From: To: CC: Date: Subject: Attachment(s): Mead, Ron (WSP) G-S-District-2-Everyone, Knott, Jason (WSP), O'Shannon, Kristene (WSP) Sass Jeff (WSP), Batiste John (WSP), Matheson Travis (WSP), Mjor James (WSP), Hall Daniel (WSP), McCoy Scott (WSP) Jul 6, 2020 at 2:26 PM Captain's Message: Update on State of the District 4 Good afternoon everyone. I apologize this message isn’t more timely, but hopefully you can appreciate it was a full weekend for many of us in the district. To that end, I wanted to give you an update on where we were, where we are, and how we got there. As you know, we had taken a drastically different approach to freeway protests in recent weeks from our traditional ways of keeping traffic flowing. Historically, we have worked closely with SPD and denied protestors the ability to block the freeway. The inability to book arrestee’s and the prosecutor’s office unwillingness to charge “peaceful” protestors combined with SPD’s hands off approach to protest activity and the heightened tensions between protestors and law enforcement put us in the untenable position of having to engage in a cycle of arrest and release or simply keeping protestors and motorists separated which ultimately gave us two bad options. Arresting protestors that would ultimately have no accountability and essentially be right back out there protesting only served to worsen an already challenging situation where tensions between police and protestors were tense. Having tens of thousands of motorists inconvenienced during our nightly freeway closures garnered the agency a lot of negative feedback on the part of innocent and inconvenienced motorists again put us in another no win situation. I’m very sensitive to the inconvenience of the motoring public and the seeming lack of holding protestors accountable for their criminal conduct; but ensuring public safety to the extent we can and putting you in a “winning” position, if such a thing exists, was our first priority. At the end of the day, keeping you safe both physically and professionally and separating motorists and protestors was the ultimate goal of this strategy. That all changed Friday night, Saturday morning. While the investigation is still early, it appears the vehicle that struck the protestors entered from an exit that wasn’t manned. We simply don’t know whether or not this was an intentional or unintentional act; that is a part of CID’s ongoing investigation. Quite frankly, we anticipated a lot of scenarios, but having a vehicle go the wrong direction on a closed exit and reaching the protestors wasn’t among them. Two pedestrians were struck, one of which later died from their injuries. There are a lot of questions are now being asked about our strategy and tactics, which should be expected following a tragedy like this and I have no issues with answering and owning those decisions that led to this. Did our strategy give the protestors a false sense of security? Perhaps in retrospect it did. Was the strategy and tactics employed the right decision? In light of the tragic outcome, I think it’s a fair question to be asked. Was the strategy and tactics well intended for both the benefit of protestors and uninvolved motorists? Absolutely. Did you do an exceptional job carrying out these strategies and tactics? Without question! But let me be clear: these questions in no way are directed at the work you did to keep protestors and uninvolved motorists safe. You worked tirelessly for 19 straight days and nights, often devoting your entire shifts, to carrying out and supporting a strategy you had no control over and honestly didn’t all agree with. I take full ownership for the decisions that were made and my only regret is that anyone is remotely questioning the work you did in carrying them out. I will speak for Chief Batiste and Assistant Chief Sass in that we are all very proud of the incredible work you have done over the past four weeks. Whether you were on RDF at the start of these protests, or part of a freeway closure team over the past many weeks ~ you have represented yourselves, the district, and this agency with professionalism and humility. So for that, THANK YOU! We had further and extensive discussions the middle of last week about potentially adjusting the strategy we were using after SPD cleared out the CHOP. My thought then was how we return some sense of accountability for the criminal conduct of these protestors continually blocking the freeway and trying to alleviate the negative publicity and the inconvenience to the motoring public these nightly closures were causing. But in the Chief’s consultation with the jail administrator and King County Prosecutor, the jail was still unable (or unwilling) to hold those we arrested (remember, we are in the midst of a pandemic that has forced the release of prisoners from jails across the country) and the prosecutor’s office was taking a “conservative approach” to charging “peaceful” protestors ~ hence still putting us in the difficult and untenable position of getting stuck in a constant arrest and release cycle with no ultimate end strategy, and potentially only furthering these heightened tensions with protestors. The Chief ultimately made the difficult decision to maintain the current strategy we were using with his thought first and foremost of not putting us in an unwinnable or unsafe position and second in how we best keep both protestors and uninvolved motorists separated and safe. The events of Friday night/Saturday morning would change that. Clearly our strategy in the end was not able to keep the protestors and motorists separated. We had been clear since May 30 and as late as June 27th in public messaging that our ultimate goal was to keep the public safe, and that the freeways were not a safe place to protest. But as we learned this weekend, the only truly safe way of protecting protestors is to deny them access to the freeway in the first place and arresting those that choose to engage in the criminal act of obstructing traffic. We know this doesn’t alleviate the concerns we already had but now have been left with no other choice. The jail is still not going hold those we arrest, and the prosecutor’s office was still unlikely to charge them ~ but maintaining public safety is ultimate our goal. We have activated RDF to provide the resources to ideally deny them access to the freeway in the first place, and make those arrests if that need arises; the first two nights were successful in that no protestors accessed the freeway and aside from a brief closure Sunday afternoon the freeway has flowed as it should. It’s my hope that the protest organizers realize the great risk to their own personal safety and decide to protest in other ways; some intelligence suggests they still intend to block the freeway so we will continue devoting resources to ensure to the extent we can that doesn’t occur. Again, I regret that the events of this weekend have potentially embarrassed or caused any of you to question our strategy and tactics. I assure you we are doing our very best to keep everyone safe; protestors, uninvolved motorists and you! You have all worked too hard to have your work questioned. But you also need to understand that the questioning from the media and members of the public is NOT about you or the quality of your work; the questioning is of the decision making above you and the Chief and his leadership team (including myself) will work on addressing those questions. These are fair questions and to be expected following a tragedy like this, and one that any agency committed to transparency and public trust which we do should welcome. And these are questions I think we are quite frankly well positioned to answer. There were no easy solutions to this. Regardless of the strategy we ultimately took, there are inherent risks to protesting on the freeway; risks to protestors, uninvolved motorists, and first responders. What happened this weekend was no doubt a tragedy, but the protestors have to bear some responsibility for their actions that led to this tragic outcome. We have and will continue to keep everyone safe; but at the end of the day we need the public’s active support and participation in keeping everyone safe. I have also attached a few additional positive comments we have received from the public. I hope these along with some comments from a prospective applicant help reaffirm the important work you are doing and the public’s appreciation for it. I thank you for your support, understanding, and great work over the past many weeks and ask for your continued patience and great work as we move forward during these challenging and difficult times. Of course, if there are additional questions or concerns I haven’t addressed, please address those through the chain of command and we will strive to get you the answers you need. Continue to be safe and stay healthy! Ron Captain Ron w. Mead Washington State Patrol District 2 Commander 2303 155th Ave SE Bellevue, WA 93007 425740177701 (Office) -- Ron.MeadEwsp.wa gov Twitter: @wsdepio "Service with Humility"