‘Scared to sleep’: Everett’s crime crackdown comes at a cost

City leaders have turned to stiffer laws for nonviolent offenses. Arrests for drug-related crimes have skyrocketed.

EVERETT — When Joyce Tom first moved to Everett in 2001, the Emerald Gardens apartment complex seemed nice enough. A fence around the property, just west of Evergreen Way, made her feel safe.

These days, that sense of safety is gone.

Tom, who grew up in Manhattan, has seen an increase in drug activity, homelessness and people in mental health crises around her home at 100th Street SW. She has caught people jumping that fence and found needles inside the complex. More than once, her security camera showed people using drugs in her building’s communal hallway. Thieves have stolen cars off the property. Another unit was burglarized.

“I’m getting to the point where I get afraid to even leave home,” said Tom, now 66, who worries her home will be broken into when she’s traveling.

For residents like Tom, Everett has a crime problem. City leaders have been listening — and turning largely to stiffer laws and more arrests for nonviolent crimes in response.

In May, the City Council expanded the 2021 “no sit, no lie” law, allowing the mayor to designate zones where sitting or lying down on public property is a misdemeanor. In September, the council approved a plan to station private security officers downtown. The city intends to hire nine new cops this year.

Last month, the council passed a law allowing city prosecutors to seek a minimum of 30 days in jail for defendants repeatedly convicted of certain crimes, including assault, theft and public drug use.

For some locals, the city’s public safety push is a step in the right direction. For others, the measures unfairly target Everett’s most vulnerable residents.

Between January and November 2023, the number of inmates Everett police booked into the Snohomish County Jail increased 58% from the same period the previous year, from 1,915 to 3,026, according to data provided by the city. The total number of days people spent in the jail increased 28% — from 13,232 to 16,994.

Data from December was not available as of this week.

Everett pays for the Snohomish County Jail, which is run by the county sheriff’s office, to hold inmates behind bars. Comparing costs over the same two periods, the city’s price tag jumped nearly one-third, from $2.96 million in 2022 to $3.9 million in 2023.

Everett police have made a point of increasing their presence on the streets, doubling overtime patrols in recent months. Arrests for misdemeanors have skyrocketed since, partly due to a new state law prohibiting drug use in a public places.

According to review of jail logs by The Daily Herald, from September to December, about half of defendants arrested for public drug use were let out, then arrested again.

‘The long-term solution’

On a Thursday morning this month, about a dozen people were gathered in the gazebo at Clark Park at 2400 Lombard Ave.

Some sat on the ground next to shopping carts, others walked in circles with blankets wrapped around them. The gazebo is just inside one of the city’s new “no sit” zones, but the rule doesn’t apply in public parks.

In an ideal world, the city would not need to use the criminal justice system to address mental health and addiction issues, Mayor Cassie Franklin said in an interview this month with The Daily Herald.

“The long-term solution is the state investing in behavioral health systems,” Franklin said, “so that we have beds that people can go into. We need detox beds, we need treatment beds, we need the ability to get people into those systems voluntarily.”

In July, a new state law went into effect making it a gross misdemeanor to use an unprescribed controlled substance in public places. The change was part of a bigger package of legislation known as the “Blake Fix,” in reference to a landmark state Supreme Court ruling from 2021 that struck down drug possession laws in the state.

Over 200 jail booking records showed the vast majority of those arrested for public drug use or possession in Everett spent one to three days in jail.

Everett police spent about $10,600 in overtime on emphasis patrols between mid-August and December.

Theft arrest numbers generally stayed the same the past three years. Loitering arrests, however, increased from 29 in 2021, to 427 in 2023.

“We want to do everything we can for those people in crisis, and we want to do everything we can to increase the safety of our residents,” Franklin said. “That balance between these two things is so important. So we have invested in enforcement activities a little bit to try to better balance what we’re seeing in the community.”

NEED and SEED

The drug emphasis patrols are led by the North Everett and South Everett Emphasis Details, known as NEED and SEED. The patrols focus solely on enforcement, as opposed to patrols accompanied by social workers.

In 2023, emphasis patrols netted a total of 120 public drug use arrests, according to Everett police data.

Since overtime patrols are not tied to 911 calls, officers have more flexibility to make referrals or offer help than they would on a regular shift, Everett police Chief John DeRousse said.

A Herald review of police reports gave a look into what a typical drug arrest looks like in Everett.

One man, 45, was standing next to a “no trespassing” sign in the 11700 block of Airport Road, officer Alex Fay wrote in a police report last month. The officers patted him down and found “several baggies” of suspected fentanyl powder. The man told them he did not see the sign. While he acknowledged using fentanyl daily, he reported he was just “hanging onto it” for a friend, Fay wrote.

Police arrested him for investigation of criminal trespassing and possession of a controlled substance in a public place, both misdemeanors. The man spent a little over a day in jail.

In Everett Municipal Court, repeat offenders are often given Stay Out of Drug Areas citations, banning them from “areas with a high level of illegal drug trafficking” in the city upon their release.

In another instance last month, officer Karen Campbell was working with the department’s Community Outreach and Enforcement Team when she “immediately recognized” a man walking out of a house on Lombard Avenue, according to a police report. The man, 20, had two warrants for public drug use and possession. The officers arrested him.

During a search of his belongings, officers found a small bag of what they believed to be methamphetamine. The man was booked into jail on two warrants and another count of public drug use. It was his third jail stint since September. He had only spent a day behind bars the previous two times. This time, he served 15 days.

‘I’m scared to sleep at night’

The Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office is responsible for the wellbeing of all inmates in the county jail, spokesperson Courtney O’Keefe said.

“We are always going to be watching for how law changes and local ordinances impact our daily population so that we can manage our resources as effectively as possible,” O’Keefe said.

The Snohomish County Jail has seen a string of drug-related incidents in the past year, including fatal overdoses of inmates.

“The booking process is traumatizing and de-humanizing,” said Kathleen Kyle, director of the Snohomish County Public Defender Association, in an email to The Herald. “If the purpose of using the criminal legal system as a fulcrum to lift people into sobriety, then the trauma and lack of autonomy of an arrest are counterproductive and achieve the opposite impact than intended.”

Franklin argued a 30-day minimum jail sentence would allow people addicted to drugs to stabilize in the jail’s detox center — and make them more willing to voluntarily seek long-term help. A few days is not enough time to get treatment, Franklin said. Jails, however, have become the “biggest mental health institution” in the state, she added.

“I would argue that jail is far more humane than somebody living in an encampment or on our streets,” she said. “Where they’re being victimized and traumatized and cold and exposed to their drug dealers, or having to steal or sell themselves to survive. That is not humane.”

But some people struggling with addiction, like Roni Jones, feel the new public safety emphasis only pushes folks like her farther to the margins.

Jones, 49, had a decade of sobriety under her belt before a family crisis caused her to relapse in 2022. Now homeless, she spends her days in downtown Everett, looking for anywhere she can rest her head.

“Now we can’t sit, sleep or lie anywhere? What do they think they are going to do with us?” Jones said, standing next to a bus stop outside Everett Station. “I’m scared to sleep at night because I don’t know what could happen to me.”

‘We don’t want you here’

The city’s “no sit, no lie” ordinance has proved particularly controversial.

One of the law’s detractors is Jason Cockburn, vice president of the Second Chance Foundation, a nonprofit that supports people facing homelessness, incarceration and addiction.

City leaders established the first “no sit” zone around the Everett Gospel Mission in 2021. In July, the mayor designated two new zones, using her new power granted by the City Council. One new zone extends around the Everett United Church of Christ at 2624 Rockefeller Ave., which houses a homeless shelter. The other new zone covers roughly 300 acres around the Fred Meyer at 8530 Evergreen Way.

Shelters in the zones serve meals, Cockburn pointed out. Now, people can’t sit or lie down while they wait for them to open. The law bans giving out food or services to people sitting or lying in the zones, without a permit. That makes Cockburn’s outreach to people on the street more difficult.

Cockburn, who has been homeless and incarcerated in the past, worries about police mistaking him for a person violating the “no sit” rule as they enforce the law.

“I think it sends a message to me that I’m not doing the right thing, that I’m not being a valued community member,” he said.

Cockburn doesn’t believe the minimum sentence law will be effective, either. Instead of jail, he said, the focus should be on increasing time people can spend in treatment and smoothing the transition out of it. Harsher penalties, he said, should be reserved for those who distribute drugs.

“I think they’re just saying, ‘We don’t want you here and we’re gonna do whatever it takes to get rid of you,’” Cockburn said.

Jazmyn Clark, the Smart Justice campaign policy program manager for the ACLU of Washington, said her organization has been tracking the city’s recent public safety ordinances and has gotten complaints about them from Everett residents.

Her organization received complaints about “no sit, no lie,” the December sentencing ordinance and the city’s “unlawful camping” code last updated in 2006, she noted.

Many of Everett’s efforts “apply almost exclusively to the unhoused population,” thus criminalizing homelessness, she said. And in general, the U.S. criminal legal system “over-incarcerates, over-criminalizes, particularly communities of color.”

The priority should be on social change that ensures people don’t have to live outside, Clark said.

“There are so many other things that we should be focusing on instead of, ‘Well, we just need to punish them harder,’” she said. “That’s never going to solve the problem.”

‘Every few months, something happens’

In the past three months, Kiana Njie’s businesses have been burglarized three times.

Njie, 36, runs a hair salon on Everett Mall Way called Colored by Kiana, which was broken into in October and late December. The other break-in hit her downtown yoga studio, Urban Yogis, where someone broke the lock on the door to the building on Christmas.

“They took everything they could,” Njie said, including an iPad, a computer and jewelry for sale.

A yoga teacher discovered the break-in. Njie called 911. No one has been arrested.

The studio on Grand Avenue was closed for three days. And as of Thursday, she still needed another week or so to get the studio’s lighting and projector fully back to normal.

It’s not just the break-ins, though. The neighborhood feels unsafe after dark.

Yoga teachers at the studio have faced harassment outside their work.

One was followed to her car. In a separate incident, someone shouted racial slurs at Njie, who is Black. Another time, somebody shattered one of the studio’s windows by shooting it with a pellet gun.

“It seems like every few months, something happens,” Njie said.

The studio has been open for 1½ years. In that time, the number of homeless people sleeping around the studio has increased, Njie said.

For the most part, they’re harmless, she said. What scares her, though, is when people appear to be in a severe mental health crisis on the street.

Vandalism and public drug use have worsened for many businesses in downtown Everett since the pandemic, said Liz Stenning, executive director of the Downtown Everett Association, in an email. Stenning also connected that trend to changes in state law around drugs, noting the “Blake Fix” has been a “step in the right direction.”

Business owners have paid for extra security such as cameras, she said, and insurance often doesn’t cover stolen goods or broken windows.

The association supports the city’s measures to increase public safety, like “no sit, no lie” and the recent sentencing law.

“It’s a big improvement,” Stenning said, “to know that we can direct people to call 911 or speak to someone when they encounter public drug use and camping on properties.”

‘A finite amount of resources’

In October, the city began a six-month contract with Good Guard Security.

From 4 p.m. to 8 a.m., security officers patrol downtown from Pacific Avenue to Everett Avenue, and from West Marine View Drive to Broadway, according to the city. It’s a perimeter of about 2 miles around Everett’s downtown core.

The city pays for the security guards at a rate of $29.99 an hour, or $44.98 on holidays, in a contract that can’t exceed a total cost of $208,000.

Tom Harrison, owner of MyMyToyStore, said he has heard more about more incidents of property damage at neighboring businesses recently. It’s made him more cautious. However, his business has been “minimally impacted” by vandalism.

MyMyToyStore, at 1806 Hewitt Ave., is on the edge of the downtown “no sit” zone.

Harrison, 52, opened his downtown storefront in 2021.

He is aware of the city’s “no sit, no lie” law. In at least one case, he’s observed the city’s policy seem to simply move a man a block or two away from his previous spot within a “no sit” zone. Even after the mayor established new zones, Harrison still sees public drug use downtown, he said.

“When I see somebody using what appears to be meth or fentanyl, I’m alerted that anything can happen,” he said.

Harrison would like to see Everett police devote more investigative resources toward dismantling drug dealing operations.

“Our department has a finite amount of resources available and we strive to deploy these resources in the most strategic ways possible,” Everett police spokesperson Ora Hamel wrote in an email Friday.

“Data plays a significant role in this decision making process,” she added.

Hamel noted law enforcement is just one part of the city’s response to drug-related crimes.

More mental health treatment resources would also make a difference, Harrison said. He supports more police patrols to reduce crime. But mental health crises, he said, are “less of a policing issue and more of a community resources and community compassion issue.”

‘It doesn’t make me want to run’

Despite the problems around Urban Yogis, Njie believes the city’s push for public safety is paying off. She feels downtown Everett is “definitely a lot cleaner” and safer than it used to be.

Specific measures such as “no sit” or the sentencing law weren’t really on her radar, but she feels the mayor “is trying to make Everett feel like more of a community.”

Business owners look out for each other. The Downtown Everett Association plants flowers, cleans up garbage and connects businesses. And it’s because of the downtown community that Njie has no intention of moving her yoga studio elsewhere.

“When stuff like this happens and it sucks, it doesn’t make me want to run,” she said. “Because I don’t feel that it’s being ignored.”

As for Tom, she has yet to see a change in her south Everett neighborhood. At home, she feels on edge much of the time. Outside her complex, people in mental health crises are “walking around here screaming,” sometimes in the middle of the night.

The night after Christmas, Tom witnessed a man beating a woman on the ground outside.

As the vice president of the complex’s homeowner association, Tom hears complaints from her neighbors. Several times a month, she said, she ends up calling 911. But even when she gives the police a description of a person causing a disturbance, she said, “nothing happens.”

“I don’t expect everything to be tip top, tip top,” Tom said, “but it’s so much that’s going on here. You don’t feel good about living in your own home. It’s kind of scary.”

Meanwhile, earlier this month, Jones sat inside the Everett Station when a woman and her daughter walked past. A nearby security guard assured them Jones was “just a homeless person,” and that he was there if she tried to harm them.

“That hurt me so bad. I’m not any different than you, or you, or you just because I don’t have a roof over my head,” Jones said. “Women and children shouldn’t be scared of us.”

Jones has been homeless most of her life, in California and Washington. But she said she has never seen homeless people so dehumanized as she has in Everett.

“The media, the mayor and the cops are feeding this town the wrong message on how to coexist with us,” Jones said. “You can’t stop homelessness. You have to embrace that as part of a community. You can’t shun us, and push us out and push us to leave. We are part of this community.”

Sophia Gates: 425-339-3035; sophia.gates@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @SophiaSGates.

Maya Tizon: 425-339-3434; maya.tizon@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @mayatizon.

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Gallery

Owner of Urban Yogi Kiana Njie at her business on Friday, Jan. 5, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)

Purchase Photo

MyMyToyStore.com owner Tom Harrison at his business on Friday, Jan. 5, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)

Purchase Photo

The “no sit, no lie” buffer zone in downtown Everett.

The “no sit, no lie” buffer zone along Evergreen Way, near Fred Meyer, in Everett is about 300 acres.