EVERETT — Snohomish County Sheriff-elect Susanna Johnson ran on a platform of accountability and restoring trust she feels was lost in county law enforcement under her predecessor.
Johnson defeated incumbent Adam Fortney last month in a tight race, 51.5% to 48.4%.
Her term begins New Year’s Day, with a swearing in the next day at the PUD Auditorium, at 2320 California St. in Everett.
Johnson, 56, has three decades of law enforcement experience. She has served as Bothell’s deputy police chief since 2021. Before that, she worked for the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office for 30 years, where she served as a patrol deputy, K-9 handler, SWAT squad leader, lieutenant, captain and bureau chief.
Now, she’ll oversee the office’s 800-plus employees, including over 200 sworn deputies working in the community, plus the county jail staff.
This month, Johnson sat down with the The Daily Herald for a wide-ranging interview.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The Daily Herald: How is the transition going? What are some of those moving pieces?
Susanna Johnson: The transition is going well.
Undersheriff Ian Huri is facilitating transitions with the outgoing staff and the incoming staff. I did reach out right away to schedule with the current sheriff and I was told I’d get on his calendar, but it’s been several weeks and I don’t have a date yet.
Herald: Have you talked with (Fortney) at all since the election?
Johnson: My hope was when I reached out that we would sit down right away. But that, like I said, has not happened yet. So no conversations.
Herald: Accountability was something that you ran on, and it has been a big part of of your message. What are some ways that you’re looking to increase that within the department?
Johnson: Sure. It’s obviously a kind of an inside-out thing. So there are some law changes we’ve had, and of course, policies recently were updated as part of their accreditation effort. So it is making sure that the first-level supervisors all the way through the chain of command are making sure that we are following our policies and our values. That’s super important to me.
The emphasis on the onset, I’m already out meeting with the labor unions in talking about those that positional authority and responsibility and my expectations, that we’re following those things. And there’s a few components, but internally, I think there’s a training component on top of “here are the rules” and “follow the rules,” because we have a lot of new first-level supervisors, just like most law enforcement agencies. So it’s making sure that they have the support network.
Sometimes when you grow really fast, and the priorities have been shifting, we forget the basis. And to me, I think we’ve talked about this before comes back to the oath of office, right, and that service mentality.
One of the things we like to emphasize in law enforcement, we joke about it a lot is, we hate the way things are and we hate change.
With regard to law enforcement, there’s, between the laws, case laws, policies, that there’s a lot of what’s black and white and then there’s that gray function. And so for me, yes, we have policies, you’re going to follow policies, but what happens in that gray? How do you make the best decision on the scene tonight? It’s following our values and principles.
Herald: On that accountability piece, I was going to ask about the black boxes (that track deputies’ driving behavior) and if you were planning on bringing that program back.
Johnson: Not at this time. The resources that we have out there now have evolved. So back in the day, you actually had to add these black boxes in order to get real-time data on the patrol cars, but now it’s sitting in their laptops, so we wouldn’t need to add that. The laptops are out there on patrol, and they’re out there connecting with dispatch. Where they’re at, their speed — all those things are already collected. So that’s occurring now without adding costs to the fleet.
Herald: The deputies who were fired under Ty Trenary and then rehired under under Sheriff Fortney: Have you thought about how you will approach that?
Johnson: I have thought about it, because it came up all the time while we were on the campaign trail. So there would be no action against those employees (Matt Boice, Evan Twedt and Art Wallin), because they’ve had their due process. They have collective bargaining agreements, we have a due process time laws, timelines, there is of course labor laws with regard to addressing stuff. There was an administrative investigation, there was discipline that came under Sheriff Trenary.
They appealed that to the incoming sheriff, who reduced the discipline. But they were given discipline, so we cannot revisit that. So of the three, you may be aware, only two still work there. One went to work in another state. So, I can’t touch them. My hope is that they’re going to continue to be successful and I’m going to set them up for success, but there is no removal or administrative process for them.
Herald: Will Fortney still be part of the department? Would you still welcome him to the to the team, so to speak?
Johnson: Very similar situation in that I have no ability to change. He has a labor right to come back to that position as sergeant.
So that’s his spot, I don’t have to offer it to him. It is his, I cannot take it from him, nor would it be appropriate for me to do that because there is a process for that. Every former sheriff that was actually an employee, with civil service standing, has had the same right and could also come back. So my understanding from what Adam Fortney has told other people, is he does plan to stay as a patrol sergeant and of course he’d be welcomed. He has a right to stay. I want him to be successful as well. I look forward to working with him.
Herald: The next thing I was going to kind of ask about is just where you stand on pursuits.
Johnson: My view of pursuits has evolved just like everybody else’s over the years. They are inherently dangerous. They’re dangerous to our community. They’re dangerous to both suspects and innocent bystanders and also our employees. The priorities that Washington state Legislature has kind of landed on, I would not call that perfect, but I think it’s way better than it was a couple of years ago, I too believe that in order for us to be pursuing somebody, it should be relative to a crime of violence and not a property crime.
I know that a lot of people want us to be able to chase after stolen vehicles. That’s one of those areas that I disagree. I don’t think it’s worth the risk to your family or anybody else’s family, for us to be going after somebody because a car is stolen. So one of the areas I would like to see the state Legislature give us a little more room is additional felony assaults.
So for example, I believe that if somebody has assaulted a police officer, jumps in the car and goes, that statistics do show if somebody’s willing to overtly go assault somebody that’s wearing a uniform that represents our community, and is there to protect the community, so to speak — their level of inhibition to go assault somebody else who isn’t law enforcement is even greater. So I think that is problematic.
As far as chasing for property crimes, I don’t think it’s worth it. Thirty years ago, we would chase for infractions. And I get it. It’s fun when you don’t understand the ramifications of the other side of that. But public safety is just that. It’s a constant balance test between how much force do we use and what is the crime afoot.
Herald: The jail: I’m curious what you see as the path forward there.
Johnson: We have a tremendous responsibility with our corrections clients. People that are in the jail and the complexity of their needs has increased over time. We saw that back in Ty’s administration, when we first saw the heroin epidemic and we had people dying, we tried a variety of things, and there’s been great growth. Medically assisted taper, we ended up having medical units. So we definitely needed to do some adjustments.
I can only speculate as I haven’t been privy to, yet, the investigations of the deaths from the last couple of months as to reasons for them. So everything else I’m going to share with you is just what I’ve heard from people, but haven’t read any investigations. I worry about the staffing component. Staffing has been very difficult in corrections. We are able to offer more money to help with that overtime and get people that are willing to cover those shifts as we try to hire. But that means we have corrections deputies working 16-hour shifts.
So as they’re tired, we might have miscues. I mean, they’re human. Medical staffing. I know that we augment our existing medical employees with agency staffing. So when we bring people in, I don’t know what those ratios are. I’ve heard that that could have had an impact. But I don’t know. I want to be careful because I don’t want to be reckless and say, “These are root causes.” These are areas I would look at. Obviously staffing the rest of our employees there. Making sure we have enough mental health medical folks.
We do recognize that higher than 90% of people coming in, that are getting booked, are under the influence or testing for fentanyl. That is very concerning in how much that can be controlled.
Herald: You know, I’m sure you’ve been following closely, the recent Everett police emphasis on public drug use. Someone gets arrested for public drug use or something similar, they’re in for a day or two, and then they’re out. I guess I’m curious what your take is on that particular issue.
Johnson: I have actually talked to a lot of our corrections deputies who have brought that to our attention, because that is their concern. The in-and-out of the door, and then people start to withdraw and then they’re out again. They watch them come back in, maybe a few days later, and they appear to be getting sicker and sicker. And you know, what is our plan for those individuals?
I will be very interested to sit down with the different city mayors and chiefs to see what is the long-term plan. Now that we’ve been doing this for a little while, what was our anticipated outcome? And where are we at now? Because it’s not a solution. Where do we want to go? You know, we have Ricky’s Law and I don’t know we’ve done much with that. I know (Snohomish County Prosecutor) Jason Cummings is considering, are there some other conduits that we can help these populations, where it’s a treatment component versus the rotating door. I do need to sit down at the table with the different stakeholders and see where they’re looking to go.
We are just the recipient of this process. And it’s not a solution, that’s clear. We can’t close the jail, because they’re out committing crimes and we need to be able to keep the community safe, but with regard to that population, that are stuck in that cycle. They’re not getting healthier, they are getting sicker. And it is very complex, for sure.
And it’s not where we need to land, we have to move on this. Because even the corrections deputies are saying to what end? These folks keep coming in. And in some cases, they’re so sick we’re afraid, you know, luckily, they’re with us, we can get them to the hospital, we can catch it. But putting them out the door isn’t going to help the next morning either.
Herald: (The state Supreme Court ruling in State v.) Blake has been talked about ad nauseam, and then the “fix” over the summer. From your perspective, how has that flip-flopping impacted your job?
Johnson: I worked narcotics for 8½ years. So I did the undercover and worked out of the drug task force, where we manage and focus on upper- and mid-level traffickers. But when a street-level arrest would be made in the past and you’re looking at a felony, it was fairly easy to try to get the users to provide us information to help us get to the dealers. I think that not being able to make arrests on people who were using drugs for a couple of years, because of the Blake decision, kind of diminished our opportunity twofold to — for lack of a better term — press people into treatment or alternatives. Or in some cases, it was a jail. Something to interrupt use.
So on the substance use level, and for traffickers and those that are making it, I mean, it is so runaway. I’m impressed in that I know dealers could still be arrested and that investigations were still going on. And the drug task force does a great job. But there were a lot of opportunities that we also missed to go after those dealers and the people that are, you know, driving that price down and making it so accessible.
At the same time, of course, we’ve never seen a drug quite like this. Using it once can kill you. It’s horrifying to me that we’re so far behind the ball. And that is because it was a case law decision I think we sort of saw coming. It had already occurred in 48 other states, and we knew at some point that was going to come to Washington, so I don’t know that it was a complete blindside to those who had looked at the law over the years. I understand what our legislators were trying to do, trying to press for treatment and fix the problem. Obviously, it did not work, because it’s an addiction, some people aren’t going to self-refer.
Where we’re at now is, you know we can work with that. We didn’t have anything for a couple years. I think it’s important for me to understand my place in this, in the balance of government. I’m in the executive branch, I might have ideas on laws, but that’s between the people and the legislators to decide those laws. And my responsibility is to work within those laws.
Herald: First day, first week, first 100 days — do you have any big changes that you really want to change?
Johnson: I do have a 100-day plan. A lot of those pieces, I don’t want to scare employees and have them read, “Oh my God, all this stuff’s coming day one.” Don’t want to freak them out and have them read that in the newspaper. A lot of it has to do with responsibilities. Me and my immediate staff, by that I mean in the leadership roles.
In big pieces, our communication with the entire agency, this would surprise you, but some employees at the sheriff’s office had to get social media in order to know what was going on at the sheriff’s office. So I’ve got a deliberate responsibility internally to communicate with all employees. And I’d really like to emphasize all employees, because sometimes there is this emphasis on the gun and the badge, when we have a lot of employees that keep the machine running.
Communication is an important piece. And so that is not only the director of communication, but I’ve already started meeting with mayors, certainly stakeholders, school district superintendents, there’s a litany of community leaders. So internally, externally, that communication is really important. Also employees need to see me at roll calls and unit briefings, that sort of thing. So we have an opportunity for them to communicate with me.
Community Oriented Policing is a philosophy that we’re going to start from day one, and that is tried and tested. It is actually effective in a lot of law enforcement agencies post-George Floyd, because it’s a reset. The more community contacts we can make that are non-custodial, the better it is to start building that trust back. It improves the quality and the morale for the employees to be helping people. Instead of being focused on the arrest, it’s focusing on help and service and maybe that’s a few extra minutes to get them a resource, give them a ride.
Herald: Do you have a timeline at this point for reaccreditation (through the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, which last accredited the sheriff’s office in 2017)?
Johnson: It’s looking more promising than the last several looks, is my understanding. Of course, I’m not on the floor and not working there, I just talked to people who are there. So they’re optimistic that a final review is going to be good. It’s two phases. So some of its remotely where you have to put electronic files, proofs of the professional standards.
So that’s what the look is. If that’s successful, my understanding is early January, they’d have a site assessment, that’s the second phase they would have. They would have to pass both, but it’s looking promising. So early January, we might get a site assessment. And if that’s successful, then they could reaccredit. So there’s a panel and there’s a formal process where we would have to go before them.
We just went through it at Bothell. It is is a lot for sure. It’s really important. It ended up becoming a political issue, because when people found out they weren’t accredited, this is what people want to talk about in community meetings.
So that’s come up an awful lot. And understandably so. You want to make sure we’re following the laws and stuff. So I know it’s been a lot of work. And I know it became a priority because of the campaign — whatever made it a priority is a good thing. Because if we get there, it’s really a compliment to the people who are working there on it. They’re working very hard.
Jordan Hansen: 425-339-3046; jordan.hansen@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @jordyhansen.
Caleb Hutton: 425-339-3454; chutton@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @snocaleb.
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