by Carolyn Bick
King County Executive Dow Constantine has added his voice to those calling for King County Sheriff Mitzi Johanknecht to resign, following an internal email the sheriff sent to King County Sheriff’s Office employees in late March. Constantine joins community groups and several elected officials.
Continue reading BREAKING: King County Executive Dow Constantine Has ‘Urged’ Sheriff Johanknecht to Retire ‘Immediately’by Carolyn Bick
At the 43:22 timestamp in a video of a nearly two-hour King County Council meeting regarding the shooting death of Mi’Chance Dunlap-Gittens, King County Sheriff Mitzi Johanknecht gets up and walks out of the room, before any members of the community speak, and before Mi’Chance Dunlap-Gittens’s mother starts to read the last poem her son wrote before police shot and killed him in 2017.
“I have to get on to the next thing,” Johanknecht says, looking at the watch on her left wrist.
Continue reading ‘A Failed Leader’: Momentum Builds in Demands for Sheriff Johanknecht’s ResignationThis is a letter Budget for Justice sent to the city of Seattle. It is reprinted with permission.
For years, Budget for Justice (BfJ) organizations have been doing the restorative and transformative justice work our communities need. Despite repeated acknowledgement and talk, the City of Seattle has, also for years, allowed this work to remain unfunded or underfunded. We have been doing the work longer than the recommendations of many city work groups have existed. It is time for the City of Seattle to fund our work and to stop funding the harmful systems that make our work necessary. The criminal justice system causes disproportionate and irreparable harm.
