King County Council budget vote restores gang unit
Nov 13, 2018, 5:21 PM
The King County Council in 2018. (KIRO 7)
(KIRO 7)
Tuesday afternoon, the King County Council approved the 2019-2020 budget and approved funds to restore the King County Sheriff’s Office Gang Unit.
RELATED: King County budget includes cash for gang unit members, but fewer than sheriff wanted
The budget allocates $840,000 to the gang task force. A sergeant and a detective will be assigned to the unit.
The Sheriff’s Office said the gang unit will be able to develop intelligence to cut down gang crime, and to intervene early with education before children choose to join a gang.
King County detectives said a turf war between two gangs in South King County led to six shooting deaths in two years.
In September in Burien, Gabrielle Reyes-Dominguez was killed by a stray bullet as she sat at her desk at work.
After that shooting, King County Executive Dow Constantine added funding for the gang unit to the proposed budget. It was approved this afternoon.
The Sheriff’s Office also asked for $1.3 million for additional training. The department will get $200,000 to start with. To get the rest, it will need to provide a report.
“All we’re saying is we want to have accountability for the use of more than $1 million in taxpayer funds, ” said King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove, who is also the budget chair. “It’s very common what we do throughout the budget when we have new programs that we’re funding.”
The Sheriff’s Office said the passage of Initiative 940 will require specific training, but no one knows the details. As the Legislature works that out, Sgt. Ryan Abbott said the training money will run out.
“This money is used for the in-service training where we do deescalation training, anti-bias training, crisis intervention training, also defensive tactics. That money is what it’s used for. Without that money, we’re not going to be able to do the in-service we do every year,” said Sgt. Abbott.
Sgt. Abbott said the Sheriff’s Office will complete the required report but fears it could be summer before the office finds out what training is required through I-940.
