State Sen. Salomon calls for reform to end police brutality

State Sen. Jesse Salomon, D-32

State Sen. Jesse Salomon has called for a variety of police reforms in the wake of the recent killing of an unarmed black man by Minneapolis police officers.

Salomon, who also was a King County public defender, said Thursday, June 18, in the pages of the Seattle Times, “Many in the Black community live in fear that the police will hurt them rather than help them. This is unacceptable.”

He added, “The unfortunate reality is that even when police kill unarmed people, disproportionately Black men, they rarely suffer serious consequences. This is one of the many reasons why the U.S. has the highest rate of police-caused fatalities in the developed world by far.”

Salomon also noted that, while public defenders can fight case-by-case against racist policing, he and his colleagues in the Legislature have the duty and the power to pass laws to help change police practices.

Salomon said that he supports current recommendations, such as prohibiting local law enforcement agencies from acquiring surplus military equipment, banning chokeholds and no-knock searches, mandating the use of body cameras, investing in mental-health-crisis response, and improving de-escalation and anti-bias training.

But, he said, he wanted to increase accountability measures that, he said, have been too lax, including, revoking state-issued certificates of officers who are fired for abusive use of force, stopping the revolving door that allows fired officers to be reinstated through the police union appeal process and making public all misconduct records so that officers can’t just resign and then go to work for another police department.

Salomon represents the 32nd Legislative District, which includes Shoreline, northwest Seattle, Lynnwood, Woodway, and parts of Edmonds, Mountlake Terrace and unincorporated Snohomish County. He is a former Shoreline City Council member. Salomon has served as a public defender for 13 years.

Read Salomon’s entire Seattle Times op-ed piece, “A reform agenda for the Washington state Legislature to end police brutality ” here: https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/a-reform-agenda-to-end-police-brutality/