Shining a light on “Red Light Status” at Spokane County Jail

Posted 28 October 2023

KHQ reporter Steffi Roche posted an important story yesterday with the headline:

“Spokane County Jail under 'red-light' status preventing officers from being on the streets.”

Steffi reports,

“The Spokane County Jail has been under a "red-light" status 49 times between July 1 and Oct. 26, meaning that the jail cannot accept any new offenders.”

While opponents to Spokane County Measure One have insinuated that corrections worker Union Officials are aligned with Lisa Brown in wanting to wait to make necessary upgrades to the Spokane County jail, there is no evidence that the Union Officials asked for a vote of their Members.

The KHQ story linked above features an actual Spokane County Corrections Worker expressing concerns over at least one key aspect of our current corrections capacity and citizen safety,

"When we're not accepting new prisoners, crimes are still happening and officers are bringing them in. They are lining up around the jail, four, five, six cars. And they will wait for hours," Lt. Aaron Anderton with Spokane County Detention Services, said.

The story continues with additional detail,

On Wednesday evening, SPD made two arrests following a string of car thefts from a dealership in North Spokane.

Because the jail was in a red-light status, the suspects could not be booked.

SPD had an officer wait with them until they were safely behind bars.

"It used to be relatively rare. But it happens several times a week, every week, now. I would probably estimate three to five times a week that we go on red-light status for some period of time," Anderton said.

Opponents to Measure One, that specifically addresses the dangerous and increasingly ubiquitous red-light status, believe that we don’t need a jail. “Justice NOT JAILS” campaign manager, Angelique Tomeo Sam is featured in the mailer to voters below.

What is difficult to reconcile is that Tomeo Sam, rightfully so, is outspoken about the ongoing atrocities, especially against Native women, committed throughout our nation and in Indian Country. It would seem that Tomeo Sam, as she expresses in her post below, would be in support of increased capacity to bring violent criminals to justice and remove them as threats to all people.