SEATTLE — On Monday, an inquest jury found that the Seattle officers involved in the shooting death of 19-year-old Damarius Butts in 2017 used appropriate force.
The jury determined that the officers correctly followed de-escalation policy when they responded to a robbery at a 7-Eleven store in downtown.
Butts was shot and killed by Seattle police during an exchange of gunfire after the alleged robbery. Three officers were injured in the shooting, including one officer who was shot in the face.
It was the first inquest into a death caused by law enforcement officers following years of legal challenges. Police shooting inquests were delayed for years after King County Executive Dow Constantine paused inquests in 2018 to “address concerns of fairness and transparency and pushed forward with a new process built on stakeholder and community input.”
Inquests are administrative, fact-finding investigations that occur whenever a law enforcement officer is involved in a shooting death.
Constantine issued several executive orders concerning death inquests in 2018 that would provide attorneys to families of those killed by law enforcement through the Department of Public Defense and expanded the fact-finding scope of the inquest to include testimony about training and policies as well as determining if the officer involved followed protocol.
Several jurisdictions challenged the process in court, arguing it was not within Constantine's authority to make changes to the inquest process. However, their objections were largely struck down and the Washington State Supreme Court reaffirmed Constantine’s order in 2021.
Constantine issued an executive order in July 2021 to bring King County’s inquest process in line with a state Supreme Court ruling. The executive order allows for inquest panels to determine whether a person killed by law enforcement died by "criminal means," an amendment to a previous executive order fought for by family members of several people killed by King County law enforcement.
The executive orders previously barred law enforcement officers from participating in inquests unless they agreed to testify, but that was amended in another executive order in 2020. Officers may still be subpoenaed to testify at trial like any other witness.