King County prosecuting attorney candidates gear up for November election

This November, voters will elect the newest King County prosecuting attorney, a race between Federal Way Mayor Jim Ferrell and incumbent Dan Satterberg’s Chief of Staff Leesa Manion.

Ferrell, who took office in 2014, joined the Dori Monson Show on Wednesday to speak about his run for prosecuting attorney and crime in King County.

He believes those currently in public office in King County have lost touch with the public’s concerns.

After the failure to launch a juvenile program across Seattle, and other King County cities, Ferrell told Dori “it was really a betrayal of the community and the region.”

“This program that they rolled out late last year without any notice to the cities involves bringing guns to school, where the people don’t even get charged,” Farrell continued.

He said as the prosecutor for the county, he would seek to put more criminals in jail.

“Obviously, you want to make sure that people don’t come back to prison, you want to get people what I call ‘course-corrected,’ and living productive lives, but the key fundamental thing that has to occur first is accountability,” Ferrell said.

He added that he thinks it’s, “all about accountability, and it’s not about looking the other way. You’re not doing … the offenders any favors by looking the other way or the victims, and some of the programs [that] are in place right now are exactly that, they’re just looking the other way.”

For Manion, who has served as chief of staff in the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office for the past 15 years, addressing the public health and safety crisis of gun violence is critical.

“I know how to address this problem from multiple perspectives,” Manion said in a press release, adding that, “as prosecutor, I’ll build on this commitment — both to save lives in domestic violence and other cases, but also advance proven strategies to protect youth.”

“We’ll use data to identify where gun violence is the greatest and determine which neighborhoods and individuals’ needs are the most urgent. In doing so, we can intervene directly with youth most at risk to offer opportunities as an alternative to violence.”

Manion was a co-founding partner of Choose 180 and helped secure funding for the PAO’s Crime Strategies “Shots Fired” Unit, which tracks shootings in the county, according to the release.

She said she would bring “critical and necessary perspectives and expertise” to make communities safer.