Other than maintaining the highways and collecting our trash, the main expectations of our county government are for police protection, law enforcement and justice. A huge percentage of our tax dollars fund the sheriff’s office, the county prosecutor and the courts to provide those services.
As a society, justice places a standard of good on all people and demands all people abide by this standard. We naturally feel a need to provide justice, alleviation of grief, closure and healing to our fellows who have been affected by criminal acts against themselves and their family and friends. The crime of homicide affects the entire community, and we all need justice for those same reasons.
When justice is denied, victims, their loved ones and friends will continue to feel the effects of victimization, including frustration, anger and even a need for revenge. It’s very difficult to move on with your life knowing the perpetrator has escaped justice and is still enjoying freedom in society.
We expect our law enforcement agencies and justice system will competently and diligently investigate all crimes, identify perpetrators and bring them before our courts with the right to defend themselves and be judged by their peers. If found guilty, we expect they will face consequences with appropriate periods of incarceration and other remedies determined by the court. We also expect everyone will be treated equally and law enforcement will not show favoritism to some and discrimination against others.
All are equal before the law.
In the book “Where Murderers Walk Free,” retired Lewis County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) detective Jerry Berry cites several cases where incompetence, mishandling, laziness, a dysfunctional authoritarian management culture and other factors resulted in deaths not recognized as homicides and likely perpetrators of homicides not being brought to justice. The most famous among these was the Ronda Reynolds case, which Berry was involved with but doesn’t refer to by name. These all occurred three sheriff administrations ago, but recent cases seem to suggest the same conditions and culture continuing within the LCSO leading to the same failures.
In August 2022, an Oregon man, Aron Christensen, and his dog were found dead along a popular trail in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest near Packwood. Based on the facts that have come forth, only through persistence of Christensen’s family and friends, it seems the LCSO mishandled this case from day one. They later admonished the family not to discuss it with the media. A detective put forth far fetched theories of cause of death to the family even though they knew Christensen had been shot. They described the shooter and his girlfriend as “nice kids” and seemed to show favoritism toward them and the shooter’s version of events, which minimized his culpability. The Christensen family has recently sent a document to several agencies and media alleging connections between the LCSO and the suspect’s family influenced them in his favor. Everything seems like the LCSO just wanted this case to go away and hoped it would. It also seems that the allegations of case mishandling in Berry’s book are still affecting cases two sheriff administrations later.
The Christensen homicide and other cases, which the media has long forgotten but friends, family members and the public grouse about on social media, seem to indicate there are systemic problems within the LCSO’s major crimes bureau.
The sheriff also has self-acknowledged problems with patrol and has stated that he is struggling to provide services to East Lewis County. The sheriff withdrew from participation in the joint drug task force, the Joint Narcotics Enforcement Team. The reserve deputy program was disbanded. Why? Is this solely because of a lack of human resources?
From time to time, problems in the jail make it into the media. A while back, there was an inmate hunger strike with complaints that they were being given half frozen meals. Recently, there was an inmate death that has since been ruled as natural. Last week’s news was of a former employee embezzling inmate funds.
Media people complain that the LCSO is the least communicative of the local police agencies. They don’t provide a regular daily blotter, the news items posted on their web page are sporadic, and many times the media has to inquire about major cases such as the Christensen homicide. In a time when the public expects open government, the department rates low for public transparency.
The LCSO is an agency that has demonstrated a need for citizen oversight. They need help objectively identifying problems and their causes and implementing action plans to address those issues. Major program decisions and policy should be debated and decided with the help of a commission. The office should make new strides for transparency, openness and communication with the public.
Lewis County has several citizen committees and commissions. The most important of these would most likely be deemed the Lewis County Planning Commission, whose stated purpose is “to assist the Community Development Department in carrying out its duties, including assistance in the preparation and execution of the comprehensive plan and adoption of development regulations for Lewis County Washington. The Planning Commission holds workshops and public hearings and makes recommendations to the Board of County Commissioners, whom ultimately vote to approve amendments to the County’s comprehensive plan and development regulations.”
The backing of a citizen sheriff commission would also give weight to budget requests for needed people and programs. As an example, the sheriff was denied a request for additional personnel to man a unit of the jail which he said would lead to accreditation of the jail. Because the jail is subsidized by revenue for housing inmates from other jurisdictions, this may have been a good move. The weight of a citizen commission in agreement with such proposals and their backing of such budget requests would be important to their approval. If there is indeed a need for additional personnel to cover areas of the county, and all other factors have been considered, the commission would most likely back those budget requests.
It is time for the Lewis County Board of Commissioners to establish a citizen’s commission with a mission of understanding the problems, challenges and needs within the LCSO and assisting the sheriff in addressing issues, policies, programs and needs. This commission would also represent Lewis County citizen expectations of their sheriff’s office. The formation of a sheriff commission, and the details of how such a commission would operate, its mission, composition, duties and responsibilities, should be a high priority of the Lewis County Board of Commissioners.
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Bill Serrahn has lived in his Packwood “afterlife” for 15 years. He is a Vietnam veteran and former hard rock underground miner. He spent his first afterlife in Seattle as a systems analyst and business application developer. His interest and familiarization with Lewis County government developed during his quest to save Skate Creek Park in Packwood. He can be reached at wjserrahn@hotmail.com.
