SPOKANE, Wash. — The director of Washington state's new Office of Independent Investigations is in Spokane this week meeting with groups and agencies his office will soon be working with.
The state's legislature created the Office of Independent Investigations in May 2021. It's considered the first independent agency in the country that will take use of force investigations out of the hands of law enforcement.
Director Roger Rogoff said this is an important change.
"An independent team not connected to law enforcement during the investigations provides not only independence, but an appearance of independence as well, which is so important for the community to see," Rogoff said.
This is a brand-new state agency. Right now, it's focusing on hiring staff and establishing its policies and protocol. That means it has not yet started any investigations.
"We are not going to do investigations until we're ready to do well," Rogoff said.
Currently, an officer's deadly use of force is investigated by a third-party law enforcement agency, or the SIIR team. Once the OII is ready, it has the authority take over an investigation from the SIIR team. Then, it will compile a public report that includes a legal analysis and potential charges. But, it won't make an official recommendation to the prosecuting agency.
"In order to make sure that there's justice there has to be truth first to understand what happened, but there has to be a common understanding," Rogoff said. "And our agency is set up and designed, and hopefully ready, to provide that clarity as much as much as possible."
The Office of Independent Investigations can also reopen or review old deadly-use-of-force cases, but only if new evidence is brought forward.
"What I can promise is that we will uncover every rock, we will look under every possible factual question. We will do our best to answer the final decision as to what the results should be to that prosecutor." Rogoff said.
The agency will have six satellite offices across the state staffed with investigation teams. Director Rogoff said one of those will be in Spokane.
The agency will also have family liaisons. These liaisons will keep families, who are impacted by officer involved shootings, updated on the investigation.
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