Legislators responds to concerns surrounding new police reform laws

YAKIMA COUNTY -- Local police chiefs have expressed concern about some of the new police accountability laws, saying it might stop them from responding to some calls.

Today Action News spoke with a lawmaker who says that's not at all what the law says.

Representative Roger Goodman says police still need to respond to calls, and for a lot of police agencies, he says nothing is going to change because they're already doing exactly what the laws require.

"For those who don't know what de-escalation means, they're either going to learn it, or they're going to find a new career," says Bill Pickett, a local attorney who's been involved in lawsuits regarding excessive use of force.

Some local police chiefs say they've been concerned over what the new laws mean they can and cannot respond to.

"The legislation that we passed does nothing to prevent or prohibit police from responding to calls. The public expects the police to respond to calls, and so it's important that the police show up because they don't know what they're going to see until they get there," says Goodman. "Nothing we did prevents law enforcement from doing anything they already do, except using force unnecessarily."

Others say they wonder when they arrive at a typical call, and there's not probable cause a crime happened, and there's not an imminent threat to the public, if their hands would be tied or maybe they'd just have to leave.

"You're not going to see it say anything about shackling or handcuffing the police," says Pickett. "What you're going to see over and over again is a call for de-escalation, a call for de-escalation and this thing that not just police but people in general don't like, and you know what that's called? It's called accountability," says Pickett.

There are questions over how to respond to a mental health crisis.

Representative Goodman, the Chairman of the House Public Safety Committee, helped craft these laws. He knows exactly what they mean.

He says the laws have not changed the Involuntary Treatment Act, saying it was not their intent to impair law enforcement's ability to respond to behavioral health calls.

"If a designated crisis responder, a mental health professional determines that an individual in a mental health crisis is an imminent harm to themself or others, the police are justified to put their hands on that person, to restrain them or to assist with transporting that person to a secure facility for mental health evaluation," says Goodman.

He says the law makes it so de-escalation is the priority and use of force is the last option.

Goodman says a lot of what they wrote into law are already policies at police agencies, and it's already what officers are trained to do.

"This is actually a good thing to bring all police agencies up to best practice statewide, so that we are not needlessly injuring or killing people, and peacefully resolving conflicts," says Goodman.

He says he's working with local police agencies and the attorney general to clear up any confusion. If necessary, he says lawmakers will make amendments to clarify things come the 2022 session.