Kent police chief, mayor to host town hall about police reform

Kent Police Chief Rafael Padilla and Mayor Dana Ralph will host a town-hall style event to discuss new state legislation and how it impacts the police department.

The community meeting is from 6 to 8 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 16 at the Kent Senior Activity Center, 600 E. Smith St.

“If you have questions or want to learn more about the new laws and how they are affecting our department, come on by,” Ralph said in her weekly city update to residents.

The Legislature adopted the police reform measures this year.

“The laws were written very poorly, and the combination of them all at the same time has led to there being conflicts in clarity and in what was intended versus what was written,” Padilla said in a recent Associated Press story.

The measures ban chokeholds, neck restraints and no-knock warrants, according to the Associated Press. They require officers to intervene when a colleague engages in excessive force and to report misconduct by other officers; make it easier to decertify officers; and create a new state agency to investigate police use of deadly force.

The laws also restrict when officers can engage in car chases, make it easier to sue individual officers and require police to exhaust appropriate de-escalation tactics.

State Rep. Jesse Johnson, D-Federal Way, who sponsored bills on police tactics and use of force, told the Associated Press that some clarifications are necessary but change was needed.

“We have to create new policies, because what we were doing before was not working,” Johnson said. “What we wanted to do with these bills is set an expectation that officers de-escalate and that there’s less lethal enforcement of the law. A lot of the pushback we’re getting is because it’s a paradigm shift.”