OPINION: The complicated ethics of violence-prevention programs

Jan. 19—About a dozen people gathered in the meeting space of a Rainier Valley church, part of an orientation held by Community Passageways, a nonprofit that offers alternatives to detention and tries to prevent youth violence. It was the afternoon of March 17, 2021.

A young man entered Emerald City Bible Fellowship and saw 19-year-old Omari Wallace. He raised a gun, shot Wallace multiple times and escaped.

Police interviewed stunned and shaken witnesses. But despite the incident happening in the middle of the day and the fact that Wallace was apparently targeted by someone he knew, no one offered information to help identify the shooter.

This led to a breakdown between Community Passageways — which receives millions of dollars of public funding — and law enforcement.

Five days after the homicide, the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office initiated a Special Inquiry proceeding, a rare and secretive court process to compel documents and testimony from Community Passageways.

Bad feelings still linger about the incident, with law enforcement wondering how staff from a violence-prevention program could watch a murder committed before their eyes and not help investigators. Community Passageways did not respond to interview requests.

The never-before reported legal fight underscores a fundamental fact: Community groups that receive taxpayer money to engage with gang-involved and other youth to deter future violence do not share information with detectives. Police and prosecutors say it makes sense for so-called violence interrupters to protect their sources and maintain community trust. But sometimes it's a fine line.

With homicides and gun incidents surging, more public money is going into violence prevention programs. Questions emerge: Should government contracts make clear that service providers will not cooperate with police? Does that policy make sense? Should there ever be exceptions?

"I have seen the tension and I know that it exists. I believe the very dedicated violence interrupters and street outreach people hold firm to their need to be neutral and trusted," said Dan Satterberg, former King County prosecuting attorney. "And I don't know that there's a fix. I think that may be an irreconcilable tension."

In Special Inquiry proceedings, there is no published witness list and all information is sealed. Created by the Legislature in 1971, the proceedings compel witnesses to testify with a promise of immunity. Subpoenas cannot be ignored. If no charges are filed, no one aside from those involved can learn the proceedings ever occurred.

In the case of the Emerald City Bible Fellowship homicide, the only evidence that a Special Inquiry was initiated is in two letters: one from Community Passageways attorneys on April 15, 2021, and another from Satterberg in response on April 21. Both were turned over to me via public records requests.

"Maintaining credibility and trust in the community is integral to Community Passageways' mission, so it must keep in confidence the information young people have entrusted to the organization and its staff," wrote the organization's attorneys to the Prosecuting Attorney's Office, objecting to subpoenas for testimony and documents. "Developing a reputation as an investigatory pipeline for law enforcement — despite being inaccurate — would put an end to Community Passageways' life-changing and wide-ranging work in the community."

Satterberg responded that prosecutors only sought a Special Inquiry proceeding when it became clear eyewitnesses would not agree to be interviewed.

"Omari's family, and the community at large, deserve for this matter to be fully investigated and for all available evidence to be presented to the jury so that the person who committed this crime may be held accountable."

Seattle police Chief Adrian Diaz has been a supporter of violence-prevention programs since they were first funded by then-Mayor Greg Nickels in 2009. The year before, five teenagers were shot to death in Seattle, and pressure mounted to do something (I was working as press secretary for Nickels at the time).

Nickels proposed $9 million to launch the Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative, which included a "new approach" to street outreach that included violence interrupters "who are privy to information on the street and may actually prevent violent acts and retaliation before they occur," according to press materials.

The goals: a 50% reduction in juvenile violent crime referrals in three neighborhoods and a 50% reduction in suspensions and expulsions in five select middle schools.

Diaz told me the initiative cooled down after Nickels lost reelection in 2009 but the concept was re-energized after the 2020 gang-related shooting in downtown Seattle that cost the life of a bystander and injured seven others during the evening commute.

Seattle's 2023-24 budget called for investments of $4.3 million last year and another $4.5 million this year for the Seattle Community Safety Initiative contract held by Community Passageways for gun violence-prevention programs.

Protocols are fairly simple. Whenever there is a shooting or shots fired, a short text goes out from the department to a Community Passageways supervisor. As an example, Diaz showed me a series of texts: "Second and Battery, one shot fired, no victim, shell casing located." And the response back: "Confirmed."

"And then they do their work," said Diaz. "Their work is trying to reduce some retaliatory violence. If it's working with families of the victims of violence, that's their work. We're not into that work. Our work is the investigation of the case."

Diaz doesn't expect violence interrupters to talk to police, even if they know who may have witnessed or taken part in a crime. To do so would endanger their lives and render effective intervention impossible, he said. Still, that doesn't always sit well with law enforcement and bereaved families.

"Our detectives are frustrated sometimes. People want to have more information," he said. "I've done this work for a long time and it can be frustrating. You want to do justice for those that are victims of violence, but you also don't want to create additional violence, either."

"I understand the pressure they [violence interrupters] are under, and I'm also under pressure to make sure we solve crime, so if someone shoots and kills somebody, that person is actually accountable to that crime. Those are all the tensions that we constantly have discussions over."

One community safety activist with whom I spoke did not want be identified out of fear of retribution. But they were incredulous that city government could be funding programs that foster a climate where it is OK not to talk to police.

"I have this conversation, I am not kidding you, at least once or twice a week. I just had it last night. It's a huge issue," said the activist. "You have to work with the police. They [violence-prevention programs] have been given millions of dollars and I don't know why they keep getting all this money. They've never been held accountable for it. Nothing has changed. Violence has gone up."

Seattle police reported 60 homicides last year, the most in decades. The department's clearance rate for homicides was 44.5% in 2022 and about 38% as of December last year.

King County funds programs, including Community Passageways, through its Regional Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which has an annual budget of about $6.75 million.

Unlike the accountability measures unveiled by the Nickels administration back in 2009, the current effort has no specific goals to reduce criminal incidents or school discipline.

"We haven't set those metrics yet as an office because we are still standing up the community network and ensuring that there can be fidelity to practice, that everybody is trained to do the job safely, and that young people are being engaged in the traditional services like case management," said Eleuthera Lisch, director of the office.

Lisch emphasized the dangerousness of the work. If violence interrupters are seen as police informants, they can't engage with youth and others, and they put their lives in jeopardy.

"They need to maintain their credibility and they need to maintain their trust. And that is their only badge and that is their only bulletproof vest," she said.

I posed two questions to Lisch: Should the contracts between the county and groups like Community Passageways specifically include language that information will never be shared with police, to prevent the kind of confrontation that occurred after the shooting in Emerald City Bible Fellowship? Could there be any exception to this rule?

To the first question, she answered: "You've given me something really meaningful to think about. I can't answer you yes or no. It deserves thoughtfulness and it deserves the full consideration of unintended consequences."

To the second: "I think this requires thought, it requires consideration. And I appreciate you asked it as a hard-and-fast thing. So I'm answering to the fact that I don't think I can say hard or fast."

In the end, the Special Inquiry process in the Emerald City Bible Fellowship shooting was averted. According to several sources, members of Community Passageways spoke to law enforcement but ultimately did not provide sufficient information to make an arrest.

In a search warrant signed May 3, 2021, Seattle detectives wrote they "have continued to interview multiple witnesses who were present during the incident, and/or who were believed to have knowledge or information regarding the murder of Omari Wallace. To date, none have been able, or willing to confirm the identity of the shooter."

In June 2021, police announced that detectives had identified Isaiah Thomas Hinds as the suspect. Two months later, the 22-year-old was killed by police attempting to serve him a warrant. Police said Hinds fired on officers before he was killed.

As violence increases, politicians are under increasing pressure to act. With police ranks thin and hiring stagnant, the focus shifted to other strategies. This makes sense. But what's needed are clear goals, accountability for progress and a transparent understanding among everyone involved — service providers, police, prosecutors and, yes, the public — to navigate the ethically complex landscape this work entails.

An open conversation is the first step to creating the best and most durable policy.

___

(c)2024 The Seattle Times

Visit The Seattle Times at www.seattletimes.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.