Government could learn a thing or two from King County Sheriff

Just when it seemed no government office was willing to hold its employees accountable in the Seattle area, one came through.

King County Sheriff John Urquhart fired a sergeant for providing a false report of an interaction with a King County Metro Transit driver.

Sergeant Lou Caballero is the second person from the sheriff’s office to be fired over the confrontation, in which he and former deputy Amy Shoblom alleged the driver directed profanity at law enforcement.

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It was a situation where Urquhart could have either taken his sergeant’s word or believed the bus driver. Unfortunately for the sergeant and deputy, the driver had a body camera turned on during the confrontation on Nov. 14.

“The body cam told a different story,” Urquhart told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson. “I had to go with what the body cam showed.”

Would it have been a different story if the sergeant admitted he originally lied about the driver using profanity? Dori asked.

Typically, Urquhart tries to give his employees the benefit of the doubt. However, trusting someone willing to lie might make it tough.

“It would be hard to continue to believe someone who filed a false report,” Urquhart said.

Caballero was fired effective Aug. 20, The Seattle Times reports.

Caballero’s firing is just part of what Urquhart has been doing all along. Even while campaigning, he told voters that he wanted to make the department more accountable and to “clean up the sheriff’s office.”

“Nobody should be surprised,” he told Dori.

It’s too bad other government agencies aren’t willing to clean house like Urquhart is, Dori told the sheriff. There are government agencies costing taxpayers millions of dollars for poor decision making, but the people in charge aren’t being put in the hot seat.

Maybe other departments should take a page out of Urquhart’s book and lower the tolerance for incompetence.