Legislative District 37

I came to community organizing and public policy advocacy honestly. My eyes were opened as a young person in high school at Garfield when I saw my community harmed by the War on Drugs. There was immense over-policing, crime bills further criminalizing people around me who were suffering, and families left in the dust. I consider myself a survivor of that war. I emerged from that time in our collective history determined to be an agent of change and repair the harm I saw. There was no other option for me than to help my community.

In my community work, I have organized alongside parents, youth, and families including formerly incarcerated people and the families of survivors of police violence, for police accountability and to transform the racist criminal legal system. The path forward for accountability includes local, state and federal advocacy and community organizing.

Police accountability is one part of a larger vision of true public safety. We will achieve true public safety when everyone in our communities has access to health care, affordable housing, good jobs and vibrant, healthy communities.

The measures of progress toward true public safety are in the lives of those who have suffered most acutely the harm of the criminal legal system. Examples of tangible ways to measure progress toward public safety could include, among others; reductions in incarceration, reductions in or ending of homelessness, elimination or reduction in racial disparities in wealth and income, increasing wealth and land and business ownership among Black, Indigenous people and other people of color, and increasing safety of our youth, women, LGBTQIA+ and all people at home, in school and in communities.

As a state representative, I know I have a unique opportunity to partner with families across our state and organizations like the ACLU to advance policies that will truly make our communities safer. Like I mentioned above, these policies look like reducing harsh penalties for non-violent offenses so we can keep folks out of prison. Additionally, I know from my life experience and from my work, that people are able to stay away from the criminal justice system when we as a society are meeting their basic needs. This means engaging our state as a leader in building more housing, fully funding K-12 and higher education, creating good jobs for people of all backgrounds, investing in the trades, good transit, clean air and water, and more. I’ve also worked for over a decade as a mother and PTSA parent to reduce the school to prison pipeline for our kids, and particularly Black boys, because I know investment and care early to end those systems will serve us all well far into the future. I know because I’ve seen them, that there are very helpful interventions we can make as a community when people are young to ensure they’re getting the support they need in schools and that staff and educators are respecting them. These interventions are proven to reduce people’s engagement in the criminal justice system after graduation, and will serve to keep community members out of prison and all of us more safe and less reliant on a flawed criminal justice system.

I believe the steps laid out above are all very worthy and important. I would like to use this space to make a larger point about how police reform/accountability has happened in our state. It is very disheartening to me, as a mother, grandmother, and active community leader, to see widely-supported legislation be passed only to be rolled back in some regards the following year. I understand that as members of government and experts in policy like yourselves, part of our roles are to acknowledge when we get something wrong. However, I am disheartened to see important measures that would change policing culture and improve public safety changed and weakened seemingly under the radar. I don’t want that to be part of my service, if I’m so lucky to serve in Olympia. I have no interest in being the person who is complicit in rolling back hard-fought and hard-won police accountability measures. It’s time we change our collective culture of policing once and for all.

Every person deserves to feel safe in their community – the basic goal of public safety is to bring this goal to fruition. We need proactive policies that emphasize crime prevention and support for vulnerable communities instead of reactive policies that emphasize punishment. I support setting up effective systems for crime prevention including mental health and addiction resources, policies that tackle scarcity, and social work. Police are a reactive measure – they have no ability to prevent crime but I do believe that they are helpful to respond to emergency situations in our communities, with the help of social work and mental health professionals. Effective public safety comes from community and requires community healing when harm is done.

I am a Black woman who understands first-hand the danger that systemic police violence, misconduct, and targeting poses to communities of color. I will work to craft policies that keep every community in Washington safe from both violence and police misconduct.

As I explained above, I will support policies that increase mental health and addiction resources, specifically through increased funding. This also includes decriminalizing issues that have historically been used to target marginalized communities. As someone who works directly with young black boys in my capacity as a member of the City of Seattle’s Our Best Advisory Council, I see firsthand the generational impact the War on Drugs has on communities of color. And as a resident of Seattle, I know cannabis workers are unsafe in their current workplaces because of the dramatic rise of burglaries across our region. I will champion legislation that is working to create equity in an industry that was built on the back of men of color, particularly Black men who were disproportionately incarcerated for crimes that white men are now profiting from.

We are still working to pass legislation that effectively protects communities and holds police accountable. I support the efforts of 2021, which resulted in a 60% decrease in police violence, and view the clarifications of 2022 as a step towards honing policy that can be effectively implemented. I look forward to joining the legislature and continuing to work towards policies that protect our communities from violence.

Police reform and accountability policies need to be continuously revisited to ensure their effectiveness. This includes ongoing conversations with community members and law enforcement to ensure our public safety goals are being met. I am excited to be a part of developing and adjusting policy as a legislator.