Spokane, Wash. — Records of the Sheriff’s Citizen’s Advisory Board (CAB) released last week confirmed that the board is wholly dependent on the Sheriff, and is unable to provide objective oversight.

The 217-page document [PDF, 30 Mb] provided by the Spokane County’s Sheriff’s Office in response to Rob Lee‘s public records request consists of the meeting minutes, copies of PowerPoint presentations, incident reports, email exchanges between the board members, and candidate applications. By far the most interesting document is the group’s charter, found on page 4 of the PDF. According to this document, and despite Sheriff Knezovich’s public statements to the contrary, he has absolute control over who gets to be on the board, and the CAB’s own charter forbids it from providing oversight — unless the Sheriff directs them to:

Minutes of the group’s meetings leave no doubt as to the identity of the man who sets the tone and calls the shots:

“Sheriff will get the speaker some talking points for the meeting [with County Commissioners, in support of a tax]” (page 50)

“Ozzie and Jeff plan to get together and determine a focus for this group” (page 63)

“Sheriff distributed the officer involved shooting incident we will be reviewing: (page 74)
• The sheriff gave the group a quick overview of the incident
• We can take as long as we need to review (summer if needed)
• Prosecutor has concluded this was a justified shooting”

Please sign the online petition, and contact Commissioner Shelly O’Quinn to ask her to support the creation of a truly independent oversight commission.