Week in Review: July 11, 2025 - with Erica Barnett

“Prosecutors reviewing evidence against King County Assessor John Wilson” by David Gutman from The Seattle Times

“Poll Tests Message that Katie Wilson is “Angry,” “Divisive,” and “Loud”; No Charges Yet for County Assessor Accused of Stalking” from PubliCola

“Seattle Council taking applications for Cathy Moore replacement” by Josh Cohen from Cascade PBS

“Former Councilmember Juarez Applies as "Caretaker" for Vacant Council Seat, Along with - PubliCola” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola

“Council Advances Bills Expanding Power to Prosecute and Fine Graffiti Taggers, "Nuisance" Properties” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola

“Seattle asks court to end 13 years of federal oversight of police” by Mike Carter from The Seattle Times

“Pierce County sheriff’s effort to partner with ICE sets up conflict” by Jim Brunner from The Seattle Times

Find stories that Crystal is reading here

Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here

[00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work, with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it.

Today, we're continuing our Friday week-in-review shows, where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, and co-host of the Seattle Nice podcast, Erica Barnett.

[00:00:47] Erica Barnett: Great to be here.

[00:00:49] Crystal Fincher: Great to have you here again. Not so great to talk about this first story of the week - an update to a story from last week - that is King County Assessor John Wilson last week was arrested, spent a night in jail, but so far the prosecutor has declined to file charges against him. What is happening here? What's the update?

[00:01:16] Erica Barnett: Well, the prosecutor in this case is the Snohomish County Prosecutor. John Arthur Wilson is, as you said, King County Assessor. He's running for King County Executive. And so, to avoid the appearance of a conflict, King County bumped it to Snohomish County, which is why they are the ones considering this case. And they determined this week that so far, they're not filing charges against him for stalking and harassing his former domestic partner, Lee Keller. He got arrested for showing up at her house, he's been texting her. There's evidence in the court file that he's texted her hundreds of times, despite there being a restraining order against him. And so the question now is whether this will result in criminal charges. So far, it hasn't, but they haven't closed the case, meaning they're still collecting evidence. So it is still possible that they'll file criminal charges against him at this point. But in the meantime, the restraining order remains in place. There was a hearing this week where Lee Keller tried to get the restraining order essentially renewed, and instead it's merely in place pending the ongoing court case. So it's 90 days until they're actually going to have another hearing in the separate court case that's going on between the two of them. And so, in the meantime, the restraining order is in place, John Arthur Wilson is not in jail and still running for King County Executive - so we'll see what happens. But, charges not being filed in this particular case does not mean that all of the other issues that were already ongoing when he was arrested are settled - they're still all very much up in the air.

[00:02:53] Crystal Fincher: They are - and the restraining order remains in place. Before this, and in some prior incidences that were reported on, John Wilson had essentially said this was kind of a lover's quarrel gone bad, and they break up and make up, and their relationship is tumultuous. And just tried to kind of swat it all away and say that it's fine. But in reading the reporting - between your reporting, I was also reading reporting by David Gutman in The Times - there were two instances last week where the victim called police. One was where he was eventually arrested. But another one, she says that - it was in Olympia - and Wilson was looking through her windows in Olympia. Like, this guy just allegedly shows up all over the place. And I thought it was just really important to highlight one of her statements because it is contrary to what we've heard from him. She says, "I'm afraid to leave my home, I'm afraid in grocery stores, I'm afraid when I attend events for business. I go out of my way to avoid places that I think he might be, but I can't get away from him. He's taunting me and tracking me on social media." - which is just wild. And the time he was arrested - she called police, he wasn't there. Police were talking to her and he drove by while the police were there. And then they followed him and wound up arresting him. But it is just alarming. And again, I think for people who have been in these kinds of situations, it sounds very familiar. And just the gaslighting, the denial of it - and it's just really scary.

[00:04:43] Erica Barnett: Well, the social media stuff is worth talking about a little bit. He has been - up to shortly before he was arrested - he posted a photo of himself at a restaurant where they used to go all the time and that is close to Lee Keller's house, or where she lives. And then, immediately after being released from jail - I think the next day - he started posting again. It's always - there's always a subtext to it, right? And he has done things like show up, pretending to - according to court records, again, allegedly - has showed up pretending to be interested in buying a houseboat near where she has a houseboat. And has sort of taunted her by posting pictures from the church that she goes to. And so it's subtle, and it's the kind of control tactics that you see from abusers often - that are not necessarily visible or apparent to the general public who's looking at them and thinking, Oh, what a nice man. He goes to church and he finds refuge in his faith. But there's always a little dig in there that he'll say things like - Finding refuge and forgiving the people who betrayed me - or things like that. And it's so scary if you've ever been through anything like that yourself - and I think a lot of people, particularly women, have. It's just, it's so scary to see the kind of I'm-watching-you type messaging that he's putting out there. And so - yeah, the idea of being terrified to leave your home - that is, it's very relatable and I feel really bad that that's happening to her. And so it's just a real shame. And it's really unfortunate that he has chosen to sort of go into his golden years, his retirement years on this note of harassing and being obsessed with someone who doesn't want him anywhere near her.

[00:06:27] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. This will be very interesting to see how this winds up. The Snohomish County Prosecutor's Office said that they're still reviewing information. There is a chance that charges could still come. But as of now, he is out and free. There are still court dates to address the restraining orders coming up. We'll see what happens and keep you updated.

Also news this week - that there is a poll that came out, a lot of people received in the Seattle area. Indications were that there was a pro-Harrell source of this poll. What was the poll seeking to learn, judging by what the questions were? And what kind of questions were being asked?

[00:07:16] Erica Barnett: Yeah, this was - I'm not sure what the technical term for this is, Crystal, maybe you know - but it's a messaging poll. It's testing different messages that might be used by the various campaigns. And the main messages it was testing were anti-Katie Wilson messages and pro-Bruce Harrell - but mostly anti- his opponent, Katie Wilson. There's a question or two about Joe Mallahan in there. And there were a couple of questions in there testing negative messages against Bruce Harrell, but it reads like an anti-Wilson poll to try to figure out - how should we target voters in order to make Katie Wilson seem like a bad candidate. And the general vibe of the questions was - they want to know if it's effective to essentially paint Katie Wilson as the second coming of Kshama Sawant. They mentioned former Councilmember Kshama Sawant a number of times in these messages. For example, one of the questions begins - Katie Wilson has a long history of supporting former City Councilmember Kshama Sawant and her divisive vision for Seattle. And then it goes on - At a time when we need to stand united against Trump, we can't afford to go back to the politics of shouting, accusing, and undermining fellow Democrats. So the whole poll is sort of like - it's very funny if you know Katie Wilson at all, or have seen her speak in public. She's a very soft-spoken, wonky, policy-oriented, detail-oriented candidate. And she speaks very thoughtfully and does not raise her voice. And they're trying to sort of paint her in these messages as this loud, angry, divisive bitch - if I can say that on this podcast. And it's just so out of keeping with how she actually is. But we've seen that a lot of times - people don't see the candidates, they see the messaging about the candidates. So they're basically trying to see if this kind of messaging - which centrist side of the political spectrum candidates use all the time against people to their left, and particularly women to their left - they're trying to see if voters will respond to that, yet again.

[00:09:06] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, yet again. It's a message testing poll. Just like you described, they are seeking to determine what may be useful or not useful to say about Bruce, but they did spend much more time trying to suss out what people's reactions might be to different arguments they have about Katie Wilson. And it's just - it feels like everything that people hate about polling and that makes people feel cynical about the whole thing. That it doesn't seem particularly moored to reality, just trying to count on people, you know - Hey, nobody's paying attention to local politics, very few people - and trying to capitalize on people who don't have familiarity. And just hoping they might not know any better - because some of this, like you said, is almost just laughable. That you could try and characterize Katie Wilson - they tried out some different lines of attack - some were more tethered to reality, perhaps, than others, but just a pretty cynical exercise to see.

The timing of it was curious. This is before the primary. Right now is the time that people are kind of finalizing their communications plans for the primary. So right now is when they're designing and finalizing some of the mail, some of the digital ads, especially the stuff that you'll see late, close to the election - so week before, weekend before, that type of thing. So it looks like they're trying to hone in their final message. But it was also notable to me that they haven't landed on this yet, that it does feel late. And who knows, maybe they just have super deep pockets and tons of money to throw at this thing, but polling is not inexpensive. It costs quite a bit. And they're spending quite a bit of money and time to figure this out. And it just seems like they're lost and not quite sure what to say and what to do - which maybe they were thrown more for a loop with the whole Zohran Mamdani situation and being concerned about that in New York, and are people feeling similarly here? But it seems like those are not the questions you ask right now, if you have a clear idea of who you are and the message you're going to convey - especially as an incumbent.

[00:11:31] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I mean, I also think that this going back to the well of demonizing people by associating them with Kshama Sawant is so tired. And I don't know, maybe voters still respond to it. They've used it cycle after cycle after cycle. When I say they, I just mean centrist Seattle candidates of various stripes. But painting Katie Wilson as angry, divisive, and loud - that is incredibly cynical. They know it's not true. And, as you put, not even tethered to reality. But we can probably expect a bunch of these misleading and even lying mailers to land in our inboxes. And I just, I find it really - I wouldn't go so far as to say disgusting - but it's just incredibly cynical. And shows so much contempt, I think, for voters - that they just assume they're not going to find out anything about this candidate and we can just say anything we want about them. Run a picture of Katie Wilson next to Kshama Sawant - ideally, a, you know, an unflattering photo of Kshama screaming - and say that Katie Wilson is basically the exact same thing. And I just - yeah, I'm just, I'm so tired of it, honestly. Get over Kshama Sawant.

[00:12:38] Crystal Fincher: To me, it was two things - it was absolutely that. We've heard the Kshama Sawant attack kind of repackaged for so many people. And it's so interesting - because it's not like Kshama is claiming any of those people as allies. It's not like Kshama at all. It's like - Hey, they're on our side. Kshama, in some of these situations, is pretty vocally - Just lump them in with the moderates. So it's not like anyone is making that characterization but them. But also there were shades of the defund messaging - Oh, she's a defund candidate. And that is just another very old, tired argument.

[00:13:15] Erica Barnett: And one she's responded to a million times.

[00:13:18] Crystal Fincher: Yes, it's just tired. And there are so many other things to talk about in terms of public safety - if you're actually serious about public safety - than a defunding that never did happen. The SPD was never defunded. But it is notable to me that they are just recycled attacks. We heard them in 2021. We heard them in 2023. We heard them last year in 2024. We're hearing them now. It's just a little tired. And these are not the types of things that incumbents typically talk about when they feel very confident and they have a lot, with their own record, that they can talk about. So it's notable to me that there's a lot of not talking about some of their own records. And then the default to then attacking, which is just kind of an underlying signal to me that they just might not feel very comfortable about their record, or they have also been polling and they're showing that they're potentially vulnerable there. So that would be a signal that some people take and want to change that by their own actions. And others, it's easier to try and message it away. We'll see what winds up being effective here.

And also this week, I want to talk about - the application period for the new vacancy on the Seattle City Council has closed. Where do things stand with the process to replace Councilmember Cathy Moore?

[00:14:47] Erica Barnett: Well, as you said, the applications closed this week on Wednesday. So now there is going to be a process that has become quite familiar to the city in recent years. There will be a public forum with the candidates - I believe it's going to be in North Seattle Community College - and the public will have an opportunity to see the candidates answer questions. And then the City Council will vote - they have 20 days after Cathy Moore's resignation from the District 5 seat to vote - and pick another colleague.

And I wanted to just kind of pull back and look at this process a little bit. Because we've done it three times in the last year or so, year and a half - once to appoint Tanya Woo, once to appoint Mark Solomon. And now to appoint somebody - Debora Juarez - to the District 5 seat. And it always feels like - and I would say more than in years past - but it always feels like these are sort of foregone conclusions by the time we even start hearing about the candidates. And the coverage of this process every single time in recent years has been about how it's open to anybody - you can apply, get your application in. And I really wish people would stop doing that in the media because it is - just to be a little realistic/cynical here - No, you can't be the next city councilmember. I'm sorry. Like, it just doesn't work like that. These processes - often it's very obvious who they're going to pick, in the case of Tanya Woo. And I would say, probably in the case of Debora Juarez as well - who is a former city councilmember who has applied for this position. Now, none of this information is public yet, I think it'll go up online on Friday at some point. But it just is not the open process that the Council and the City pretend it is. And so, we will have a Council - right now in the last two years, that will have had three appointees in that short period of time. So three people who are not elected by any member of the public. And I think that speaks to people coming onto the Council who then decide they don't want to be there. But it also speaks to the fact that the Council is increasingly not made up entirely of democratically elected people. And Cathy Moore decided to drop out after the filing deadline for this year's elections. She could have done so before the filing deadline and allowed voters to pick somebody to replace her, but she didn't do that - and so that's why we're having this process now.

[00:17:25] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think that's an important point to reiterate - that we have talked about here - is that the timing of this has a significant impact. It really keeps a person on the Council for over a year in an unelected capacity. And there are going to be a lot of important decisions that are made. To your point, especially as someone who has been previously involved in several of these processes, you're right. This is largely decided out of the public eye and before the official process starts, certainly before the official process ends. For good or bad - sometimes it's not very good - but if these processes were open, and it really was the meritocracy and people were picking, reading through everything, keeping an open mind and just going through the process very earnestly, we wouldn't need politics. Politics is actually all of the other stuff that goes on. It's not the logical stuff. It's all of the positioning and negotiating and all of that that does happen. And I do think it's important to understand where that really is. And over the years - talking to candidates, people interested in that - being like, Okay, this is how this process really works. And a lot of times, that's what a consultant is doing. It's like - Okay, process looks like this from the outside or to the public, but here's how it really works. And here's who is really influential in these decisions. And here's how to move who is really driving these decisions - that type of thing. And so much of it is away from the public eye and concentrated in the hands of a few people. And here, in this endorsement process, it is literally and figuratively, concentrated in the hands of a few people - whether it's major donors and stakeholders who feel owed the opportunity to provide substantial feedback, as some have publicly said before. Or it's people who they're comfortable with, who the councilmembers have tried to recruit and talk into this for quite some time. And so we'll see how this turns out. I'm certainly hearing similar things that you've been hearing and have been hearing - that there has been a major effort to get former Councilmember Juarez to apply, and feeling like she's a front runner. We'll see how this winds up, but it certainly looks like the deck is at least stacked in her favor at the beginning of this process.

[00:19:54] Erica Barnett: I think it would be for her, as a former elected - I would expect that she would not apply if she thought she was going to lose. Because that's a humiliating process, potentially, for a former elected city councilmember not to get the appointment. And so I'll just sort of leave it with that, but I think she is the odds on favorite.

[00:20:16] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, the one thing to me that I do think is curious - and this could likely go down that way - but I do think it's notable that we've had two fairly unusual and highly visible resignations from the Council now. And from people who felt barriers to doing the job, but felt like they couldn't continue and expressed challenges with the environment. And essentially that the job had gotten harder, the conditions had gotten harder, the working relationship between colleagues had gotten harder. And Councilmember Juarez had definitely expressed that she was ready to be done.

[00:20:52] Erica Barnett: Yeah.

[00:20:52] Crystal Fincher: That was not a situation where - Hey, I love doing this, but I'm just stepping aside so someone else can lead. Or - I love doing this, but I need to do something else. She was very, very vocal about being very happy to be done.

[00:21:07] Erica Barnett: Yeah.

[00:21:07] Crystal Fincher: In a situation that was arguably more functional than this one. So where there have been high profile resignations - or resignations, period - it seems like I would want to err on the side of someone who may not hate the job walking in? Who you know is not already fed up with the job, who hasn't already expressed that - given that that's already been a challenge. But that doesn't seem to be deterring people. Maybe Councilmember Juarez will address that in some of these forums. But I found that to be curious.

[00:21:41] Erica Barnett: Yeah, that's a really good point. And she constantly talked about how she was fed up and just seemed very - when she left, I think she was very tired of listening to the public at public comment periods, which I think has continued to be something that the current Council President - Debora Juarez was Council President, but current Council President Sara Nelson also seems very frustrated with that part of the job. And so, yeah, I mean, again, adding on to the fact that this is an undemocratic process in almost every way, you're talking about someone who really did not enjoy the part of the job of representing the public that involved actually listening to the public in a sort of uncontrolled setting - which is the city council meetings, as opposed to having meetings with people that you choose to have meetings with. So, yeah, it's an odd choice, and I don't have any direct insight into why she's changed her mind, but elected officials often regret being out of the public eye as soon as they're out of it. So that would not be, that's not an uncommon reaction.

[00:22:41] Crystal Fincher: Yep. We will continue to follow that process along. Also want to talk about this week - the Council advancing bills to both expand power to prosecute and fine graffiti taggers and address nuisance properties. What would these bills do?

[00:22:58] Erica Barnett: Well, the first one basically would further criminalize graffiti - which is already illegal, which is already a felony - if it causes more than $750 in damage. And much like the local drug law - which made drugs extra illegal - this would essentially make graffiti extra illegal, giving the City Attorney the power to pursue a civil case against taggers. And under an amendment offered by Rob Saka, fine them up to $1,500 per tag. Originally, it was going to be $1,000 per tag, but Saka increased it. And so the idea is that this would somehow deter people from doing graffiti, which I think that history proves that there is no way to deter graffiti, really. But the idea is that people would pay these fines and suffer the consequences and decide to change their ways. And it's been a really interesting and bizarre conversation about that one, which we can get into. But just to go on to the second one, it's another bill to - again, expand the power of the city - essentially to shut down nuisance properties or abate them by charging fines and putting requirements on property owners. And being a nuisance property is already illegal and being tied to criminal activity - things like that - is already illegal. But the bill would expand it so that police can come after property owners, business owners for stuff that happens outside their property. And it also pretty vastly expands the list of things that can get you tagged as a nuisance property - you have to have at least three. And Rob Saka, again, offered an amendment that would add a whole bunch of things to that list, including noise violations, illegal dumping, possessing or buying and selling stolen property, and rodents, among a bunch of other things. And so basically just expanding - in one case, the power of the City Attorney, and in the other case, the power of the police.

[00:24:55] Crystal Fincher: Very interesting. Okay, so graffiti comes up again. As you said, it's not like graffiti was previously legal. The Council and the City Attorney has previously talked about enforcement action against graffiti. The Mayor has highlighted that as a priority before. Was this a situation where so many people were getting caught up in these graffiti stings and they were doing so much enforcement? And what they determined was that the current laws were not enough of a deterrent, even though they were like really flexing their muscles on enforcing them, and that they just needed to do more. And this is such a high priority that it demands action now. Is that what they were saying?

[00:25:41] Erica Barnett: Why no? Why no - it is not. The City Attorney actually rarely prosecutes graffiti cases. And again, graffiti is a felony - that is not something the City Attorney deals with. But Ann Davison, our Republican City Attorney, has been very activated in wanting to add local crimes that she can prosecute to the roster. And I believe the number of charges were filed last year was in the 30s, so that is a very small number of people. They successfully brought charges in County court against 17 people last year. So everything that they are saying about the people that are doing graffiti - and they had a lot to say about who they think is responsible for most of the tags in town - is based on dozens, or fewer than dozen, in the single digits of actual individuals. So, for example, one thing that they kept coming back to during all the presentations on this recently, but this week as well, is the idea that these are well-off, almost middle-aged men with careers who are going out, I guess, after their 9-to-5 jobs and tagging walls for funsies and for no real reason. And you can deter them by charging these exorbitant fines per tag, which, of course, if you are a prolific tagger, or even multiple tags in the city, that can easily get into the tens of thousands of dollars. But again, the demographics data that they have is based on tiny, tiny, tiny amounts of people. The thing about them being, as one councilmember put it, "well-heeled" - Rob Saka was the one who said that - it's based on the fact that a majority of 17 people who were prosecuted for graffiti last year were not indigent and so they had their own attorneys and paid fines. Which does not mean you're well-heeled - it just means you're not impoverished. So they're basing a lot of this outrage they're trying to gin up about graffiti on very, very, very small selective data sets. And the City Attorney is not prosecuting graffiti. And County is not prosecuting graffiti aggressively. Perhaps because there are other things going on in the city - you wouldn't know it sometimes watching these Public Safety Committees where they're obsessing over the need to have pristine gray walls everywhere in Seattle, but there's actually other problems facing the city right now. But they're really focused on these - on graffiti, and, in the case of the chronic nuisance properties, on nightlife. Because this came out of wanting to shut down a club where there was, tragically, a shooting outside of it in Pioneer Square. So, yeah, that's - that's the law. I mean, I sound dismissive because I am.

[00:28:20] Crystal Fincher: I share your dismissiveness. Just wild to see the tripling and quadrupling down on just very, very seemingly minor, but very specific areas of law. This Council - and I've heard Bob Kettle talk about this as part of the "culture of permissiveness" in this city and they need to, like, crack down on this. But out of all the things that they could be focusing on, this does not seem like it's aligned with what the public views are the top concerns when it comes to public safety in the city.

[00:28:55] Erica Barnett: I do want to add one thing. The original bill - Ann Davison made it very clear that her intent was to crack down on people who are "encouraging" graffiti by liking posts on social media and by putting comments on people's Instagram posts and stuff. And so she had a number of slides in her presentation that showed different artists, including one that I'm looking at now on my screen that she put up as an example of the horrors of graffiti. And it's really cool looking - it's somebody's tag, and this giant tag on a gray pillar somewhere. And like, first of all, it's really cool looking. Second, the idea of prosecuting people for saying, "Legendary" or whatever on social media is such an obvious First Amendment violation. And Joy Hollingsworth, who does support this legislation, basically stripped out that language about prosecuting people for "encouraging" graffiti. So, at the very least, that is now out of there. So hopefully, Davison won't be tracking down whether you clicked Like on somebody's social media post because you thought that a tag was cool.

[00:29:58] Crystal Fincher: You know, I saw that and just shook my head. And part of it is just - I've seen people comment here and there. There's lots of conversations going on right now about social media activity, government surveillance, data privacy - but the government really having pretty far and deep reach into what people are posting online and being able to surveil and recall that. And I've seen so many people just kind of dismissively - Like, oh, the city isn't looking at what I'm doing online. I just really want to reiterate - they very much want to be. And there have been previous public disclosure requests where, whether it was the police department or elsewhere, they are paying attention to people of interest - that's one of the ways that they try to track people down. Your activity is being monitored - not just at the federal level, but at the local level. And they want the ability to do that more and to attach consequences to it. So pay attention when people say that and act accordingly - both personally and with the laws that we pass, with the data that we collect, and how we go about doing that on a municipal level, because this is how they want to use that. It's very explicit. And I think a lot of people just haven't necessarily seen that and don't take seriously that that is an act of desire. And they are acquiring increasing amount of tools to do that and to do that more easily - it's a serious thing that can come with consequences. So - stay woke.

All right. Also want to talk about - the City of Seattle is asking the court to end the 13-year long federal oversight of the Seattle Police Department. This has been a long time coming - what are they asking for now, and what kind of timeline is around this?

[00:31:44] Erica Barnett: To answer the second question first - I don't know what the timeline is because there has not been a response from the court yet, but the City is trying to get the 13-year-old federal consent decree lifted. Essentially, the City has been under Department of Justice oversight since 2012 because of an agreement after an investigation that found that SPD was using excessive and unconstitutional force. And they are saying now that they are now in full and complete compliance with the consent decree and no longer need to be under DOJ oversight. Now, big picture - is there a DOJ? Is there a DOJ oversight at this point? I mean, there's a long standing question of whether the DOJ oversight has helped or harmed the cause of accountability in Seattle, because everything has to go through the consent decree monitor and go before a judge whenever the city wants to change law around police accountability. But now, I also wonder to what extent having Department of Justice oversights is particularly meaningful in the Trump administration - so that is a separate question. But basically, they're saying that they've solved all the problems to a meaningful extent that existed in 2012 - things like bias in policing, things like excessive use of force during crowd control, which, of course, set them back a bit on this process in 2020, when police reacted violently and with overwhelming force to Black Lives Matter protesters.

And so big picture - I mean, are they in compliance? That is a separate question from whether the police are still using excessive force, still biased, and all the things that they have been accused of. There's an accountability law that passed in 2017 - that we've talked about before, I think, on this show - that was never fully implemented because of the police union. And the police union has never agreed with the consent decree. And so if this does get lifted - and I expect that it will - I don't think that necessarily means that the police have actually turned a new leaf in terms of how they react to crowds. And are there practices that are biased, like arresting more people of color, more Black men, targeting particular types of people in crowds, etc.

[00:33:51] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it'll be really interesting to see. Obviously, we continue to see news of what's happening with the department. The sticking points and the ending of the consent decree that have been discussed before don't have anything to do with the issues that the department seems to be having with women and the number of lawsuits revolving around that. But, as you said, there remain questions about racial disparities, there remain questions about the use of force in arrests, and the use of force in responding to protests - those mass events. SPD is saying that the frequency of the use of force in arrests has decreased over the years, and they seem to be pretty proud of that. The new Chief Barnes is saying - Of the 8,305 crisis incidents that Seattle's police officers responded to in 2024, only 1.3 involved any use of force, force was used in just 0.17 of all dispatch calls. One, anytime we're discussing that and discussing percentages, those sound really low. But the size of the force and the amount of people that they do arrest, that's actually - those are some big numbers when you add them all out. And that's still a lot of people who are experiencing uses of force - and a lot of issues involved with that and the issues of priorities. And I notice some qualifications on those statements. I don't know if that is just something I'm reading into it, or it happens to be - is that actually all calls or not, or just a subset of their calls? We'll see.

But I think, to your point, I don't know that this is going to be a true determination of - You are free, things are all right with the world, everything is wonderful, here we go. I, like you, am just wondering what the capacity of the DOJ is to do this kind of work at this point in the first place, given all the changes since this new administration took hold - and there have been a lot of changes that have been reported on within DOJ. But I also don't know that the consent decree is meaningfully holding the department back from anything they're doing now anyway. So I'm wondering just what changes, essentially.

[00:36:06] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I mean, I think in some ways the consent decree has been used as an excuse in the past to not pass laws that would potentially provide more accountability. I also think this illustrates them talking about the use of force in dispatch calls. It illustrates the fact, or at least to me, highlights the fact that the CARE Department - or the CARE team, rather - which is supposed to be responding to crisis calls that do not require police response, are not really able to do that. And they're not able to do that, in part, because the police union refuses to let them do so without police personnel present. Now, I think the CARE team and Amy Barden, the head of the CARE team - or the CARE Department, rather - don't totally disagree with that and do believe that police need to go out on some calls. But they're really stymied - I've gone out with them once, and I think it was perhaps a very non-representative day. But we didn't get a single call in hours of being out there and just kind of drove around. And that is the result of the fact that - we did see calls come through, but they couldn't respond to them because they required a police co-responder. And so they had to wait for police to go out first. And it was stuff like - there's a woman lying on a bench - that was literally one of them. So yeah, we're paying these folks a lot of money, but the law kind of restricts right now, and the police union restricts what they're actually able to do. And that could meaningfully address the use of force issue that we've seen with crisis calls, which was the original reason that the consent decree was put in place back in 2012.

[00:37:30] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Well, we will continue to follow along and see how that unfolds. Last story I want to talk about today is the Pierce County Sheriff's effort to partner with ICE - and the challenges that he's having along the way. What is the Pierce County Sheriff aiming to do, and how's it going?

[00:37:51] Erica Barnett: Well, Pierce County Sheriff - and this all comes from a story from The Seattle Times by Jim Bruner, at least for me, I was not familiar with this before - but apparently, the Pierce County Sheriff Keith Swank, who's a former Seattle Police Department cop, he wants to partner with ICE to share information and essentially help them do raids on undocumented workers. And the problem he was running into is - Washington State law, which says explicitly that you can't do that. We are a sanctuary state. And so, local law enforcement officials are, and jurisdictions are barred from helping ICE out in prosecuting immigrants and pursuing immigrants and raids and that sort of thing. He obviously disagrees and has decided that he does have the right to do that. And this is despite the fact that the County Prosecutor has advised him he can't do that. He apparently went to ChatGPT for a second opinion on that, and ChatGPT told him that he could - so that is the argument he's making. He has hired his own private attorney to make the argument that he has the right to violate state law in this way. And the whole story is just extremely bizarre. It feels like he has just decided to be kind of intransigent. And The Seattle Times had an interview with him, and he sounds pretty defiant about whether he should have to follow this state law or not.

[00:39:14] Crystal Fincher: Defiant is a really good descriptor. This is such a story of our current reality in many ways. But one of the things that sticks out to me that is kind of a broader problem that leads to larger problems is these elected officials who actually don't know the job description of the job that they're running for. We see some things that are very visible about some positions. A sheriff - maybe he thinks he's just like the boss law enforcement officer and it's just that, and the same as being - this current Pierce County Sheriff is a former Seattle police officer, so maybe he just thought it would be like being his Chief and the parts that he saw about it. But there's more to that. And you also have to understand the roles of the other elected officials and how they intersect. So this Pierce County Sheriff didn't understand that the County Prosecutor acts as his attorney, acts as his advisor - that's his attorney. Completely foreign to him. And this was previously covered in The News Tribune before, we talked about it somewhat before. And he, in court, was just caught off guard because he didn't realize that he couldn't hire his own attorney and that attorney couldn't act on his behalf with the authority of the sheriff. He is an elected official and accountable in the ways that elected officials are - for a reason - and you can't just cede that authority to any private citizen. And there are also, like privacy issues, other issues that are pretty major - but you can't just go delegating that to anyone.

And evidently, he looked this up on ChatGPT. ChatGPT told him, led him to believe differently - and he felt like that was sufficient enough reason to just disregard it. And if he disagreed with the County Prosecutor, that was enough for him to just decide to go in a different way. So he just doesn't like the rules as they're established, and reality as it exists. And ChatGPT, which is known to hallucinate and not always tell the truth - it's like a confident MBA bro that is going to give you a very confident sounding answer, whether it's true or false - is not thinking. It is just stringing words together that are statistically likely to follow each other. And sometimes it gives you incorrect results. Whether his result was incorrect or he just has a problem understanding exactly what it says, who knows? But he certainly has cited that in court on more than one occasion and has acted on its behalf in defiance of what judges and the County Prosecutor has told him. And this is in his quest to cooperate with ICE, which - there's kind of this farce of a process and just a joke of some of these statements and lines of thought. But this is in an effort to cooperate with ICE and their current enforcement efforts that we're seeing in so many places - that are very alarming to people, that people are fighting back against. And particularly in Pierce County, does not seem as popularly supported by a lot of people. So this is just a wild story - but that has real consequences.

[00:42:28] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I think you are being a little bit charitable with this guy. You definitely know more about it than I do, but I read the story and my thought was like - Oh my God, these people's brains are broken. They don't care about the rule of law. And people like this - and I think it's very indicative of the Republican Party nationwide - and they will, like retcon reasons to break the law, knowing they're breaking the law, but just sort of thinking the law doesn't apply to them because they want to go another way. And this guy was going to get fired by SPD for social media posts that were anti-Black, anti-trans, which is - you're not allowed to do at SPD, and that's why he was going to get fired. He resigned. And I think this is just like an extension of the same kind of behavior. Like, okay, the expert lawyer says that this is against the law. Well, I'm going to go to my expert source, and that is ChatGPT. And look here, my expert says that your expert is wrong. So I guess we can't know, or I guess I'm right. It just feels cartoonishly absurd. And it just seems like another example of the broken brain syndrome that has afflicted Republicans across the country in the last few years.

[00:43:38] Crystal Fincher: I actually think cartoonishly absurd is a correct assessment of this, and I don't disagree with your assessment there. We'll see how this unfolds, but just wild, farcical, ridiculous - and reality. But you can still make your voice heard. Let him, let others know - if you're in Pierce County - how you feel about the conduct. And make sure that when it comes to the Pierce County Council, when it comes to the Prosecutor - that they are upholding their roles and ensuring, to the best of their ability, that he upholds his roles and responsibilities. Or they are putting guardrails in and acting when he doesn't. And to protect and prevent some of the things that he is talking about. If you feel strongly about that, you should certainly contact your elected officials in Pierce County and remain engaged.

And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, July 11th, 2025. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is the incomparable Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today was Seattle political reporter, editor of PubliCola, and co-host of the Seattle Nice podcast, Erica Barnett. You can find Erica on Bluesky at @ericacbarnett and on PubliCola.com. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Bluesky at @HacksAndWonks. You can find me on Bluesky at @finchfrii - that's F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday and Tuesday shows delivered to your podcast feed. Please leave a review if you like us wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com.

Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.