PORT ANGELES — Candidates for Clallam County sheriff shared goals but cited divergent priorities for the department at a Port Angeles Business Association breakfast Tuesday, giving voters an indication of how they would lead if elected.
Chief Criminal Deputy Brian King of the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office and Marc Titterness, currently a Port Townsend Police Officer and formerly with the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office, are vying for the position now held by Bill Benedict, who is not running for reelection.
King and Titterness will face each other for the position on the Nov. 8 general election ballot. Ballots go in the mail Oct. 19.
One of King’s top priorities is expanding the county’s jail facilities to better accommodate inmates with serious physical or mental health issues, he said Tuesday.
King said the jail needs more cells for isolating prisoners who are having serious mental health episodes and need to be separated from the general population.
Currently, such inmates are placed alone into cells meant for two people, limiting the jail’s capacity, he said.
“Just putting people in jail doesn’t solve our all problems. We know that we have to break the cycle of incarceration,” King said. “The capacity of our system to treat these folks does not exist right now.”
King has been with the department since 1995 after graduating from Forks High School in 1993 and has served as chief criminal deputy since 2015, according to the county website. King repeatedly cited his career with the department as a reason voters should choose him.
Titterness has said he has 16 years experience in the criminal justice field and has previously worked for the Kansas Department of Corrections, Wyandotte County Sheriff’s Office, and was the Jamestown Tribal Liaison for the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office. He said that, over a decade, he worked in both the corrections and patrol divisions in Clallam County and is active in the union for deputies.
Titterness is especially concerned about staffing and a lack of consequences for crime. The department does not have enough deputies to provide the level of service needed, Titterness said, and legislative reforms curbing police power have emboldened criminals.
“All of these things that have happened recently are the result of changes over the last few years, leaving people on the streets and not putting people in jail where they belong,” Titterness said.
Titterness, too, wants to expand the jail. It’s not uncommon for the department to have 140 people in custody, Titterness said, but the jail currently has capacity for only 107 inmates.
It was important to treat inmates with medical and mental health needs, Titterness said, but he added some of those services don’t need to be provided in the jail.
To address the staffing issues, Titterness said the department should be more proactive about recruiting, focusing on local residents. There are criminal justice programs at Peninsula College that the department should actively recruit from, he said.
Both candidates were critical of legal changes in the past few years which have limited law enforcement’s ability to prosecute criminals, particularly the decriminalization of drug possession — not sales — under the 2021 Washington v. Blake decision by the state Supreme Court.
“Criminalize drugs again,” King said in response to a question about the candidate’s suggestion to state lawmakers.
Titterness cited drug use as a major public safety issue.
“The true answer is that it’s lack of accountability for criminal conduct,” Titterness said. “There’s no consequences for their actions.”
During the question-and-answer session, Matthew Rainwater, who ran unsuccessfully in the primary this year for the Position 2 seat of Legislative District 24, asked candidates how they would respond to a protest situation, describing in his own words but not referring by name, to one in Port Townsend on Aug. 15.
One person was arrested following a clash between protest groups taking different sides about access to locker room facilities for transgender people.
Amy Souza, a local activist who organized an event criticizing the state policy allowing transgender people into the bathrooms of their choice, has been critical of the police response on Aug. 15, saying the Port Townsend Police Department (PTPD) failed to intervene to defend the group comprised mainly of older women.
Souza organized the protest of the state policy outside a Port Townsend City Council meeting at which a proclamation welcoming transgender people was approved. The proclamation was issued after Julie Jaman, 80, was permanently banned from the Mountain View Pool by the Olympic Peninsula YMCA, which operates the city-owned pool; Jaman had confronted a transgender woman in the women’s locker room on July 26.
King stressed the importance of planning and preparedness before such events, saying an “overwhelming police presence” was a deterrent against protests turning violent.
Titterness — who was on duty and present at the Aug. 15 protest — said videos circulating online were presenting a misleading picture of the event, and said he was one of only two PTPD officers covering the area of the protest as other officers were deployed throughout a crowd of more than 300 people.
Many of the protesters were involved in minor altercations, Titterness said.
“It was very minor contact,” he said. “It was not someone being feloniously assaulted.”
As protestors became more violent, Titterness said he sought the aid of the State Patrol officers there to support PTPD and moved to intervene.
“That got turned into that I turned my back on those women being assaulted,” Titterness said.
Titterness noted the event’s organizer had not requested police protection in the permit application, and said perpetrators from the event have been identified and are being pursued.
For more about Clallam County elections, visit clallam.net/Auditor/Elections.html.
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Reporter Peter Segall can be reached at psegall@soundpublishing.com.
