SHORELINE, WA – Today, Washington voters took action to help end the crime wave that has swept lives, livelihoods and futures away from families and business owners. More than 400,000 Washingtonians signed Initiative 2113 (I-2113) to restore local police oversight and begin restoring public safety. Initiatives are required to receive 324,516 verified signatures to qualify for the November ballot.
“Police were only able to watch as the man who would strike my daughter in a stolen truck sped away,” said Amber Goldade, whose daughter Immaculee was killed by a man driving a stolen truck. “They could have stopped him long before he got behind the wheel that day if our laws hadn’t handcuffed the police response to his crimes. I’m fighting to stop this happening to more families.”
Supporters of I-2113 gathered at the site of a recent break-in at Dunn Lumber in Shoreline to highlight the need for this initiative.
“It’s hard to run a business when you can’t protect your stores from theft after theft,” said Mike Dunn, owner of Dunn Lumber. “Meanwhile, police aren’t able to respond and organized crime rings just get more emboldened to break in. We need the police to be able to do their work so we can protect our livelihoods and our families.”
State lawmakers enacted policy changes to limit the conditions in which police can respond to crimes in progress in 2021. Legislators softened some of the police response restrictions in 2023, but refused to restore the local control over police response that mayors, law enforcement, business owners and voters have been calling for.
Sen. Manka Dhingra, supporter of the original police restrictions, recently claimed, “We don’t have any data indicating that there is rising crime because of this policy.”
Since the year the police restrictions passed, car theft in Seattle has skyrocketed more than 42 percent according to Seattle Police Crime Dashboard data. For the second year in a row, car theft in the city has reached an all-time high, with two more months remaining in the calendar year.
“Communities across the state are suffering impacts of rising crime while lawmakers tell them not to believe their eyes,” said Brian Heywood, founder of Let’s Go Washington. “Local police, mayors and city councils should not be stuck with a one-size-fits-all policy that keeps police from doing their job. Handcuffing police is a failure and regular Washingtonians are paying the price.”
Text of the initiative can be found at LetsGoWashington.com. Voters can still sign the initiative until December 29.
Press contact: Email info@letsgowashington.com.
Jess Honcoop
Monument Advocacy
360-410-9248
