After a unanimous vote by the Seattle City Council and calls from the community, City Attorney Pete Holmes recently pulled the city out of a suit challenging a revised inquest process for police-involved deaths. | Stock photo
After a unanimous vote by the Seattle City Council and calls from the community, City Attorney Pete Holmes recently pulled the city out of a suit challenging a revised inquest process for police-involved deaths. | Stock photo
After a unanimous vote by the Seattle City Council and calls from the community, City Attorney Pete Holmes recently pulled the city out of a suit challenging a revised inquest process for police-involved deaths, South Seattle Emerald reported.
The legal challenge to revised inquest procedures for King County were initiated in 2019.
Holmes told South Seattle Emerald he still feels the new procedures are vague and that there could be too much inconsistency between inquest hearings.
Holmes further called for others to join him in working toward a single set of procedures that would apply to the entire state, providing Pierce County as an example of a community that has no inquest procedures in place.
“In light of recent events, I believe the state legislature, not a lawsuit, is the best place to create this new system,” Holmes told South Seattle Emerald. “And I hope that my fellow elected officials will join me in calling for comprehensive statewide inquest reform and an update to Washington’s 150+year-old [sic] statute by the legislature in its next session.”
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