Spokane city council members want police to do a better job communicating with the public about how they’re responding to new state laws that took effect on Sunday. Those laws are designed to lower the risk of violent encounters with the public.
On Thursday, Spokane Police Chief Craig Meidl briefed city council members about the new laws and how they affect the way officers do their work.
Last week, Meidl was among several eastern Washington sheriffs and police chiefs who met with reporters. They said some of those laws would take away tools officers use to de-escalate tense situations with agitated people.
During Thursday’s briefing, Councilwoman Betsy Wilkerson asked Meidl about the tone of that press conference.
“It sounded like this new law was taking away all your power. The sky is falling. Now there’s misinterpretation and people are living in fear. What type of messaging will we be doing to get the correct information out there to the people and to our law officers to do this work? Otherwise we have created a bigger mess than what we had before," she said.
Meidl says the purpose of the press conference was to inform the public. He said leaders in his department have been briefing officers and answering questions about how to respond, or not respond, in different situations.
“We are not looking for reasons not to go on calls. We are still going to go on the vast majority of calls that we go to. There’s going to be some that we won’t because we can tell that this has nothing to do with law enforcement at all. But we’re not looking at these thinking how can I find a reason not to go on these calls. We might also be clearing some of these calls a lot sooner," he said.
Councilwoman Lori Kinnear urged Meidl to use neighborhood cop shops as a way to share the word with people about how the new laws will affect police service.
