SPOKANE COUNTY, Wash. — Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich is frustrated with a new state law and its criteria for investigating officer involved shootings.
He told KREM after Sunday night's deputy involved shooting in Spokane Valley that the new law kept his agency from doing anything more on scene. He's referring to the law that took guidance from the voter approved Initiative 940 in 2018.
He said he believes it only hinders the efficiency and accuracy of these investigations.
The ballot description said I-940 would, in part, require law enforcement to received violence de-escalation training.
But the law now also requires an investigation completely independent of the involved agency. Specifically, no member of the involved agency can participate in the investigation. It can only be investigated by the Independent Investigation Team, or IIT.
In the Sunday police use-of-force investigation, Washington State Patrol is the investigating agency.
"This has done a lot of damage to our ability to do investigations the proper way involving these events," Knezovich said. "Last night's shooting was a great example. We used to secure things, cover everything, but we don't do that anymore because we are afraid of getting outside of the guidelines of this new law."
The goal, according to state law, is to enhance accountability and increase trust.
We streamed the sheriff's comments on Facebook live. Several comments suggested an independent investigation could prevent any chance of it being tainted.
"There is no tainting that investigation. What you basically did is call the agency a liar at that point," Knezovich said. "Do you have any statistical proof that we had any of those things go on? As matter of fact, we were more transparent under the old guidelines than we are now."
He adds there may be instances where one agency does not have the same equipment or technology as the involved agency.
But the state's "Independent Investigation Criteria" allows specialized equipment belonging to the involved agency to be used by IIT if there are no other alternatives, or it is critical to the investigation.
"What if that agency doesn't have someone who can run that equipment? Who is going to run it for them," Knezovich said.
He said there are regional discussions to address this concern.
Once a law is implemented, it cannot be disputed for two years. Once that two years is up though, Sheriff Knezovich says he plans to push for a change.
Meanwhile, we can expect an update on the Spokane Valley officer involved shooting investigation Wednesday.