King County Sheriff's Office

The first King County Sheriff was elected in 1852. The office was renamed the King County Department of Public Safety after voters approved a charter change in 1968, and the director would be appointed. In the 1980s, the name of the department was again changed, this time to the King County Police Department. In 1996, voters decided to reinstate voting for the sheriff and the name was changed back to the King County Sheriff’s Office.[2] However, in 2020, voters decided to return to an appointed sheriff and to allow the King County Council to change the duties of the sheriff.[3]

As a result of the 2020 election, on December 31, 2021, Sheriff Mitzi Johanknecht finished out her elected term. Johanknecht's Undersheriff, Patti Cole-Tindall was appointed as Interim Sheriff by Executive Dow Constantine.[4]

• Office of the Sheriff - includes the Sheriff, Undersheriff, chief of staff, aides, a media relations officer, labor negotiator, the Internal Investigations Unit, and the Legal Unit.
• Field Operations Division - manages the core functions of patrol, precinct-based detectives, crime prevention, storefronts, and reserve deputies. The subdivision into four precincts allows for better community-based responses because the precinct commanders can use local data to direct law enforcement services. Day-to-day management of contract city police and school resource officers, are the responsibility of this division.
• Special Operations Division - provides support services to other divisions, regional services to local agencies, and contract police service to the King County Metro Transit Division (including Sound Transit Police), King County Department of Transportation (Motor Unit (disbanded 10/1/12)), and the King County International Airport ARFF Police. Services provided by this division include: a K-9 unit with search and drug detection capabilities; Air Support (Guardian One); Marine Unit; Bomb Squad; tactical training in firearms, less-lethal weapons, and defensive tactics; Tac-30 (SWAT); hostage negotiations; dignitary protection; tow coordination and appeal hearings; Search & Rescue; D.M.T. (Demonstration Management Team); instruction in and equipment for Haz-Mat; and special event planning and coordination. The division has also taken the lead in planning for homeland security concerns.
• Criminal Investigations Division (CID) - includes the Major Crimes Section, the Special Investigations Section, and the King County Regional Criminal Intelligence Group. The division serves citizens with follow-up investigative, warrant, and intelligence-gathering services. Specifically, it investigates crimes including homicide, domestic violence, computer fraud, forgery, sexual assault, and more. CID also addresses child support enforcement issues.
• Technical Services Division - provides the bulk of support services that are vital to efficient operations. Often, the employees in this division provide direct services to citizens as well as support services to the other divisions. Services provided by the division personnel include emergency 9-1-1 call receiving and dispatching, managing court security (County Marshals), technology development, records, contracting, civil process, personnel/hiring, payroll, purchasing, training, photography, application and administration of grants, planning, and all aspects of fingerprint identification.

King County, WA Contract City Patches

The following cities contract their police departments to KCSO:

• Beaux Arts Village
• Burien
• Carnation
• Covington
• Kenmore
• Maple Valley
• Newcastle
• Sammamish
• SeaTac
• Shoreline
• Skykomish
• Woodinville

Title	Insignia
Sheriff
Undersheriff*
Chief
Major
Captain
Sergeant
Master Police Officer (Deputy)
Deputy

• Contract city chiefs wear three stars when in their contract uniform and one star when in a KCSO uniform.

The King County Sheriff's Office has a volunteer program for individuals between the ages of 14 and 21 who are interested in investigating a career in the field of law enforcement. The program is called the King County Sheriff Explorers and is a local post of the Learning for Life Exploring program. The explorer post has a rank structure similar to the Sheriff's Office. The explorers attend academies and competitions, ride-along with deputies on patrol, and receive training on a variety of law enforcement topics.

There are four Explorer posts in cities contracted with the King County Sheriff's Office, those being an unincorporated post in Woodinville, as well as city posts in Maple Valley, Burien, and Sammamish.

In February 2012, Dustin Theoharis was shot sixteen times by a sheriff's deputy and a Department of Corrections officer as he lay in his bed. The officers were attempting to search the home for another man when they saw Theoharis move and they opened fire. Officers responding to the shooting allegedly failed to gather evidence, moved items at the crime scene and acted as advocates for the shooters. An internal investigation found no wrongdoing on the part of the officers. The officers involved refused to cooperate with the investigation. The state settled a lawsuit for $2.5 Million.[20] The county agreed to pay $3 million to settle the matter. Sheriff John Urquhart pointed out to the press that he was not responsible for this incident as he had not yet been elected.[21]

In 2017 Detective Richard Rowe in plain clothes approached a motorcyclist from behind with his gun drawn without identifying himself as a law enforcement officer for a full minute. He also reached into the motocyclist's pocket to pull out his wallet so that an observer might think an armed robbery was in progress. The department later settled the case with a $65,000 payment to the victim and agreed to modify its use-of-force policy.[22]

In March 2021, the King County Sheriff's Office agreed to pay out a $5 million settlement to the family of Tommy Le, a 20-year-old high school student who was shot and killed by Deputy Cesar Molina in 2017. Deputies had encountered Le while responding to a report of a disoriented man who may have been armed with a knife or sharp object. The sheriff's office initially stated that Le attacked deputies with a knife or other sharp object and that Molina shot Le in self-defense. An investigation by the sheriff's office Use of Force Board cleared the shooting on the basis that deputies "reasonably believed that [Le] was armed with a deadly weapon and had already attacked someone with a knife".[23] However, a subsequent outside review of the case found a "lack of rigor" in the sheriff's office's investigation, pointing to significant issues such as evidence suggesting that Le was likely moving away from the deputies when he was shot. The review also found that while Le was found to be carrying a ballpoint pen during the encounter, KCSO investigators spent a large amount of their time trying to find the knife reported by one witness in order to justify the shooting. [24][25]

• List of law enforcement agencies in Washington (state)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to King County Sheriff's Office.

• King County Sheriff website
  • King County Sheriff's Office website at the Wayback Machine (archive index)
• King County Sheriff Explorer website