King County to consider booking fewer suspects during latest COVID-19 spike

SEATTLE — King County’s top public defender is hoping to make some major changes to the way law enforcement agencies respond to crime.

Director Anita Khandelwal is asking council members to approve a resolution that would prevent officers from booking suspects into jail for certain offenses.

Some of these offenses include home burglaries, car thefts, and failing to register as a sex offender.

The Department of Public Defense says this is a temporary measure while COVID-19 impacts the judicial system.

“Right now we’re in a situation where again, clients are stuck in their cells, we’re unable to see them, it is very difficult for attorneys to access their clients, clients are missing court dates,” says Director Khandelwal.

“It is trying to use COVID as a way to override the rule of law,” says King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn. “It’s a dangerous set of policies that go way, way too far and won’t make our community safer.”

Dunn wasn’t alone. Dan Clark is the chief criminal deputy with the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. At Tuesday’s workshop, he said, “If you have somebody who steals a catalytic converter every day or somebody who breaks into a home every day and the police finally catch them, if there’s these restrictions in place they can’t book them anymore.”

As of Tuesday night, Director Khandelwal didn’t respond to any requests for an interview. At the workshop, she said many of these cases result in suspects only being held behind bars for less than a week.

She says those short-term bookings lead to COVID-19 outbreaks inside the jail and beyond, “and we know here that it seeds outbreaks disproportionality in BIPOC communities.”

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