Relatives of people who've died in WA jails press for state oversight

SEATTLE — Relatives of people who have died inside local jails asked Washington lawmakers this week to bring the lockups under state oversight, making the argument that independent scrutiny could help prevent tragedies.

They spoke in support of state Senate Bill 5005, citing cases like the death of Hien Trung Hua, who was booked into the Yakima County jail during a mental health crisis in 2023. He died there after he was pepper sprayed, wrestled, struck repeatedly and restrained on his stomach by guards.

The bill sponsored by Sen. Rebecca Saldaña, D-Seattle, is supported by a number of political heavyweights, including the Washington chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union, National Alliance on Mental Illness and League of Women Voters, as well as major labor unions. It's currently opposed by the Washington Association of Counties, Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys and Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.

A similar proposal cleared the Senate's Human Services Committee last year, then stalled in the Ways and Means Committee, where budgets are hashed out. This year, budget writers are grappling with multibillion-dollar deficits.

"Senate Bill 5005 is very personal to me because my cousin Hien Hua was killed by guards at the Yakima County jail. Afterward, the jail and the county coroner tried to cover up Hien's killing," Hua's cousin, Celyna Ly, said Tuesday in a public hearing held by the Human Services Committee, which has scheduled a vote on the bill for next Wednesday.

SB 5005 would create an oversight board in the governor's office to monitor jails, collect data, investigate complaints and promote best practices.

There's already a state office that monitors Washington's prisons, where people convicted of felonies go to serve their sentences. But there's no independent watchdog for its 50 locally managed jails, where people are incarcerated while awaiting trial and serving shorter sentences.

Dozens of people have died in the jails since 2022, when the Washington State Department of Health began tracking information on such deaths. In prior years, Washington's jail mortality rate was among the nation's highest.

In Yakima, Hua was restrained in a position barred by the jail's custody manual. The county said the guards acted appropriately and the coroner labeled the death "natural." A Seattle Times investigation later led the pathologist who conducted Hua's autopsy to relabel it "negligent homicide."

"Senate Bill 5005 would help jails treat people better and ensure independent investigations when things go wrong," Ly added. "My greatest fear is that what happened to my cousin will not be the last unnecessary death."

The governor-appointed oversight board would include a jail administrator, a medical provider, a mental health provider, two formerly incarcerated people, an attorney advocate and a jail worker. Saldaña added the jail worker in response to criticism from opponents last year. She has said the board could address systemic failures like those that contributed to Hua's death.

Unlike most states, Washington has no mandatory, statewide standards for jail operations. The new board would regularly monitor jails for compliance with their own local standards and with legal requirements. It would participate in jail-death reviews, field complaints, investigate problems and recommend improvements, without wielding direct enforcement authority.

Rep. Edwin Obras, D-SeaTac, is sponsoring a companion bill in the House.

On Tuesday, lobbyists with the Washington Association of Counties and Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs questioned whether a statewide board could effectively oversee Washington's existing patchwork of jail standards, especially without more funding for jails to modernize.

"We want the people who are in our jails to be well, and we want to be part of that solution. This, in our view, is not the way to do it," said James McMahan, policy director for the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.

Supporters like Hailey Ockinga described the bill as a necessary initial step because too little is known about what happens inside Washington's jails.

"This bill does not impose mandates on jails besides transparency," and it aims to identify opportunities for improvements, rather than to crack down on jails, said Ockinga, executive director of Beyond These Walls, an advocacy organization for LGBTQ+ incarcerated people in the Pacific Northwest.

On Tuesday, Saldaña said she would confer with cities and counties about their concerns and would work on her bill's potential price tag. It could cost about $4.5 million annually, partly for 13 information technology staffers to handle the board's data and IT responsibilities, according to a fiscal note.

Under the status quo, Washington jails are paying millions of dollars to settle wrongful death lawsuits, SB 5005 supporters pointed out.

David Lara said the Garfield County jail neglected his son's mental health for weeks in 2022 while he was locked alone in a dank basement cell. After Kyle Lara killed himself, county staffers twice served meals to his corpse because they didn't notice he was dead, the father told lawmakers Tuesday.

"Without oversight, frankly, the state is complicit in jail injuries and deaths," said David Lara, whose family subsequently sued Garfield County.

The county closed its jail in 2023 in response to the Lara family's lawsuit and agreed to a $2.5 million settlement last year. Hua's mother has filed a $50 million tort claim against Yakima County. Improvements could save money and lives, said Ethan Frenchman, an attorney at Columbia Legal Services.

"We cannot afford to continue operating our jails without oversight," he said.