Inslee Appoints Official to Lead New Police ‘Investigative Office’

Gov. Inslee has never missed a chance to satisfy his base or those who heavily support his campaigns and policies. He's also, by his actions and policies, rarely ever supported law enforcement. This is his latest example of just that.

Inslee appoints former King County judge to lead new office

The Office of Independent Investigations was an Inslee idea, pushed through by legislative Democrats during the 2021 session. It was largely in response to the George Floyd situation,  some special-interest groups called for an independent government branch to investigate the use of force by police.

The OII will apparently not include direct input from law enforcement, at least not the involved law enforcement agency.  Locally we already have that with the SIU, but apparently he's not noticed that.

According to Inslee's information release Wednesday:

"The agency was created as a result of the demand to provide competent, unbiased, and thorough investigations of police use of deadly force, often affecting people of color, that will be independent of the involved law enforcement agency."

The 'demand' came from these special interest groups, not any massive clamoring by the general public. Basically, this office is viewed as a by-pass to normal regular investigations into the use of force by Officers.

In our region, we have the SIU, or Special Investigations Unit, which examines shootings or other similar situations involving law officers. The SIU does not include any members of the law enforcement branch that are involved in the situation.

Inslee has appointed Roger Rogoff to head this new office, most recently he spent time acting as legal counsel for Microsoft in the areas of data privacy and public safety. His background also includes stints as a Superior Court Judge and 13 years as a prosecuting attorney in King County.

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He was also a member of the state's task force on sentencing reform, so he likely had influence or a hand in some of the new laws that have recently passed concerning more lenient sentences for offenders.

WA is the first state in the US to create such an office. Now, coupled with the dozen or so new laws severely handcuffing law enforcement in our state,  this is one more thing officers will have to consider when having to respond to a deadly and dangerous suspect or situation that might require deadly force.