Sheriff discusses jail, legislation, crime at town hall

Grant County Sheriff Tom Jones had a town hall – the first in more than two years – at the Larson community sheriff’s substation in Moses Lake Tuesday evening.

During a short presentation to attendees at 1274 Lowry Drive, Jones and his staff spoke about law enforcement restrictions, drive-by shootings, graffiti and the county jail’s space restrictions, especially during the pandemic.

“With everything going on with the booking restrictions, what we have is a very high population of the most violent of the violent of the violent. Not only do we deal with the most violent people in Grant County or surrounding counties, we’re also dealing with the mental health aspect and the drug addiction aspect,” said GCSO Corrections Chief Phillip Coats.

Coats said the current jail, which has not had square footage added since its construction, was originally designed with 80 beds. Prior to the pandemic, minor modifications to the building increased the capacity to 188; however, since COVID-19 restrictions came into play, the population capacity was reduced and now the county can only hold about 135 inmates. The capacity restrictions have led to the department not arresting those they ordinarily would, Coats said. Those offenses include driving under the influence, nonviolent outstanding warrants and other low-risk situations, he said.

“So a lot of those, they’re getting cited and released. They’re given a citation, given a court date and they’re released on the road. So we’re not even booking those right now. We’re just doing Class B felonies and any mandatory domestic violence (arrests),” Coats said.

Jones said he and other county officials are working on a plan to get a new jail facility with a larger capacity. The new jail will more than double the current facility’s capacity with two pods that offer 256 beds each for a total capacity of 512 inmates. Funding for the jail will be provided at least in part by a 0.3% law and order sales tax that was approved by voters in 2019. Proceeds from that tax are set aside for the new jail, Jones said.

“That money sits there because when we go to build this new jail, that’s going to have to be bonded out and without money to be able to pay down on that, the bond is going to be huge,” Jones said.

According to a Tuesday update on the county’s website, the new jail will be located at the old Sun Basin Raceway location at 751 Road 9 NW in Ephrata. GCSO spokesperson Kyle Foreman said no completion date is yet set for the jail’s construction because it is too early in the planning process.

Jones said now that a site has been identified, architects can begin designing the new facility with that location in mind.

Jones said graffiti and drive-by shootings, both of which are often gang-related and can be associated with one another, are difficult to prevent, but he and his deputies are doing what they can. He said it is helpful when anyone who witnesses graffiti going up records it. Information in the graffiti, such as a tagger’s name or their gang affiliation can help investigators, he said. If targets and situations can be identified before they get violent, the prevention can help keep residents safe.

Many of the challenges faced by law enforcement are laws from the prior legislative session, which prevent officers from pursuing suspects in vehicles or detaining suspects prior to a crime. Jones said he is hopeful of new laws being considered in Olympia this legislative session, such as Senate Bill 5919, which addresses reasonable use of force and other issues.

“When these bills were passed in July of 2021, Washington state became, I believe, the most restrictive law enforcement state in the country,” Jones said. “(Legislators) really did it when they introduced … a plethora of legislation. And anything that they put in there stuck.”