Sheriff Probes 'Thin Blue Line' Sticker On King County Patrol SUV

Renton WA

18 March, 2021

7:59 PM

Description

RENTON, WA — King County Sheriff Mitzi Johanknecht requested an internal investigation Thursday after seeing a YouTube video of a person confronting one of her deputies over a "thin blue line" flag sticker on the back of his patrol SUV. The clip, filmed outside the West Hill Community Storefront in Skyway, garnered several thousand views Thursday. The man behind the camera asks the deputy why the sticker is on his vehicle and asks him to remove it. "You've got a desecrated flag that's unauthorized on your vehicle here...I want you to take it off right now," he said. "I'm not going to," the deputy responds. The pair go back and forth for several minutes, with the man behind the camera saying the sticker is both unallowed and racist, and the deputy responding that he uses the sticker to quickly identify which patrol vehicle is his when leaving the station for priority calls. The "thin blue line" symbol has grown increasingly controversial in recent years, as the Marshall Project reports, seen by some as a white supremacist symbol used in opposition to the movement for racial justice. In a brief statement Thursday, Johanknecht said the sticker was removed from the vehicle, and the sheriff's internal investigations unit would review the matter for potential misconduct. "Our members have been instructed in the past not to attach equipment or stickers to their vehicles that have not been officially issued and approved by KCSO," Johanknecht wrote. "As the King County Sheriff, I will be reiterating that policy today."