Less than a week into the state of Washington’s new police reform law, it continues to be the exact disaster that we said it would be. We previously outlined how the bill will prevent officers from using less lethal weapons while placing them in danger of the requirement to not use force unless there is “probable cause” for a crime but we have yet to discuss how much kore dangerous the law will be to the citizens in the state.
Wednesday night was the first of the daily incidents that will prevent cops from being cops and will expose the citizens of the state to mayhem. After the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department received a 911 call reporting shots fired at a Kohl’s store, they arrived on the scene and found a young male dead in the parking lot according to Fox News.
Deputies received a description of the suspect and typically a crime of this magnitude would permit law enforcement to deploy a K-9 to search the area. In a statement released by the agency, “a K9 officer was on scene within minutes, but because probable cause had not been developed for a particular individual, they decided not to track for the possible suspect since they could not use force to detain him.”
As we have previously reported, House Bill 1310, went into effect on Sunday and part of the law indicates that police need probable cause of a crime before using force.
“We don’t know who the victim is, we don’t know who the suspect is, so we don’t have probable cause when we show up,” Pierce County Sgt. Darren Moss Jr. told the King5 News. “Although personally we would feel a reward for catching the suspect, we don’t want anyone to be disciplined or fired or de-certified criminally or civilly for violating the new law.”
The United States Supreme Court (Graham v. Connor) has ruled that law enforcement may use force if that force is “objectively reasonable” and no court in the land has ever sided with what the state of Washington has done to their law enforcement and their citizens.
Law Officer Trainer Travis Yates has studied and taught pre-incident indicators of attacks and counter-ambush tactics for close to two decades and he is currently the lead instructor of “Seconds 2 Survive.”
He calls the new reform law in Washington one of the most dangerous actions a political group has ever done to law enforcement and the citizens that they serve.
“They are telling law enforcement if you see actions of a suspect that through experience is an indicator that they may have a gun or may attack, law enforcement can’t touch them and frankly that is a position that I cannot recommend any officer be in,” Yates said.
Yates described a scenario where a suspect has their hands in their pocket and an officer asks them to remove their hands for safety reasons. Under this reform bill, not only can the suspect refuse but he or she can do just about anything they want short of committing a crime and law enforcement can’t lay a hand on them.
Wednesday’s incident is just the beginning according to Yates.
“The politicians in Washington have given police leaders one option if they want their officers safe and that is to tell them to not engage with anyone unless there is probable cause that a crime has been committed and considering that most encounters begin with reasonable suspicion, that will mean that the vast majority of police interventions that actually stop crime or arrest criminals will stop and ultimately that will place the citizens in a great deal of danger going forward,” Yates told us.
Editor’s Note: Law Officer will be covering this new reform bill on a weekly basis and we need your help. We know that the mainstream media and their political allies want the citizens of the state to believe this is a good idea but through our reporting, we intend to hold those politicians accountable. We need your help to do that. If you are a citizen or law enforcement officer in the state of Washington, please contact us.
