Annie Kuo: Hello and welcome to Discovery, a University of Washington podcast where we interview the law school’s distinguished guests and experts from around the world. I'm your host Annie Kuo. So far on this season of Discovery, we've spoken with guests advancing work around our state: the Seattle Mariners General Counsel, Washington's Attorney General Bob Ferguson and today we're talking with Roger Rogoff, the first director of the Office of Independent Investigations, the first of its kind in the country.
The Office of Independent Investigations, hereafter referred to as OII, was established by the legislature and signed into law by Governor Inslee in May 2021. It is a state agency created as a result of the demand to produce competent, unbiased and thorough civilian-led investigations of police use of deadly force, often affecting people of color that will be independent of the involve law enforcement agency. The legislature intended that the office be grounded in antiracism. After graduating from the UW School of Law, Rogoff spent his 27-year career in the criminal justice system as a prosecutor, both state and federal, defense attorney and a judge on the King County Superior Court.
Welcome to the podcast, Roger.
Roger Rogoff: Thank you very much. It's good to be here.
AK: And thanks for visiting UW Law recently as the first speaker in our Innovative Justice Speaker Series.
RR: It was great. I had a great time speaking with the students, and they had a lot of amazing questions.
AK: So, you shared with the students that OII is an agency under construction. Let's start by talking about what inspired you to seek this position. You mentioned that you had spent a couple years at Microsoft recently working on data policy and security. And then came on board after your appointment by Governor Inslee earlier this summer 2022, by recommendation of the OII Advisory Board. Can you tell us more about that board? And also, you know, what clicked for you in taking on this role?
RR: Sure, anyone who's worked in the criminal justice system for any period of time, or been involved in it in any way, understands that while there are parts of it that work on occasion, there are also many parts that need to be fixed and changed. And some would say, tore down and built back up. And I left the bench with the intention after 27 years of being in a courtroom of being done. But I loved my job at Microsoft. But when given this opportunity, or being told of this opportunity, to work and start an agency that was the first of its kind in the country, and that was designed to address one particular part of the criminal justice system—one discrete issue within the criminal justice system that clearly from the incidents that happened nationwide, as well as some incidents locally here in Washington—needed some work, needed some reform, needed somebody to lead it into the future and I just thought that my skillset, my experience, gave me an opportunity to really make a change in a system that I had spent my entire career working in. And so I was very excited to have the opportunity, very excited at the idea of building a team and building an office from scratch, and really grounding it in the culture that we want it to.
AK: Thank you. Let's address the context around the creation of this agency. I understood there was a botched investigation around the death of Manny Ellis, which then was sent on to the Office of the Attorney General. And then in 2020, George Floyd was murdered, leading to this outpouring of grief, heartache and anger. And then a taskforce was created, right? Is that the task force that then led to the creation of the OII advisory board?
RR: Sure, yeah, Governor Inslee created the task force, which was a diverse group of folks from across the state who had interest in these issues. And he was very clear that the creation of the taskforce was in response to George Floyd and the many, many other cases that occurred across the country in the 2014 to 2021 time period. The task force worked very hard to drill down on what they wanted this agency to look like, what was important to them in an agency like this, and essentially came to the conclusion that independence and mindfulness of bias and ways to eliminate bias from these investigations were really the two pillars that they wanted to build this agency on. And based on their work, the statute was written and was eventually passed by the legislature.
AK: The 11-member advisory board includes members of families directly impacted by the police use of deadly force, law enforcement, community members, a representative of a federally recognized Washington tribe, a mental health professional, a prosecutor, a defense attorney and a member of the Criminal Justice Training Commission. So, it's a very collaborative group of folks that, you know, made the recommendation for your appointment. And I understand that kind of transparency and collaboration is kind of a foundation for the OII.
RR: It is. And I just want to be clear that the task force led to the legislation, and then the legislation directed the governor to appoint the advisory board, whose first job it was to hire a director. And so the advisory board is post-legislation, and they are terrific group of people, incredibly collaborative. They have gotten a lot of really hard work done up to the point where they appointed me. And, you know, when you get a group of people with diverse interests and different perspectives it can often be very difficult to find consensus and find ways to get things done. And that has not been my experience with this group. They are reasonable, thoughtful folks who want to get to answers so that they can move this agency along. They feel that it's really important for this agency to be doing its work and to be out there investigating these cases.
AK: I understand too that the statute that created OII authorized the office to begin conducting investigations in July. But that wasn't possible yet because of this need to hire and train—about 13 staff had been hired—but the statute allows for up to 80. But it benefits everybody impacted by the cases to have qualified and well-trained investigators.
So how is that going? How is all of this outreach and seeding and training going? I understand that y'all recently, just weeks ago, toured a prospective office in Spokane.
RR: We are moving incredibly fast. I started at the agency on June 16, 2022. Since that time, so about four months, we've hired 13 staff, which if you compare it to about how long it takes to hire someone in state government, which is an average of about 100 days, we are we are moving really fast. And my biggest concern at this point is making sure that while we're moving past and while we're trying to get stood up to do this work that the community has asked us to do that we make sure that we slow down enough to do it right and hire the right people and set the right culture and put the policies and procedures in place, that we need to and make sure folks are trained in the right way. And so we are moving fast, but a July 1 start date of 2022 was just simply not a realistic date, given that I started 14 days before that with no staff.
In answer to your question, the hiring is going well. Hiring investigators is a process which involves your typical hiring process that you think about with writing a job position, posting that job position, getting applicants, getting folks reviewed then interviewed. But it also includes additional work, because these folks will be doing investigative work out on the street and because that work will be tested in the courtroom down the line possibly. They also need to go through background checks, fingerprint checks, psyche evals, polygraph examinations. And so all of that background work takes time, and it will slow down our start date a little bit.
AK: It still sounds very thoughtful and efficient so far. I understand that, you know, your visit to UW was also with some interest that folks who are getting this legal training, you know, if they don't go into practice might consider coming to work for the OII. Could you tell us why? Why would people want to work for the FBI?
RR: Well, I know that a number of law students every year get through law school and decide, you know, now that I understand what being a lawyer is all about the last thing in the world that I want to do is be a lawyer. And that’s a completely legitimate idea once you're done with law school, and a number of those people every year end up applying to the FBI or other federal law enforcement agencies. Some go and become police officers in local law enforcement agencies. And so this just provides a different opportunity for people who don't want to practice law, but are incredibly interested and passionate about this particular issue of investigating police uses of deadly force across the state and really gives people an opportunity to do great work while not necessarily doing legal work.
AK: Great. Can you tell us about how the investigations are different than those conducted by law enforcement?
RR: Sure. I think that independence is the watchword to the way that we're going to do this do this work. We, first of all, are not connected to any law enforcement agency. So, police will not be investigating themselves, which I think by itself just creates a different culture, and a different perspective in how we are going to begin doing these investigations.
In a lot of ways the investigations will look the same. We will still be going out to crime scenes, or to scenes, incident scenes, we will still be picking up evidence, collecting it, bagging it, interviewing witnesses, grabbing surveillance video, grabbing body-worn cameras, doing all the things that you would see a typical law enforcement agency doing. We also in our agency will have positions for what we call family liaisons. One of the complaints and concerns for communities that have been—communities and community members—who have been impacted by these cases is that there's just a lack of information that the families of these folks who were hurt or killed by police get during the course of these investigations. So, the legislators were thoughtful and set up a position within our organization called Family Liaison. So, we'll be able to assign somebody whose sole job it will be to work with the family, make sure they're connected to resources in the community, make sure that they know what is happening with the investigation to the extent that we can share information. And those people will be with those families for as long as the families want them. If the case ends up being prosecuted, they will stay with them through that process. If it's not, they will stay with them as long as they want and need that service. So, you know, we're hoping that the agency provides just a different perspective from day one, in conducting these investigations.
AK: That's great that there will be family liaisons. I understand that in the past, you know, the incident happens, there's investigations happening, and then the verdict. And everyone's like what happens in between? So, it's great that there's going to be folks that are there to fill in the gaps for communication. And I understand there's also community liaisons roles within your agency, can you tell us a little bit more?
RR: Sure, we'll have both tribal liaisons and community liaisons who will reach out to those respective groups. If it's a case that involves indigenous people in any respect, or cases that happen on tribal lands, then we will have somebody with a background in tribal issues, which are legally really complicated, and also emotionally and socially, really complicated. For anyone who's done criminal work in those places in the past, they know that. And so having a tribal liaison who can do that work and can make sure that we are doing it the right way, when we are dealing with indigenous tribes, is going to be incredibly helpful. And then we also will have community representatives, community liaisons, who will help us to keep community groups who are interested in these cases and are impacted, informed of what is going on.
AK: That's awesome. I was just looking at your visit to Spokane and how that included meetings with residents representing multiple local groups focusing on police reform and and others such as the Pacific Islander Community Association of Washington.
RR: I can take this opportunity to just say that our priorities at this point while we're standing up this office are hiring, training, policies and procedures and then outreach. And certainly, part of the concern of the community and law enforcement is, hey, we don't know what you all are going to do. We don't know what you're going to look like. How do we know you're going to be doing credible investigations? Investigations that can be trusted both by the community as well as by law enforcement. And so we have spent a significant amount of time getting out in front and in person with as many community groups who will have us.
We've talked to Seattle Community Police Commission, the NAACP. We’ve spoken to the Washington Coalition for police accountability, the Spokane Community Against Racism, and a number of other groups and law firms, such as the ones that you've talked about as well, to just explain who we are and what we're doing. And I think it's important because many of those communities, particularly, have often been told by government agencies, hey, we're out here, things are going to change, things are going to get better, and then nothing happens. And so our message when we go out and talk to many of these groups is this is the beginning of the conversation. We are going to continue to be out here, be available and be transparent about the work that we're going to be doing. And we don't expect you to trust us because we say so. But we want you to give us an opportunity to show you what we're going to do, and to continue working with us as we do our work. And the same basic message goes out to law enforcement as well.
AK: I know that the statute that created OII does not eliminate the 17 independent investigations currently across the state. How will the OII team interact with the parties?
RR: Sure. And just so people understand, before our creation, in 2018, the legislature created 17, or they created the opportunity for 17 independent investigative teams across the state. Now, these are law enforcement agencies that come in when there is an officer-involved use of deadly force, and surrounding agencies, excluding the one that the officer who used the force belong to, would conduct the investigation. And that way separated a little bit from the involved agency.
In 2021, after the task force, the community and law enforcement, some law enforcement had concerns that that wasn't independent enough. And so hence the creation of the Office of Independent Investigations. But as you said, these independent investigative teams, IITs, continue to exist, and they still have work to do. There will be times where we can't get to the scene right away, and the investigation will need to start in a timely manner. And IIT's will be available and able and authorized to do that work. And we will want that to happen.
There will also be situations where we do get to the scene, but in addition to the investigation of the officer use of deadly force, there will be a concurrent criminal investigation, because there's the allegation that a crime occurred by maybe the person who was injured or shot or a co-suspect, or somebody else's at the scene. And so hopefully IITs will continue to do the work of those criminal investigations as well. And we have, in answer to your question about how that work will happen, one of the reasons that we're doing outreach is so that we can talk to all 17 of those IITs. We've been out to probably seven, eight, nine of them so far. And we intend to talk to all 17 Before we become operational. And part of that is having those hard-in-the-weeds conversations about what the investigations will look like, what the handoff from IITs to us will look like, how we will ensure that we don't waste resources and time and that we continue to make the investigations effective and efficient. And so that work has begun.
And I think most law enforcement agencies understand that the statute’s in place and this is going to happen. And their biggest concern, to their credit, is to make sure that these investigations are done well. And to make sure that there's no loss in experience and training and effectiveness in finishing these investigations.
AK: Thanks, Roger. So, who do you send the completed report to?
RR: You Annie.
AK: [laughs]
RR: The reports will go to—first of all, they will be publicly posted on our website. But we will be sending them to a prosecutor agency so that that prosecutor agency can make a decision about whether to charge a crime or not. Our reports will include a comprehensive description of the facts of the case. And they will also include some legal analysis. So, a list of the statutes that might apply, the criminal statutes that might apply. And then a little bit of analysis on why they may or may not apply in this particular case, and what issues a prosecutor might need to resolve before making the ultimate decision about whether to charge. So, the prosecutor agency will get that report, the public will get that report, the impacted family will get that report and the law enforcement agency will get that report
AK: Three cheers for transparency and communication. So, as a member of the public, it is true, I will get the report
RR: You will get that report.
AK: Yeah. I am curious about the antiracism and antibias training that was built into the statute. Can you tell us more about what that training process is like or some of the content?
RR: Sure. So, we have this incredibly unique opportunity with this agency in that we're building it from scratch, right? Every other job you ever go to. It's an organization that exists and whatever the culture of that organization, whether they're trying to include antiracism in what they do or not, you have to sort of change it.
Here, we have the opportunity to build the culture from the ground up. And I take it incredibly seriously.
One of the first hires we made was a director of organizational development and DEI. And so we have a point person who is focused on these issues, both internally and how we treat each other in the office. How we do training with regard to hiring, with regard to bias in the workplace, and the issues that lots of workplaces have now, but also someone to review external policies and how we say we're going to do our work on a daily basis, how we say we're going to interact with families and with communities and with law enforcement. And all of those will be looked at through a lens of antiracism and antibias. How the training looks, there are, you know, hundreds of antiracism training opportunities that exist, both within Washington state and outside. Both within the current criminal justice training center, and outside of it from outside vendors. We are still in the process of putting together that training program.
Just to give you an example of how seriously we take this, we had our first staff retreat—now that we have enough of the staff to have a retreat. So, a day where we were working on our mission, vision and values and putting together sort of a shared understanding of how we're going to do our work. And we brought in a facilitator who conducted an hour and a half of antiracism training, antibias training. And she didn't realize when she walked in that this was an agency that was just being stood up. And when she found out she said, “Well, how long have y'all been around” and we said, “Three months.” And she was just shocked that we were already on to this type of training, this type of DEI work so early in our existence. And we made it clear that this is what the statute wants us to ground our work in. It's important to every single person who works here, and this is how we're going to do it.
AK: Our producer, Greg, and I were talking about law enforcement's reaction to the creation of the OII , could you comment on responses to the creation of this new agency that you've seen or heard about from law enforcement?
RR: Sure, as with anything, it's been a mixture. There are, for instance, law enforcement agents who are on our advisory board, and who have for a very long time advocated for reform in this area. And those folks continue to exist and continue to help us. There are folks who want no part of this agency and are not interested in it. I think there's some quotes out there in the media, about how some law enforcement officers feel about it, and totally legitimate feeling as well. And then there's every opinion in between.
What I have found really interesting and helpful, is that when it gets down to it, law enforcement officers understand that they're going to have to follow the law, the law exists, and we're coming. And for the most part, they have been very, very interested in simply making sure it gets done right. And making sure that when we get out there, that we have the resources we need to do our work, that we understand what resources we will need, that we don't trip over each other when we're out there at the scenes together, because they're doing work that is adjacent or parallel to ours. And that's been most of the conversation with law enforcement. Not so much being happy or being sad about our existence. But really, okay, we know this is happening. Now, let's make sure that we do it right for our communities. And that's about as much as you can ask for from anyone.
AK: Have you received interest from law enforcement officers in applying to the OII?
RR: Sure, so there are some limitations on our ability to hire former law enforcement. We can do it. But folks who have been prior law enforcement, within the last 24 months, have to go through a couple extra hoops in order to get hired on with us, including being approved by our advisory board. But yes, we have had a number of, large number of applicants, who have been prior law enforcement, who want to want to work for us, who are interested in the agency. And I think the idea of it being a first in the nation way of investigating these cases is really attractive to people. No matter where they're from, or what they do. Everyone who has experience within the system feels like they have ways they can do it better and they have been looking for an opportunity to exercise that voice. And I think this provides an opportunity for a lot of people. So, we have had a number of applicants,
AK: Is there anything that you would like to add to the conversation as we wrap this up, something about OII or next steps?
RR: Well, I'm talking to folks at a university. And so I know that everybody who is in school and is working toward a degree is eventually going to get out and be looking for a job. And so I'll take your invitation and use this as a recruiting tool. But, you know, we are about to launch a first of its kind office that is going to do incredibly important and fascinating work. One of the exciting things that I did as a prosecutor was work with detectives and law enforcement out at crime scenes, to begin the process of helping them understand what their cases might look like in court. And to help guide those investigations. There's nothing more exhausting and exhilarating and scary and emotional than being at scenes like that, and trying to make sure that good work is done.
We are going to have 40 to 50 openings for both senior level investigators who have experience in doing these cases as well as entry level investigators who may not. And we are going to be looking for people who are smart and logical and thoughtful and passionate about these issues. And so we will invite folks to look out for those job postings on the Washington government careers job site, as well as postings that we will certainly do at the University of Washington and other educational institutions.
AK: I love that you said your belief in seeking this position is that the OII is a common sense tool for reform that can help rebuild trust in the criminal justice system.
Roger Rogoff is the first director appointed by Governor Inslee to lead the Office of Independent Investigations. Roger, thanks so much for joining us today.
RR: Annie, thank you so much. I appreciate the questions and always happy to come back anytime you want to talk to us.
RSS feed
Apple iTunes
Spotify
Amazon Music