SEATTLE — King County and the union representing sheriff’s deputies have agreed to a labor agreement that would clear the way for deputies to carry body and dashboard cameras, but it drew immediate pushback from the county’s police oversight agency.
The new collective bargaining agreement, between the county and the King County Police Officers Guild, contains significant pay raises for the more than 630 deputies and sergeants represented by the union. The agreement covers 2022 retroactively and runs through the end of 2024. It includes a retroactive 6% pay raise for 2022, 10% for 2023 and 4% for 2024. Salaries for sheriff’s deputies begin at around $73,000.
The agreement maintains hiring and retention bonuses, of up to $15,000, through the end of 2024.
It also clears the way for deputies to begin wearing body cameras as soon as early next year. County officials have, for more than a decade, pushed for body cameras on sheriff’s deputies. But progress has stalled, amid union pushback, even as the Seattle Police Department and other local law enforcement agencies began using body cams.
Kirkland and Redmond police and the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Department have recently begun implementing body camera programs. The King County Sheriff’s Department is the largest police agency in the state not using body cameras.
The new agreement also “recognizes the authority” of the Office of Law Enforcement Oversight to conduct independent investigations of officers and issue subpoenas. King County residents had already voted in 2020 to give the oversight agency that authority, but it was subject to collective bargaining.
King County Executive Dow Constantine included $5 million to launch the body camera program in his budget request earlier this year, although significantly more funding will be required for video and data storage and management.
The Metropolitan King County Council unanimously approved the collective bargaining agreement — which could not be amended, only approved or rejected — earlier this month, but still must approve funding for the body camera program, as part of the budget.
On Thursday, a County Council committee approved the funding, with a majority reasoning that it was better to get the cameras in place and seek to make changes later.
“I don’t want the perfect to be the enemy of the good and I think this is good,” said County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove, a longtime advocate of body cameras.
Constantine said the new collective bargaining agreement would help with the department’s recruiting challenges, “while ensuring transparency and accountability in how we deliver public safety in King County.”
Under Constantine’s proposal, cameras would be implemented in phases and wouldn’t be used by all deputies until the end of 2025.
But the new agreement was met with immediate objections from the oversight office, which wrote to the County Council this week to express its concerns.
“Community, legal, and civil rights organizations have made it clear: investing millions of dollars into body-worn cameras is only worth it if it is accompanied by strong policies and safeguards,” Tamer Abouzeid, OLEO director said in a prepared statement. “At this point in time, we do not believe the policy is one that meets the standards set by our communities or best practices.”
The agreement is too lenient toward officers, Abouzeid wrote in a letter to the County Council, giving them too much discretion in when cameras should be turned on, and, in use of force incidents, allowing them to review video footage before being interviewed.
The agreement generally tells deputies to turn their cameras on when interacting with people, but with a long list of exceptions, such as when someone might have an expectation of privacy or has certain objections to being recorded.
“However, the list and breadth of the exceptions in the policy are dangerously close to swallowing the rule,” Abouzeid wrote.
The biggest issue, he wrote, is a policy that allows an officer not to record if there is an “articulable exigent circumstance” that would justify not recording.
Abouzeid cited an example from Chicago, where officers handcuffed a naked woman and left her standing in her home for 40 minutes while they mistakenly executed a warrant that was meant for her neighbor.
The woman, Abouzeid wrote, of course had an expectation of privacy in her own home, which under the new agreement would have allowed officers to not record the interaction. But if they hadn’t recorded, their treatment of the woman, and their refusal to let her get dressed, would never have become known.
A recording can always be redacted or deleted, Abouzeid wrote, “but a deputy cannot possibly know what will develop in any given situation.”
“A decision by a deputy in the field not to record is one that leaves no recourse,” he wrote.
Abouzeid’s second major objection involved when officers are allowed to review their own, and their colleague’s, body cam footage.
In serious use of force incidents, the new policy requires officers to prepare an initial statement before reviewing footage, but allows them to watch footage before submitting further written statements.
For less serious incidents, the new policy allows officers to watch footage before giving any statements.
Abouzeid wrote that for serious force incidents, officers should be interviewed before watching any footage.
“A prepared written statement is not enough, and an interview cannot test a deputy’s independent recollection if they have already watched a recording,” he wrote.
