Chief Hall says SPD can reduce use of force
The Spokane Police Department can and must use less deadly force, according to its own leader.
Chief Kevin Hall made his comments during a Wednesday night town hall on police violence at the Central Public Library.
Spokane Human Rights Commissioner Anwar Peace called it a “courageous conversation.”
Debbie Novak, Jim Leighty and Cynthia Manycolors have all lost loved ones to police violence, and they talked about why police kill people with Hall in front of dozens of attendees.
"Sometimes we forget in both policy and training the sanctity of human life," Hall said. "The sanctity of human life is and should be our guiding light. And that means we slow down, we take more time, we use our critical decision-making skills."
Seventy-five Spokanites have been killed by the police in the past two decades.
In only one case—Otto Zehm’s—did the county prosecutor find the use of force unjustified.
Hall said he’s trying to shift the police department’s thinking about uses of force.
The question, he said, shouldn’t be whether it was justified. The question should be how force could be avoided in the future.
"And by the way, you have to teach cops to back up," Hall said. "They're not used to—we call it—'tactical egress.' But you actually have to teach that."
Novak called on the audience to support a bill that would create a state prosecutor’s office.
She said she hopes this would mitigate what she calls a conflict of interest between a local prosecutor and local law enforcement.
Police Ombuds Bart Logue asked City Council to help his office change part of the next collective bargaining agreement with the police guild.
The oversight office currently has to wait months—sometimes a year—to get the information it needs to investigate a use of force.
ACA tax credits are set to expire; Sen. Murray wants them renewed
Washington U.S. Senator Patty Murray is pressuring her GOP colleagues to renew tax credits that hold down the prices of health insurance.
The credits were part of the Affordable Care Act and are due to expire at the end of the year.
More than 200,000 residents rely on those credits to keep their premiums affordable, said Chief Executive Officer Ingrid Ulrey of Washington’s Health Benefit Exchange.
"It’s our older residents, rural residents. People who work for small businesses, freelancers, gig workers, and just thousands of middle-class families," Ulrey said during a press conference Wednesday.
If the credits expire, she said people who buy through the state exchanges will pay hundreds or even thousands more for insurance next year.
Ulrey said some, especially younger people who think they’re healthy and do without the coverage, will simply drop their policies.
Murray said Democratic senators are trying to convince a few Republicans to sign on to legislation to renew the tax credits.
"But so far, no Republicans have agreed to co-sponsor. We're coming up really fast to this deadline where people are going to get their new insurance bills," she said. "They're going to try and sign up for the ACA tax credit they had before, find out it is no longer there. And this is going to be a real panic in a couple of months."
Murray said most states don’t have enough money to replace the tax credits.
WA climate push could be threatened by Trump EPA proposal
State officials say the Trump administration’s deregulatory push won’t stop efforts to fight climate change in Washington state.
The Trump administration Tuesday proposed ending federal regulation of carbon dioxide emissions, arguing they pose no danger to humanity.
Casey Sixkiller, who heads Washington's Ecology Department, said the Trump proposal is divorced from reality.
"It's just a very frustrating moment when we've been making so much progress, to have the federal government pull back in such a significant way," he said.
Sixkiller said Washington state’s climate laws would not be directly affected by the federal policy, but electric vehicles and other clean technologies could become more costly and harder to find.
That would make it tougher to meet state deadlines for reducing emissions that harm the global climate.
Idaho Senate GOP pushes back against RFK's dam comments
Comments from U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. supporting breaching the lower Snake River dams didn’t sit well with some of Idaho’s Republican leaders.
RFK Jr. visited the Nez Perce Tribe’s fish hatchery east of Lewiston last week, among other stops.
As the Lewiston Tribune first reported, Kennedy told tribal leaders salmon are vital to Indigenous communities and talked about his past work to breach the lower Snake River dams.
“We fought many years to dismantle the Snake River dams and to reopen them to the salmon,” he said. “In the meantime, until that day happens, we need these hatcheries, and we need to keep the salmon stocks alive and flourishing.”
According to the newspaper, Kennedy connected the increasing loss of salmon to the general poor health of Indigenous communities in the Pacific Northwest.
Following his comments, Senate Republican leaders issued a statement, praising him for his efforts to promote “medical freedom.” But they said they remain steadfast in their “unwavering” opposition to removing these four dams.
“They provide carbon-free energy, affordable electricity for rural Idahoans, efficient and sustainable transportation of our goods, and irrigation that supports the most productive farmland in the country,” wrote Senate Pro Tem Kelly Anthon (R-Burley), who met with Kennedy during his stop in Boise.
“The people of Idaho, not Washington, D.C., should decide the future of our water and infrastructure,” Anthon said, referencing the four dams located in neighboring Washington State.
“This is not just a policy debate — it is about protecting the livelihood of Idahoans,” said Senate Majority Leader Lori Den Hartog (R-Meridian).
“We cannot allow environmental politics to override science, sovereignty, and the well-being of our citizens.”
The Trump administration in June cancelled a $1 billion agreement with tribes in the Columbia River Basin that paused salmon lawsuits in exchange for water restoration and clean energy projects.
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Reporting by Eliza Billingham, Doug Nadvornick, John Ryan and James Dawson.