State lawmakers are on the cusp of passing a bill to ensure that police are trained to use deadly force only when it’s unavoidable, and that they are prosecuted when the facts prove otherwise.
All it took was three years of difficult conversations; the collection of 360,000 signatures and $3.2 million to get Initiative 940 in front of voters; three months of an unwanted election campaign, thanks to the state Supreme Court; 1,834,579 votes cast to pass the ballot measure, and two weeks of fine-tuning this year.
Not long ago, Washington state law provided cops pretty much the best protection in the country against prosecution if they killed someone in the line of duty.
I-940 ended up on the ballot anyway, but those agreed changes are now at the heart of House Bill 1064.
Contact The Herald (Everett) columnist Jerry Cornfield at 360-352-8623, jcornfield@herald net.com or on Twitter, @dospueblos.