Changes to gang violence laws don't come easy

MOSES LAKE - Thirteenth District lawmakers were overwhelmed with phone calls last week from residents wondering what the Legislature is doing to combat gang violence.

Reps. Matt Manweller and Judy Warnick said they were surprised by the amount of calls following the sheriff's office town hall at the Larson Housing area last week. During the meeting, county Prosecutor Angus Lee discussed bills he proposed to the two lawmakers, which they in turn sponsored at his request.

"I'm sad to say and disappointed to say the Legislature didn't even vote on the bills," Lee said.

Included in the bills, which never received a hearing in either the Public Safety or Judiciary committees, was legislation that would increase penalties for gang members who commit crimes with firearms, would add drive-by shootings to the list of most serious offenses, would add unlawful possession in the first-degree to most serious offenses, and would modify provisions to standard sentences for offenders being sentenced for a criminal street gang-related offense.

"Every murder I've prosecuted in Grant County, the felon was the one who had the gun and committed the murder," Lee said.

Warnick, R-Moses Lake, said the bills had very little support.

"It's very tough to get a bill through that has anything to do with gun ownership and gun possession," she said. "When we in our communities, even the size of Moses Lake and some of our other smaller Grant County communities, have had the problem that we've had with gangs, I think it is time to at least single out those folks. I am a strong advocate for our Second Amendment rights but when guns get in the hands of the wrong folks, they should not have the same rights."

Both Warnick and Manweller, R-Ellensburg, said they consider the bills as gang-violence legislation rather than gun control but said the problem is gang activity in areas of eastern Washington don't make the news on the west side of the state, where many committee chairs reside. Warnick encouraged residents in Grant County to contact lawmakers on the other side of the state.

"The other thing people can do, and I know it's a frustration of law enforcement, is to be involved in their communities," she said.

Although these bills haven't gained traction with lawmakers, there are others that have received support.

Rep. Roger Goodman, chair of the Public Safety Committee and member of the Judiciary Committee, said there is a bill moving through the Senate that would stop the escalation of juveniles with firearms.

"We're going to be intervening a lot earlier and putting them into evidence-based programs to address the underlying needs," Goodman said, D-Kirkland. "Juveniles with firearms have been sort of given a slap on the hand and then they get arrested again and again with unlawful possession in the second-degree and eventually they end up committing real crimes with those firearms."

Lee said it usually takes four convictions of unlawful possession of a firearm of juveniles before they are incarcerated in the juvenile detention center.

Goodman said with the tight budget pressure in the Legislature, any measure that would increase the prison population is strongly resisted by budget writers, adding several bills die in the Budget Committee because of limited resources. He did say there is a provision in the budget to fund "street soldiers," peer groups specially trained to intervene in gangs and get them into prevention programs.

"Gangs are not just young people running around dealing drugs and shooting each other," he said. "It's a very complex dynamic of our unenforced immigration laws, social dislocation in our communities, the lack of employment opportunities and other pro-social activities. It's not a simple problem and we are going to continue to try to address this."

Warnick and Manweller said they plan to reintroduce their bills at the next legislative session. The current session ends March 13.

"I'm going to keep working with my colleagues to come up with something that gives some more tools to our law enforcement and prosecutors to get criminals off the street," she said.