House Bill 1310; who could've seen this coming?
A brief look into how it's started vs. how it's going
Here is a link to the full House Bill 1310 as passed. The bill was passed on April 23rd 2021 with 56 yeas and 41 nays. It became effective July 25th 2021. The most important part of this bill is that police officers cannot detain a subject with first establishing probable cause. This is different than how detainment works in the rest of the country. The typical arrest process looks like this:
Note: ‘frisk’ is one aspect of detainment. Detainment includes verbal and physical restraint.
How It Started
Radio show host Dori Monson had the drafter of the bill, Representative Jesse Johnson, on his show on August 5th 2021. It is really worth listening to the entire 17 minutes. Dori questions Rep. Johnson on the wisdom of this bill. Dori brings up this case that happened 5 days after the bill was passed. A murder took place in a parking lot and several people saw a man running away and were able to provide a description; however no one saw him pull the trigger. Therefore law enforcement felt that they could not deploy the K9 or do any search to find the suspect. This is because if they did find a male matching that description, they would not legally be able to detain him anyways. Rep. Johnson responds that the police should use tactical questioning and call for back up in those situations. Dori says to Representative Johnson “…the word is out among criminals…if a cop comes up to you, just keep walking. If the Washington state patrol wants to…write somebody a ticket…if the person just keeps on driving, they can’t chase them.” Representative Johnson responds that Washington state patrol doesn’t do traffic pursuits anyways. I take this to to mean that state patrol will cancel a high speed chase when it is dangerous to the public.
When this bill was brought to our attention by our legal department, I asked a member of the legal team a hypothetical. I asked- let’s say multiple people call 911 to report a man beating a dog at the intersection of, hypothetically, 72nd and S Hosmer St. All reporting parties are able to describe the male, what he is wearing, exactly how he is beating the dog, with what, what kind of dog it is, etc. When law enforcement arrives they see the described male, dog, and weapon. If the male attempts to walk away from law enforcement with the dog, can law enforcement detain that subject. I was told “no”. Unfortunately this was the answer I was expecting; but shocking nonetheless.
Predictably, issues tumbled forward throughout the state.
In Sedro Woolley, police left a half naked man in the street having a mental breakdown because they could not use force to remove him.
The Auburn police department posted on their Facebook page that an armed carjacking suspect was not able to be pursued due to the new law.
Washington state patrol confirmed Dori Monson’s suspicions that subjects are not stopping for traffic stops
The Moses Lake police chief said they will not be responding to mental health crises because that is not a crime.
I have personal knowledge of a situation where a police officer was sitting in his patrol vehicle and observed three males wearing masks and holding guns while running away from a bank. That is not probable cause. The police officer went into the bank to confirm that an armed bank robbery had just occurred. Of course by that time the suspects were gone.
How It’s Going
Proposed House Bill 1519 is quietly working it’s way through the Senate as of March 10th 2022. No Representative or Senator has publicly admitted to any mistake in passing House Bill 1310; however this new bill is essentially a revision to it. I only know about this bill because the legal team notified officers that the state is trying to fix the mistakes it made in HB 1310 with this new HB 1519.
I see two significant changes in the new bill. Firstly, the standard of “probable cause” has been changed to “reasonable suspicion”. Presumably they learned the difference over the last year. And secondly, the term “physical force” has been defined as “reasonably likely to cause physical injury or transient pain”.
Stunningly, Section 3(2)(a) still includes this requirement:
“and leaving the area if there is no threat of imminent harm and no crime has been committed, is being committed, or is about to be committed;”
This will still require police to leave during mental health crises. The statement by Moses Lake police chief Kevin Fuhr will still hold true.