Officials tout Extreme Risk Protection Orders to get guns out of dangerous hands
Prosecutors tout Extreme Risk Protection Orders to get guns out of dangerous hands
King County prosecutors want to shed new light on their efforts to get guns out of the hands of dangerous people through the Extreme Risk Protection Order Unit.
SEATTLE - King County prosecutors want to shed new light on their efforts to get guns out of the hands of dangerous people through the Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) Unit.
ERPOs provide a temporary measure to remove access to weapons for people deemed too dangerous to have them.
"We categorize those into three main types, right? So, threats of self-harm, threats to others, and then the combination of the two," said Kim Wyatt.
Wyatt is with the King County Prosecutor’s Office. She works with the ERPO unit.
"This is some of the most important work that we feel that we are doing, because we are on that prevention side," she said.
In the first three months of the year, 17 people were killed in shootings and 50 others were hurt in King County.
Wyatt says she hopes sharing information about the work the county is doing will help save lives.
"I’m amazed how many people I talk to who don’t know about [the ERPO]," said Shayla Calvo.
Calvo also works with the ERPO unit through the prosecutor’s office.
He says some of the stories he hears of protection order interventions are terrifying.
"They found several fire arms inside the residence that were loose," recalled Calvo of one case. "One of them was, he had a crib inside the house, where his child was sleeping, and there was a big long gun, right. It was a toddler, and the gun was literally in the crib."
The way the orders work is family, friends, or even officers can file a request.
Officials will remove all access to weapons from the person the order is filed against.
The entire process goes through the court system. The person is provided with information that will be presented at the hearing, and has the opportunity to contest the order.
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The goal is not to infringe on anyone’s rights, but to keep everyone safe, Calvo said.
"The idea of it is that it is temporary. We want to get that crisis behavior because if we can remove the gun from the situation a lot of times the situation will go away," he said.
For more information on how to file an ERPO request click here.