A new Washington state law allows suspected criminals to escape by simply driving away from police.
Jesse Spitzer was taken into custody in late January after leading law enforcement on a chase through the Northwest United States.
Spitzer was originally wanted in Snohomish County, Wash. on burglary, assault, and stolen-vehicle charges. Subsequently, neighboring Chelan County tacked on their own burglary and theft charges. After several days of trying to track him down, and several more incidents, Spitzer made his way into Idaho. Finally, after firing on officers on two separate instances as they pursued him, Spitzer was apprehended in Montana.
Authorities quickly learned that even though he faced charges in Washington, Spitzer had intended to return. “He was going back to Washington state because they couldn’t chase him, ” explained Chelan County sheriff Brian Burnett.
That’s because in July 2021, House Bill 1054 took effect in the Evergreen State after being passed by the Democratic state legislature and signed by the Democratic governor over the objections of Burnett and state law-enforcement associations.
Before they can pursue a vehicle, the new law requires that officers ensure that four conditions have been met: (1) An officer must have either a reasonable suspicion a driver is impaired due to drugs or alcohol, or probable cause to believe that he has committed certain kinds of violent crimes or sex crimes; (2) pursuit must be necessary to identify or apprehend the suspect; (3) the driver must be an imminent threat to the safety of others such that the risks of not pursuing him outweigh the risks of pursuit; and (4) a supervisor has authorized pursuit.
Burnett told National Review that these restrictions represent a threat to public safety. Anecdotally, that’s evidenced by Spitzer’s sojourn across the region and, statistically, it’s backed up by the data. Prior to HB 1054’s taking effect, the state recorded, on average, around 2,000 stolen vehicles per month. Since its passage, that figure has soared, reaching heights in excess of 4,000 per month.
“What we’re seeing on an average daily basis — whether it’s our jurisdiction or one of our neighboring jurisdictions — is there’s people that don’t stop for us all day long,” said Burnett. “It can be anything from a stolen vehicle, to somebody that we have probable cause on, or just a basic traffic stop, and, you know, next thing on it’s pedal to the metal and they’re off and running,” he continued.
Burnett and his fellow law-enforcement officials had foreseen these issues and lobbied against the bill, but he said lawmakers refused to take their concerns seriously.
“The response early on — because we have a Democratic-controlled Senate and House, and it’s a fairly large margin there — it was almost to the point of, I’ll call it arrogance,” remembered Burnett. The message the legislature sent to the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs was: “We don’t need you, we don’t need your opinion,” he added. “We were begging them and telling them and giving them reasons why: ‘Please don’t do this, it’s bad, bad policy,’” he said, but they ignored the pleas, because their majorities (57–41 in the House and 28–21 in the Senate) empower them to impose their will without compromise. But public opinion will probably assert itself eventually, given that crime is surging in the state: Washington set records for homicides in 2020 and then again 2021.
The majority’s lack of interest in the subject-matter expertise of police was further confirmed by Democrats’ banning of certain essential tools — including less and non-lethal ones — formerly at law enforcement’s disposal.
“They banned anything 50-caliber or larger. Well they didn’t take into account that a 12-gauge shotgun is actually larger than a 50 caliber. And then we have 40-millimeter launchers that are gas launchers for SWAT. . . . They use those 50-millimeter launchers to put pepper spray and gas into buildings to get a suspect to come out,” explained Burnett.
For several months, police officers in Washington were forced to take the launchers out of their arsenal, although the legislature was later convinced to go back and remedy that particular mistake.
“They don’t know the impact, they don’t know the logistics, they don’t know the background because they have no training on law enforcement,” explained Burnett. The sheriff said that while Republican legislators reach out often and are more than receptive to law enforcement’s perspective, there’s only so much that can be done without a more sympathetic majority in the legislature. If change is going to come, it has to be bottom-up.
“We need our citizens to rise up,” Burnett said.
Rising Up
The crime wave isn’t the equal-opportunity result of Covid-era disruptions; it’s cropping up in a particularly bad way in liberal jurisdictions that have wholeheartedly embraced progressive criminal-justice reforms. And the backlash that Burnett is hoping for has already begun in those jurisdictions. In Nevada, for example, the sheriff of the state’s largest county is the Republican nominee for governor. Clark County’s top law-enforcement official since 2015, Joe Lombardo has a chance to unseat incumbent Steve Sisolak in no small part thanks to his tough-on-crime bona fides.
According to one recent poll, Nevadan Latinos say crime is the second most important issue to them as the November midterms approach, behind only inflation and in front of the economy more generally — a critical finding, considering they make up close to 20 percent of the electorate in the state and have historically been integral to Democratic victories there. And while most crime statistics have bounced around in the state over the last several years, Lombardo charged Sisolak and state Democrats with creating an environment where law enforcement is hamstrung, and criminals feel emboldened, citing numerous legislative examples.
“In 2019, Sisolak signed AB 236, which increased the felony-theft threshold from over $650 to $1,200. Sisolak then signed AB 440 . . . which requires police officers to issue citations in lieu of arrest for misdemeanor offenses with limited exceptions,” noted Lombardo in an interview with National Review. “So, just as an example of these failed policies, a criminal can now walk into a Nevada store, steal up to $1,199 of goods, and when police arrive, they can only issue a citation for a misdemeanor.”
“And let me tell you this: citations don’t change behavior,” he added.
The sheriff wasn’t finished enumerating his problems with AB 236, going on to call it “a disaster for our state.”
“AB 236 raised the felony threshold, lessened penalties for burglary, lessened sanctions for parole and probation violations, and limited the use of habitual criminal enhancements, which has had a devastating impact on crime,” he continued. “However, the most catastrophic provision in AB 236 was raising substance amounts required for drug-trafficking charges.”
The legislation raised the minimum threshold required to bring a low-level drug-trafficking charge from 4 grams to 100 grams, and the amount needed for a high-level drug-trafficking charge from 28 grams to 400 grams.
“By raising the substance amount so drastically, Sisolak has given drug dealers and traffickers a huge break and rewarded them for trafficking higher amounts,” said Lombardo. “Since 2019, trafficking charges with a weight of 100 grams or more have increased over 1,000 percent, and fentanyl deaths have sharply increased in Nevada.”
Five hundred and forty five Nevadans died as a result of drug overdoses in 2014, per the Centers for Disease Control. By 2020, that number had risen to 832.
Brazen Criminals and Beleaguered Cops
New legislation doesn’t tell the entire story. Lombardo also accused state Democrats of depleting law enforcement’s will and ability to serve. The Nevada State Police have gone underfunded, according to the candidate, and are now operating at half their normal staff capacity.
“Without adequate NSP oversight, our streets are becoming increasingly dangerous. 2021 was the deadliest year on Nevada roads in 14 years, and Nevada roads are now some of the most dangerous in the entire country,” he said.
Lombardo also chalked up low morale among state law enforcement to Democrats’ reaction to the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
“I have always supported police reforms that focus on better recruitment and more extensive vetting and training of officers trusted with protecting our communities,” began the sheriff. “However, since 2020, we’ve seen how law enforcement has been demonized by Steve Sisolak. We see it in our recruitment rates, we see it in morale, and we see it manifested when Sisolak blames law enforcement for crime — instead of his disastrous policies that my officers have been tasked with enforcing.”
Sisolak has said that minority communities “live with the additional fear that what should be routine or minor police encounters could end tragically,” and has insinuated that law enforcement in his state sets separate standards for citizens of different colors.
Joe Paulos, who is running for state senate in District 8, concurred with Lombardo on this point.
“What happened to George Floyd is tragic, there’s no reason he should have lost his life,” Paulos told National Review. “But at the same time, we should not have had a knee jerk reaction and then had this entire wave of defund the police, and bashing the police. . . . I do believe there’s a direct correlation between that and rising crime.” Paulos said that crime is one of the first things his would-be constituents bring up when they answer their doors, and the issue continuously rears its head on the campaign trail in unexpected, tragic ways.
The day before he spoke with National Review, Paulos was driving to a campaign event at two in the afternoon when he glanced out of his window in a busy area to see police and caution tape surrounding a gas station. A man had been stabbed there in broad daylight.
“And then a colleague of mine who’s running for the state senate on the other side of town, some volunteers had gathered at a park last weekend, ready to go walk, and this 60-year-old guy gets stabbed three times,” said Paulos, who attributed the violence to a brazenness born of the atmosphere created by state Democrats.
“You’re gonna get more of this behavior if there’s no consequences. . . . And it’s very bad for Nevada because we’re [an economy] based on tourism,” he submitted. “If crime is rising, and the perception on the outside is ‘Wow, Las Vegas is dangerous,’ what do you think that’s going to do to the economy? It’s terrible. It’s something we can’t have.”
Jeff Witte has also answered the call, and is running to represent House District 57 in Minnesota, where the murder rate has nearly doubled and the number of aggravated assaults and motor vehicle thefts per year have each increased by roughly 4,000 incidents since 2019. A police officer in the state for 27 years, Witte said in an interview that “even though my time in uniform is over, a watch never ends.” After seeing what soft-on-crime policies “have done to destroy cities,” Witte felt obligated to run even though he is “not a politician.”
“A lot of people in my district are afraid to go into Minneapolis,” said Witte, who is seeking to represent a district just outside of the city. According to the cop-turned-candidate, the well-documented problems in the heart of the Twin Cities are spilling out into the surrounding area. “In the seven-county metro area from last year to this year crime is up 22 percent — 22 percent!” exclaimed Witte. “I was door-knocking and talked to a gentleman. His wife was in Minneapolis and she was carjacked. . . . There was a pursuit and the guy totaled their car.”
Asked about the causes of the crime wave, Witte cited the burning down of Minneapolis’s third precinct police headquarters after Floyd’s murder as an inciting incident with long-term effects beyond the symbolism of the act and lack of response from city authorities. “I’ve talked to Minneapolis officers that were basically told not to arrest people and let the incidents go on,” he said. “And so I think really when Minneapolis did the ballot measures to defund the police, that demoralized the officers.”
In June, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey had failed to “meet his clear legal duty” to maintain a police force consisting of at least 1.7 officers per 1,000 residents, or 731 officers in total. According to a Star Tribune report from last October, the city had only 588 officers, down about 300 from the pre–George Floyd status quo.
“They can’t find anyone to fill these jobs. When I was doing the hiring back in the day, we could have 400 people [apply] for like one or two positions. Now they’re lucky if they get 20 for like three positions,” said Witte. “No one’s going into the field because they demonized it.”
If elected, Witt said that he would work to ensure that the legislature provided law enforcement with the necessary resources it needs to function, and vocalized its support for the men and women in uniform. He also said it should take action to ensure judges don’t let criminals get away with lenient sentences, noting that it was important for officers not to feel they were “putting their lives on the line” for little-to-no public-safety payoff.
“In my district, they support the police. That’s the value that we want to bring to St. Paul,” he offered.
The Stakes
In 2020, the number of murders committed in the United States increased by over 30 percent. According to data released by the FBI earlier this month, that number jumped by an additional 4 percent in 2021 — cementing a dispiriting, new status quo.
Combine that with the individual problems faced in states like Washington, Nevada, and Minnesota, as well as the indifference of Democratic majorities in those states, and you have an opportunity for voters to send a message to politicians, present and future, in both parties: Our safety should be your No. 1 concern.
“We’ve seen an underlying tone and it’s pretty strong nowadays. The state’s been coming in and trying to minimize any local control of that of the elected sheriff or that of police agencies in municipalities,” Burnett told National Review. “They try to push through and this is where they get in trouble, they don’t use subject-matter experts who are law enforcement people. . . . You got some 28-year-old young man out of Seattle with very liberal views of de-escalation and defunding police, that thinks that’s the only answer.”
“It just happens over and over and over again,” he lamented.