Former Sheriff’s transparency offers hope for improvement, rebuilding trust

Former King County Sheriff Sue Rahr has been very candid about racial bias in policing and some hard truths about her generation of law enforcement.

“The research on this topic is very, very clear. People who are black and white tend to abuse drugs at the same rate. But the people who have darker skin are arrested at a higher level because, my generation of law enforcement, that’s who we paid attention to,” Rahr said. “That fed the system and reinforced the biased thinking that we have about who commits more crimes and who doesn’t.”

She admits her own wrongdoings when she was still a deputy and would run across a person of color with a criminal record. That blemish on their record made her care less about what happened after they were arrested and fed into the system of racial injustice.

But now, as the Executive Director of the State Criminal Justice Training Commission, Rahr is trying to prevent that lack of understanding and empathy among new police recruits.

New WA police recruits will be trained on black history, civil rights, to prevent bias

Rahr joined the KIRO Radio’s Gee and Ursula Show on Monday.

Gee says, for the first time ever, he heard a leader in law enforcement admit something that black people have been saying for decades.

“Having Sue on our show really touched me,” he said. “Her transparency about what led to her turning point gives me hope about how our communities can be better going forward, and how we can help rebuild trust in police officers, which some of us have lost.”

Gee and Ursula have invited Sue Rahr to become a regular guest on their show as they continue to have these conversations to gain a better understanding and eventually lead to meaningful change.

Listen to the Gee and Ursula Show weekday mornings from 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.