Washington State Police lost emails and public records last year in a data migration gone wrong.
According to a story first reported by Cascade PBS, a mistake by the patrol led to the documents being permanently deleted.
After reviewing internal communications, PBS believed hundreds of thousands of documents may have been lost, but patrol public affairs director Chris Loftis clarified in an email to the news outlet that the exact number of irrecoverable emails was unknown.
“Importantly, because emails are copied and recorded separately as part of case files, we do not anticipate any impact to ongoing or past investigations or criminal records,” Loftis added. “We view this as a procedural and administrative challenge, not a challenge to our core law enforcement responsibilities.”The patrol allegedly has no accurate inventory, nor any way to calculate the totals.
Crime Report: Four arrested in effort to make King County transit stations safer
The issue came to light to State Police officials in mid-2023, when they first noticed that folders for certain cases that should have contained emails, legal documents and attachments were empty, according to internal emails. The missing emails also included those related to audits, policy changes, certifications, billing and certain vaccination mandates.
Asked whether officials had notified the governor or attorney general’s offices about the missing documents, Loftis acknowledged that they had notified both offices after PBS began inquiring about the matter, but said he “does not know what other communications may or may not have taken place” since 2023.
According to The Seattle Times, a spokesperson for Inslee’s office acknowledged that they had not received detailed information about the situation until Aug. 7. The attorney general’s office declined to comment, saying ethics rules prohibit the office from sharing communications it receives from clients.
Internal State Police communications expressed concern that the missing documents would cause the records management division to “compromise civil legal defenses for years to come.”
MyNorthwest Politics: Now that the primary is over, Reichert may be a bigger challenge for Ferguson than many think.
“Not only could you be surprised by the lack of visibility into information needed for your litigation, but you could also end up having to duplicate a significant amount of work,” one email said.
Loftis said officials continue to “monitor the situation to mitigate any potential issues related to unrecoverable emails,” adding that so far they have not seen “any significant impact” and “we expect this trend to continue.”
Bill Casalava is the Content Editor for MyNorthwest. You can read his articles here. Follow Bill on Twitter. here Send us an email here.
