A couple of Fridays ago while listening to a police scanner, I heard Lewis County Undersheriff Wes Rethwill pull someone over on the freeway around milepost 94 on Interstate 5, north of Lewis County.
Undersheriff Rethwill is assigned an unmarked “take home” vehicle (currently a dark gray Ford Interceptor) and lives in the Thurston County area. So, presumably, based on the time I heard the call, he was pulling someone over on his way to work in the morning.
Controversial County Ordinance 1257, passed in 2015, specifically outlines the situations when an unmarked county vehicle (that is not a designated traffic unit) is allowed to pull over a vehicle in an unmarked car: If a crime or traffic infraction occurs in front of the deputy and the unit is the “closest or best available sheriff’s vehicle to respond.”
The out-of-county stop got me wondering: How would the public be able to ascertain that LCSO is adhering to Ordinance 1257 as it was represented and intended when it was controversially passed in 2015, and in accordance with state law RCW 46.08.065?
There were many citizens who attended those 2015 BOCC meetings in opposition of Ordinance 1257 — tabled twice before it was passed — citing fears of increased and unchecked use of unmarked vehicles for traffic stops, safety issues and confusion during traffic stops, and citing ambiguities in how the ordinance was written.
Undersheriff Rethwill himself responded to some of these concerns, while presenting in favor of the proposed unmarked vehicle ordinance changes, stating at the time: “I know there’s concerns out there about how much marking should be on the (unmarked county law enforcement) vehicles. We are not utilizing these type of vehicles (unmarked) on a daily basis to go out and make traffic stops … We will utilize these vehicles sparingly.”
Civil Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Glenn Carter specifically updated proposed Ordinance 1257, during the drafting process prior to the ordinance’s passing in April 2015, so that it would “… make it clear we’re not asking for routine traffic control by unmarked cars.”
After I filed a public records request, LCSO Special Services Chief Dusty Breen pulled some numbers for me: Undersheriff Rethwill, assigned an unmarked vehicle, disproportionately conducts more traffic stops than any other LCSO admin unit — 366 stops total since January 2015. Approaching nearly double the number of traffic stops Sheriff Rob Snaza — currently assigned a marked vehicle — has conducted.
I met with Undersheriff Rethwill on this topic this past week. He told me that he isn’t a designated traffic unit, but he is widely considered the “traffic guy” informally throughout the agency.
Rethwill retired as a lieutenant with the Washington State Patrol prior to becoming undersheriff for LCSO, so I’d guess that he happens to be really good at traffic stops, given his career background. But the data seems contradictory to his comments in 2015 and the stated intention of the ordinance.
At the April 6, 2015, BOCC meeting where Ordinance 1257 was passed, Commissioner Edna Fund stated to those in the audience: “I’d like to say that at every sheriff’s update, I ask, ‘How many stops were made with an unmarked vehicle,’ don’t I, Wes (Rethwill)? And, a month ago was zero, this month was one and it was you (Rethwill). So, we do have that on the top of our agenda when we have the updates — what is the status? How many people have been pulled over?”
There is not a month on record since January 2015 where Undersheriff Rethwill himself didn’t stop a vehicle or had only one traffic stop — he averages consistently higher. So, where did that “one” or “zero” number — used to reassure nervous citizens by Fund, on record at a BOCC meeting, regarding traffic stops by unmarked vehicles — come from?
As of a couple of weeks ago, Chief Breen informed me that LCSO does not specifically track unmarked traffic stops versus marked stops and was not aware of an official report that existed.
Public records requests indicate that LCSO staff update the BOCC on the total number of traffic stops, but the number of unmarked vehicle traffic stops are not indicated. Rethwill indicated in my conversations with him this week that staff sometimes gives a verbal estimate — but are the commissioners really getting an accurate picture of unmarked versus marked traffic stops?
Undersheriff Rethwill did not appear to correct Fund on her assertion during that April 6 meeting.
According to the results of my records request, for the first four complete months of 2017, Rethwill is averaging about 20 stops per month. If there are five working days in a week, times four weeks in a month — that’s 20 working days per month. That averages out to a “daily basis.” And, it’s an overall increase since the ordinance passed in 2015.
Several times during my conversation with Rethwill, he mentioned that “visibility” was an important priority to the agency. At least twice, I reminded him that his statements on visibility were in contradiction to the agency’s adoption of a less-than-traditionally-visible vehicle graphics scheme.
It’s worth noting that RCW 46.08.065 states that public agency insignia (on publicly owned vehicles) “shall be in a color or colors contrasting with the vehicle to which applied for maximum visibility” — the only exemption is for “special” or “confidential” investigative purposes.
Despite the recent minor improvement to the current vehicle graphics (black on dark gray) that I detailed in a previous column, I’m still not convinced LCSO’s “marked” units meet that standard and spirit of what is considered “contrasting” colors or “maximum visibility,” but I am not a legal expert.
It’s also possible that county Ordinance 1257 inadvertently opened the door for LCSO to adopt less visible vehicle graphics, beyond what state law actually allows, due to the broad nature of the language, which says unmarked vehicles can be used for “general” investigation.
But again, I’m not a legal expert.
To be clear, most of the citizens who were concerned didn’t have a problem unmarked vehicles for special investigations and undercover work — it’s solely traffic stops by unmarked vehicles that got people riled up.
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Brittany Voie is The Chronicle’s senior media developer. She welcomes correspondence from the community by email at bvoie@chronline.com.
