Pro-law enforcement rally draws 100 outside Spokane courthouse

No one said “Je suis Ahmed” or mentioned the recent unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, but the 100 people who gathered in the cold air and orange lamplight near the Spokane County Courthouse Friday evening were there to show support for law enforcement officers in troubled times.

As organizers passed around candles and hand-warmers, conversation remained quiet until the occasional squad car pulled close and the crowd cheered. The lights on top of the vehicle would usually blaze in approval and move on, into the garage and back to work.

“We just decided that, you know what, this is a good time to get out and show some support,” said Katie Northway, who organized the event with Carmen Groom, who is married to a Spokane police officer. “We’re a family. That’s how we get through. We come together.”

She should know. Northway’s husband, Michael Northway, was seriously injured during a 2012 gunbattle with a dangerous federal fugitive, who Northway had pulled over moments before. Northway was struck four times, once in each limb.

Katie Northway credits the support not just from their “brothers and sisters” on the force that helped her husband pull through, but from the community as well.

“Spokane was just a beautiful show of support,” she said.

In the crowd Friday night, Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich stood with his wife, Paula, and noted that he was there to “support the men and women who wear the badge, and their wives and husbands.”

Knezovich called it an “odd time for law enforcement,” but said that there had to be a dialogue with the community to help build trust between officers and the community.

“If you want your agency to be trusted, people have to know your agency,” he said, encouraging people to attend the “citizen’s academy” he holds twice a year.

Still, Knezovich noted that “vile and vulgar” things are said about officers, and laid blame on elected officials.

“Right now, law enforcement is under attack,” he said. “Politicians open their mouths and disparage our officers.”

Community support for law enforcement has long been a topic of discussion in Spokane, but recent events in Ferguson and Paris have kept the conversation at a national and international level.

Protests and disorder erupted after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Missouri last August and a grand jury’s decision not to indict the officer who shot him. In Paris this week, police officer Ahmed Merabet was gunned down while injured and asking for mercy. Merabet was responding to the attack on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper offices, where militants killed 12 people. The brothers allegedly responsible for the killing were shot dead by police Friday.

Robert Christilaw said he wasn’t convinced what happened in Paris couldn’t happen in Spokane. But that’s not what motivates the retired sergeant from the sheriff’s office to volunteer with a group called “Behind the Badge,” which helps support the families of killed or injured officers.

Christilaw, who came to the rally with his wife Connie, said his first experience with the group was in 2009, after four Lakewood Police Department officers were shot and killed in a coffee shop.

“I would like not to do another one,” Christilaw said. “But I know that’s not going to happen.”

Christilaw said he believed perceptions about police are changing for the better, but he faulted law enforcement for “not being very good at telling good stories about themselves.”

“Thousands of things go right in a week, and nobody knows about it,” he said. “That’s OK. We hear about the bad stuff, but we do the right things.”

Christilaw said he welcomed discussions about accountability within police departments, but he said everyone had a responsibility to reflect on their actions.

“Everybody’s got rights, and we’re out there protecting them,” he said. “But rights come with responsibilities.”

His wife, Connie, suggested she was glad her husband was off the line of duty, saying she didn’t miss the days of “hugging somebody goodbye in a bulletproof vest and not knowing if they’ll come back.”

Christilaw, who joined the sheriff’s office at 29, agreed to a point, saying that young recruits don’t have the life experience yet to be an effective officer.

“If you haven’t had a relationship or a mortage, you’re not ready to be a police officer. If you respond to a domestic dispute between people in their 50s, it’s a grandkid talking to grandparents,” he said. “But I look back on a long career and I think, I would do it again.”