Local

Frustrated by ‘disturbing rise in violence’, 11 King County mayors band together

KING COUNTY, Wash. — Two shootings in less than 24 hours have South King County residents on edge. In Auburn, there are still no arrests after a neighborhood was sprayed with bullets. In Federal Way, road rage escalated into a deadly shooting.

Nancy Backus is one of 11 South King County mayors who signed a statement calling on county and state officials to take a “disturbing rise in violent crime” seriously.

“It’s a cry from us,” said Backus. “We are standing ready, we want to be part of the solution, but we can no longer be left out of it.”

Signees of the letter are in agreement that the uptick coincides with a shortage of police officers, a surge of fentanyl into our region and what they call an overall lack of accountability. Federal Way Mayor Jim Ferrell is another member of the South King County coalition.

“We’ve got a serious staffing (shortage) at the King County Jail,” said Ferrell. “They’re at least a hundred officers down.”

Both Ferrell and Backus say pursuit and drug laws also need to be fixed. Specifically, they oppose the Blake decision, which they claim “prevents cities and counties from charging a person with drug possession unless the person is allowed non-mandatory self-directed drug treatment for the first two offenses.”

They’re also against House Bill 1054, which made it “unlawful for officers to engage in a vehicle pursuit when they have reasonable suspicion that a person in the vehicle has committed a criminal offense.”

“I know a lot of people in our communities think we have control over what the laws are in our city. Its’ true for some things,” said Backus. “We can’t override what the state crime laws are.”