill its potential, I say thank you. We are constantly working to try to move our community and our society nationally to be closer to its ideals and it is a maddeningly slow slog over generations who have tried, and succeeded in part, and failed in large part. And we've seen in fact, regression over the course of the last several years under the Trump Administration. But this moment, as tragic as it is, as emotional as it is, does hold the seeds of hope for an actual breakthrough, which will allow us to be the America that I think almost all Americans really deep down want us to be.

You thanked only the peaceful protesters, as you said. Peaceful can be can be defined different ways. Is property damage a legitimate form of protest after equity persists for so long?

I'm not law enforcement, but I do have an obligation that keeps the community safe and I don't support destruction or violence or theft. It isn't right. And you know, in almost every case when it happens, you can see in the context of a public gathering, a demonstration, you can see the reasons why -- that the way in which the ground had been prepared for that, that people had been let down and done wrong over time -- but theft and destruction of property is in large part not a legitimate political expression. It is just wrong, and we have to protect people and protect their property from destruction and theft.

The real work is around how can we right the wrongs that lead to this environment to get upstream, and to make sure that every child is getting off to a good start in life as I've sought to do through our Best Starts for Kids work and others, to create more alternate alternatives and diversion in the criminal justice system, as we are successfully doing, and we've reduced youth detention to now in the range of 30 youth, down from some 200 when I started on this work, and to invest in community based organizations, which we are doing in earnest across all of our work.

I am seeing in these multiple forces that are converging in this moment, the opportunity for us, finally to pivot and to accelerate our work to create the America we want. And that doesn't mean it's without its heartaches. And it doesn't mean it's without its upsets. But ultimately, we have to make this nation live up to its ideals, if we're going to be worthy of the time that we have been left in charge of it.

Governor Inslee has activated about 600 National Guard personnel to help in peacekeeping response in Seattle and King County. What is their role in the protests?

Well, from my understanding, and again, I'm not in law enforcement -- the sheriff is separately elected and runs the law enforcement for King County -- but it's my understanding that they're providing backup for the various police agencies, that they're not armed with firearms, and I think you've seen that in the video that we've all been viewing on local television. The situation from city to city is very different. We've had mass protests in the city of Seattle, with around the periphery people looting or rioting on occasion, particularly on Saturday night. We've seen in other cities, the activity confined in some cases, not in Bellevue, but in other places, to breaking into stores and looting. And the National Guard has been requested by several of those cities. And I don't know how long they will be deployed, but they're there to backup the local police officers.

The governor emphasized that the National Guard is unarmed and peaceful, but there are also police officers which as you said, this isn't your call. But there's some police officers with some pretty heavy equipment that protesters question. Why do you do you think we need a heavily armored police response to protest?

I think any reasonable person can see that the way that the police response to public demonstrations -- even those that are boisterous -- the way that that public response has evolved over time, has become less likely to be able to de-escalate situations, rather than more likely. And part of what you're seeing, the actual visuals, are driven by this federal policy of handing over surplus military equipment to local police agencies and this is something we've gone around and around on. We don't want local police to be little paramilitaries. We want local police to be focused on engaging with the community and understanding problems and figuring out how to defuse situations.

And now Congress is taking up this very issue, having seen military or quasi-military equipment on the streets. Police obviously need to be protected from harm as well. They can't be sent out there to to injured. But we need to make sure that the tactics that are being used, including equipment being used are calculated to reduce the risk of harm, to defuse situations, to allow the message of protesters to come through, without either the police or the people being harmed.

Do you think that's gonna get through Congress and we're gonna see local police less armored up?

Well, I think if it doesn't get through Congress before November, it probably will after January 20.

Why did Metro suspend service to the downtown area? Was that a law enforcement request?

I don't know if it was a law enforcement request. But even if it wasn't, it was the prudent thing to do, considering that the situation is very volatile and vehicles were being targeted. We had two Metro supervisor vehicles that were parked at, I think 4th and Pike and were destroyed by fire on Saturday. I don't know why a supervisor of a bus system would be a good target for that, what kind of political statement that is. But it was a situation that was too dangerous for our drivers and for our equipment. And so the decision was made to reroute. And that I don't think was incorrect. I think that was a smart thing to do.

We saw New York's MTA drivers refuse to transport protesters to jail. Do you support a municipal transit authority refusing to be police transport?

Our drivers are all independent thinking of voting people and they're represented by a union. And I do respect their right to make a choice to take a political stance.

Of the protesters who were arrested, do we know how many of them ended up in King County jails?

The police brought about 100 people in for booking, mostly for burglary or obstruction charges. Most of those were released by the courts immediately. And it is the court and not the jail that determines who's in custody and for how long. I think a couple youth were brought in to youth detention. Up until yesterday or so, there hadn't been any related to the most recent demonstrations. But there were some youth brought in to youth detention for, I'm not sure what the charges, related to the protest.

A week ago, we were talking about emptying out or spacing out jails because of a pandemic and a state of emergency. Are those two goals at odds right now?

Oh yeah, they're very much at odds. What do you do about that contradiction?

This is an enormous challenge. You have to figure out how to try to keep people separated. But the reality is, courts decide who gets sent to detention. So our numbers are up a bit. But we are managing, for the most part, to maintain our public health standard, which is to have single bunking. And we're going to continue to work to reduce the number of people in detention. And as I've said before, we're going to continue to urgently engage all the partners in the criminal justice system in a conversation about how we make reduced population in detention a permanent condition.

Your legislative branch, the King County Council met yesterday, and Councilor Girmay Zahilay had this to say about the reforms that he wants to see from the county: "I would love to call on my colleagues to join me in concrete policy solutions to these problems. Demilitarizing the police, meaning that we take an accounting of what military equipment is coming in from the federal government and making sure those equipment are not on the streets of a city during peace times. Restricting permissible use of force by police. Increasing accountability and transparency in police union contracts. Giving subpoena and other investigative powers to oversight boards. And redirecting police department budgets to community based alternatives. These are all things that community has been asking for for a long time. And we play a role in whether these solutions are implemented or not. So hopefully, we can all come together and pass solutions like this. I understand that not everything is within our jurisdiction, but we can all do our part to advance and support concrete policy solutions. And I hope all of my colleagues will join our efforts through the law and justice committee in doing that."

King County owns semi automatic M14 rifles and a Huey helicopter that was used in Vietnam and a Bearcat armored vehicle. You said in general, you didn't want these paramilitary, sort of quasi-military, look. Are you completely in support with Zahilay there on all his points, or is there any that you take issue to?

I think that virtually all of his points -- I have to go through them one by one -- are valid and aspirational and hit the punchlines at the end. I know these are not all things we're in charge of because they're not.

Let me just take police accountability and oversight. We have been working for years to try to put in place an effective way to fairly examine police conduct. And you have to, through labor negotiations, try to negotiate every single change you make. And it is virtually impossible to get in place what is needed to have an effective oversight regime.

On the other hand, something like the Huey helicopter, you mentioned, is actually used in a lot of non-criminal justice activity, for example, in the [2014] Oso landslide, and I flew in it. And if you've never flown in a 1960s era helicopter, I wouldn't recommend it. But I flew up there to examine the damage from that landslide. Some of this equipment is actually useful in search and rescue and other operations that don't have to do with criminal justice.

But the basic point remains, that local police departments should not be little militaries. Local police departments should be set up with the focus, the leading edge, being to protect and serve and engaging the community to try to defuse tensions and find a way to solve problems.

I want to fill people in on on the Phase 2 of the governor's reopening plan. King County is not there yet. So the county says it's applying to move to a modified Phase 1, maybe it's a 1.5. But what is that gonna mean?

Yeah, so this is 1.5 plus, because we've been able to have a conversation with the State Department of Health, citing how close we're getting to the criteria for Phase 2.

So this is almost everything that's in Phase 2 except for the following: We'll have 1/2 of what would be allowed for indoor capacity, for things like retail and restaurants under Phase 2, so it'd be 25% capacity indoors in restaurants and 50% of outdoor capacity, which is what's in Phase 2. And then retail would have sort of commensurate proportions.

This will allow you to get a haircut. It will allow you to go to your lawyer's office or your accountant's office. It will allow construction and manufacturing to resume as they can in Phase 2. It will allow a number of activities and then we need to hold and see what the changes are in the rate of infection, so that we can make sure things aren't running away from us before we take the next step to the full Phase 2.

My understanding is it takes a day or three to find out if that 1.5 plus application's approved.

We're hoping desperately for Friday for business reopening. And I wouldn't take that to the bank, but that's our target.