Find path to assure fitness of sheriff candidates
By The Herald Editorial Board
Heated testimony isn’t unheard of in the committee rooms of the Washington state Legislature; what is rare — thankfully — is testimony that is vitriolic enough to generate backlash, including news coverage of veiled threats made against lawmakers and a law enforcement association’s consideration of a rebuke against an elected law enforcement officer.
Last week, during a public hearing of a bill sponsored by Sen. John Lovick, D-Mill Creek, which would update qualifications for appointed police chiefs and marshals and extend those qualifications to elected sheriffs, Pierce County Sheriff Keith Swank belligerently criticized lawmakers, specifically Democrats.
“You want to give unelected bureaucracy the ability to decertify me and remove me from office because you don’t agree with my speech,” Swank alleged during about 90 seconds of testimony. “I don’t recognize your authority to impose these controls over me, and when you try to remove me from office, thousands of Pierce County residents will surround the county-city building in downtown Tacoma and will not allow that to happen. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but I and they are prepared. Are you prepared?”
As well, Swank, referring to a separate bill that would bar law enforcement officers at all levels — local, state and federal — from wearing face masks, said that if adopted he would encourage his deputies to wear masks, “just to see what you do.”
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/editorial-find-path-to-assure-fitness-of-sheriff-candidates/
The bill's sponsor, John Lovick, is a former Snohomish County Sheriff.
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