Dori: Mitzi Johanknecht backpedals unconvincingly over LInX reinstatement

King County Sheriff Mitzi Johanknecht may be even worse of a liar than we hear she is of a manager.

We have talked at length recently about the reports we’ve gotten of her incompetence and the chaos at the King County Sheriff’s Office. Many people who have been in meetings with her tell me we are in a really scary place at the King County Sheriff’s Office.

A couple of weeks ago, Johanknecht apparently decided that illegal immigrants were more important than the lives of police officers, not only under her command, but throughout the state. She withdrew the King County Sheriff’s Office from LInX, a database on criminal information shared by law enforcement agencies nationwide because she feared Immigration and Customs Enforcement could access it — even though cops are not even allowed to ask the question about immigration status.

We had cops on the show who told us that this will make an already deadly job even more dangerous. They rely on this database to know what kind of people they’ll be facing down when they respond to a crime scene. They said there is no other method to access that kind of wealth of information that quickly.

Dori: By dropping LInX, King County Sheriff’s Office puts deputies, public at risk

After tremendous public pressure, mainly from this radio show, Mitzi Johanknecht is now reinstating the LInX system — but she is lying about it.

She is claiming that the LInX withdrawal was meant to be temporary. That is an obvious lie. If it were true, she would have said that in her original letter to the King County Council about the LInX withdrawal. If it were true, her undersheriff would have said that in his letter to all employees of the King County Sheriff’s Office. They never suggested for a moment that this was temporary.

Undersheriff Scott Somers said the following in his email to employees. Read it and tell me if you think it sounds like he’s only talking about a temporary policy.

I know that this is going to impact our ability to efficiently access information for conducting investigations and support other functions. We have started discussions with other Law Enforcement [sic] agencies about tying records systems together in a regional system to support inquiries. We will listen to your ideas on how to mitigate the impacts … We acknowledge and understand the impact to many of you who use this resource as part of your work on a daily basis.

Clearly, this was meant to be a permanent break with LInX.

Now the sheriff is caving to the public pressure because we accurately framed this as Mitzi Johanknecht caring more about illegal immigrants than about the lives of police officers. She realized that this would be poisonous for her career, so she is backpedaling. And she is doing rather an unconvincing job of it. The cover-up is worse than the original transgression.

Having said that, I am thrilled that they have this database back. I am thrilled that cops’ lives will again be a bit safer by having access to this system.

A lot of KCSO personnel came up to me at Thursday night’s Seahawks game and thanked us for our coverage. They credit our watchdog reporting with the restoration of the LInX system. I responded that I will do anything to defend good cops. Politicians and horrible commanders are poisonous for the men and women who serve so selflessly.

Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from 12-3 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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