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The horrors inside a state-run juvenile detention center will never leave one Tri-Cities man.

P.B. saw one boy brutally beaten and then begging guards for help and other teens forced to exercise until they vomited. He also recalls a persistent rumor about a guard who had sex with offenders.

Now, he's coming forward to say he was raped, joining more than 300 former inmates from across Washington state who are suing, claiming they were sexually abused while incarcerated at Washington's juvenile detention centers.

"These are our most vulnerable kids and they needed rehabilitation and unfortunately, they got the opposite," said Vanessa Firnhaber Oslund, an attorney with the Seattle law firm Bergman Oslund Udo Little.

The firm has filed two lawsuits so far. Ten Tri-Cities residents are named as part of the suits.

P.B., who isn't being named under a Herald policy not to name people who report being sexually assaulted, is one of the teens who says he was targeted by guards, counselors, medical staff and others at state facilities including Maple Lane School, Echo Glen Children's Center, Green Hill School and Naselle Youth Camp.

The lawsuits say the abuse dates back to the 1950s and as recently as the 2020s and allege the offenders were raped, sodomized, molested and manipulated.

"What's really interesting to me and frankly really disturbing is that most of these cases are from the last 20 years," said Firnhaber Oslund, adding that employee background screening already had been developed that should have caught potential predatory employees.

"The state knew better and it should have done better," she said.

She claims the state did little screening of employees and allowed people convicted of crimes direct access to teens who couldn't escape. The policies often allowed these guards to isolate the teens behind closed doors with the blinds down.

"You have a climate where the kids are perfect victims," she said.

A change in the statute of limitations for these claims has led to an increase in the number filed against the Department of Youth, Children and Families, which runs the juvenile rehabilitation system, said Nancy Gutierrez, the department's communication administrator.

"DCYF takes swift action to protect young people in our care when complaints of sexual abuse are made. We encourage young people to report sexual abuse. We strive to offer multiple ways for young people to make those reports in a way that feels safe to them. We try to make information broadly available, including posters and brochures with the CPS hotline," the department said in a statement.

She said the department takes the reports seriously and forwards all allegations to police and child protection services.

"When we discover staff misconduct, we act in a swift manner to address any bad actors," the statement said.

Joining a gang

For much of his youth, P.B. was a good child who followed the rules. He was even a Boy Scout.

But he described his family as not emotionally close, so he found a different one — a gang — after moving to a Kennewick apartment complex.

"I saw all those people as more of a family because they showed that they cared," he said. "I felt accepted there more."

The youngest in his family, P.B. often ran away from home to spend time with fellow gang members.

His first criminal charges came when he was 13 and broke into a West Richland home with another teen. He began racking up crimes quickly — assault, theft, illegally possessing guns and drug-related charges, according to court documents.

By the time he was 14, he was facing a lengthy sentence for threatening skaters using a baseball bat, he said. His attorney was attempting to work out an agreement for him when he gave a gun to another teen to sell.

He was sentenced to Maple Lane School north of Centralia, more than 240 miles away from anyone he knew.

Maple Lane School

Maple Lane School has a more than 100-year history as a place where delinquent teens were sent. It was shut down as a juvenile facility in 2011, only to reopen as a home for adults who need competency restoration.

When P.B. arrived, he said he nearly immediately discovered that it was a dark and violent place.

"I knew there was something wrong. This place was definitely not meant for someone like me," he said.

When he was in the intake cottage, he and other teens were forced to work out until they threw up. He remembered drinking as much water as he could so he would vomit sooner.

He saw offenders committing sexual abuse against other young offenders inside locker rooms, and guards would walk through and pretend not to see.

One act of violence that stuck with him was a sex offender who was beaten daily by the other people in the facility. At one point, the boy was crawling on his stomach begging the guards for help. When he grabbed one of the guard's legs, the boy was kicked away, he said.

All that time, he was hundreds of miles from his family and they couldn't come see him. He kept wishing some adult would step in and help him.

"I felt really lost," he said. "I remember day for day being in there."

Sexual assaults

At Maple Lane, P.B. heard about a 23-year-old security guard who would "have sex" with the teens. The other teens frequently shared stories about being with her.

While he can't remember her name, he remembers what she did, the court documents said.

One night, she walked with him to the bathroom, followed him inside and raped him, according to court documents.

She told him that if he told anyone he wouldn't be able to get into a group home he was hoping for.

He followed her instructions because he was worried about being denied the placement.

"I never really thought too much about (the rape)," he said years later. "I never talked to my wife about it. I always kept it a secret. I never saw it as a rape because she was female and I was a male."

It was only later that he started to realize that she had used her power over him to do what she wanted. He believes the rape and the abuse he witnessed at the school had a lasting impact on him.

"I had feelings for this adult that was supposed to be keeping me safe. She was supposed to be a mentor, not a partner," he said.

The guard was not identified in court documents, and P.B. believes she was later caught raping another teen and fired.

Substance abuse, homelessness

Since leaving the juvenile system, P.B. has had just some misdemeanor offenses. But he continues to struggle with substance use and homelessness.

He now has a child of his own and three others by marriage. He told the Herald that the idea that they could go through a similar experience is frightening.

"I still see that kid's face pleading to the officer," he said. "I still have a lot of images from being there. .... They're still fresh today."

He joined the lawsuit with the hope that it will make Washington more careful about who they have working in juvenile facilities.

"It's pretty obvious that they hire just anyone to watch over our kids," he said. "I pray that no kid has to experience what I did."

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     (c)2024 Tri-City Herald (Kennewick, Wash.)

     Visit Tri-City Herald (Kennewick, Wash.) at www.tri-cityherald.com

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A $35 million court-imposed penalty against Facebook parent Meta Inc. for campaign finance violations was upheld by Washington state appellate judges on Monday.

The ruling stemmed from an investigation by the Washington Public Disclosure Commission that found the social media company had violated campaign finance laws more than 800 times.

The probe prompted the Washington state attorney general's office to file a lawsuit in 2020 arguing that Facebook had violated a state law that requires businesses that sell political advertising to make information about those ads, and who paid for them, available for the public to inspect upon request.

A King County Superior Court Judge in 2022 ruled in favor of the state and levied $8.2 million in civil penalties and $3.5 million in attorney fees and costs against Meta. The judge then tripled both figures because Meta's violations of state campaign law were found to be intentional, according to a PDC news release.

That ruling was appealed and the Division I Washington state Court of Appeals. It ruled Monday in favor of the state and upheld the $24.6 million penalty and $10.5 million in attorney fees and costs.

"The plain language of the disclosure law evidences its intent to preserve and sunlight relevant data of each individual ad on Meta's social media platforms, without any requirement that any particular voter or the government step into the sunlight to inspect the records," the opinion reads.

Gov.-elect and current Attorney General Bob Ferguson applauded the appellate decision to uphold the earlier ruling and penalty.

"Meta repeatedly and intentionally violated Washington campaign finance law," Ferguson said in a news release. "This significant penalty is appropriate for a multinational corporation that intentionally violated our law, and, instead of accepting responsibility, sought to gut our best-in-the-nation campaign finance law."

The penalty upheld Monday is believed to be the largest ever imposed for campaign finance violations in U.S. history, according to the PDC.

"More than 50 years ago, Washington state voters had the foresight to demand transparency in political spending," Public Disclosure Commission Chair Allen Hayward said in the release. "The appellate court agrees with the PDC that disclosure applies equally to modern forms of political advertising."

Washington's campaign finance law requires digital advertisers to include information relating to the cost of the ad, the sponsor of the ad, as well as targeting and reach information, according to the attorney general's news release.

Ferguson's office also filed a lawsuit in 2018 that resulted in a consent decree that required Meta to pay $238,000 and included the company's commitment to transparency in campaign finance and political advertising.

However, Meta continued the practice of running political ads in Washington without making the required information available for public inspection, which prompted the 2020 suit and the judgment on Monday.

Attorneys for Meta asked the judges to strike down the commercial advertiser transparency requirements, but the appellate judges ruled that the law is constitutional.

Attorneys also asked the appellate judges to reduce the penalties, but those argument were denied.

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     (c)2024 The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Wash.)

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SEATTLE — The federal government can continue using King County-owned Boeing Field to conduct deportation flights despite county objections, a federal appeals court ruled last week, clearing a possible local impediment to President-elect Donald Trump's promised mass deportations.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers nine Western states, ruled Friday that King County overstepped its power when it tried to block federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement from using the county-owned airport to conduct deportations.

The ruling, by a three-judge panel, upholds a similar one issued last year by a district-level federal court, and comes as incoming Trump administration officials have yet to specify details or cost but say they intend to deport millions of immigrants lacking legal status.

A King County spokesperson said the county would not seek further appeals.

"The Ninth Circuit's decision allows a raw assertion of federal power to overcome an expression of local values even absent any actual impact," Amy Enbysk, a spokesperson for King County Executive Dow Constantine, wrote. "Although King County disagrees with the court's decision, it will of course follow the court's dictates."

Deportation flights have been ongoing at the airport since May 2023, shortly after the district court overruled Constantine's order attempting to stop the flights. There have been 79 such flights since, including 45 so far this year, said Cameron Satterfield, a county spokesperson.

David Yost, an ICE spokesperson, said the agency uses Boeing Field and McCormick Air Center in Yakima to deport people to other countries and to transfer detainees to other detention facilities in preparation for deportation.

In 2019, under the first Trump administration, Constantine issued an executive order seeking to block the federal government from using King County International Airport (the formal name for Boeing Field) for flights deporting immigrants.

The order targeted private companies that fuel and maintain planes at the airport, ordering that future leases between the county and the companies would prohibit deportation flights.

At the time, county officials said it was likely the first attempt anywhere in the country by local officials to block ICE deportation flights, and they hoped to be "leading the way."

"Deportations raise deeply troubling human rights concerns which are inconsistent with the values of King County, including separations of families, increases of racial disproportionality in policing, deportations of people into unsafe situations in other countries, and constitutional concerns of due process," Constantine's 2019 executive order said.

The federal government, under the Trump administration, sued King County in 2020 and the case continued under the Biden administration. A district court judge in Tacoma ruled last year that King County could not block the flights. King County responded by withdrawing the executive order and replacing it with a more lenient one and also appealed the ruling.

The 9th Circuit, on Friday, ruled Constantine's initial executive order violated the "intergovernmental immunity doctrine" by interfering with federal government immigration enforcement.

"King County's Executive Order on its face discriminates against the United States 'by singling out' the federal government and its contractors 'for unfavorable treatment,' " Judge Daniel Bress, a Trump appointee, wrote for the panel.

The court also ruled that King County violated the terms of the agreement under which it reacquired Boeing Field from the federal government.

The federal government took over the airport in 1941, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, part of preparations for deeper involvement in World War II.

When the federal government returned the airport to the county in 1948, it included the condition that the U.S. and "its agents" have the right to use the airport without charge.

King County had argued that, because ICE hires charter companies for the deportation flights, it could move to ban the flights without violating the agreement.

The appellate court, like the district court before it, disagreed.

"ICE charter flights are quite plainly flights of the United States through its agent, Classic Air Charter," Bress wrote.

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©2024 The Seattle Times. Visit seattletimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Until the calendar turns to Jan. 1, 2025, Seattle's hourly minimum wage has fine print.

For now, Seattle's minimum wage varies based on business size, tips and benefits. In 2025, that all goes away. On Jan. 1, Seattle's minimum wage will become a flat $20.76, among the highest in the U.S., representing a pay jump of $3.51 for some.

On paper, it's a big win for hospitality industry workers. In practice, it's not that simple.

In Seattle City Council meetings this year, the wage hike has become a political lightning rod, with familiar battle lines drawn between restaurant owners and labor advocates.

Seattle restaurants have panicked about the issue all year long, saying many won't stay afloat as wages rise in an industry that has never fully recovered from the pandemic. They caught flak last summer for lobbying the council to extend the city's expiring tip credit, which lets smaller businesses count tips and benefits toward the minimum wage until Jan. 1. That short-lived effort died in August.

Meanwhile, labor organizations have protested the tip credit extension, saying on thatsadealbreaker.com that "restaurant industry lobbyists always make the same old tired argument: the industry simply cannot swallow a wage increase without destroying businesses." Katie Garrow, of MLK Labor, put it bluntly in July, saying "It is unacceptable to require or rely on a business model that exploits poor people."

Restaurant owners dispute that characterization, pointing to the industry's thin margins and the fact that many restaurant workers make far beyond the minimum wage in tips.

So how do workers feel about the minimum wage? Nervous, anxious, resigned.

Six Seattle-area restaurant workers and one barista-turned-owner expressed uncertainty about the wage hike, especially potential lost wages and tips when local businesses raise prices or cut shifts to compensate for increased labor costs.

The raise is nice, but some workers fear the higher minimum wage will achieve the opposite of what it aims to do, ultimately leading to less take-home pay.

In the background is an industry truth: The food business isn't a monolith, meaning solutions for a counter-service restaurant might not work for a fine-dining establishment and vice versa. It makes "one size fits all" rules impossible in this industry.

There are no easy fixes, and as restaurant owners shuffle through potential ways to stay solvent — raising prices, cutting hours, implementing service charges — restaurant workers are concerned about a domino effect from the rising minimum wage.

One size doesn't fit all

Jeanie Chunn, co-founder and director of engagement for Seattle Restaurants United — a coalition of restaurant owners and operators founded in 2020 — sees both sides of the minimum wage debate.

Before launching SRU in 2020, Chunn worked in the industry in various roles: as a server, a dining room manager and director of operations between Campagne, Canlis, the Corson Building and for Renee Erickson's Sea Creatures restaurant group. She was on the committee that wrote the $28.1 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund in support of business owners and has also worked with One Fair Wage and Jumpstart Seattle — groups that have lobbied to end the tip credit.

Chunn has worked with owners and workers alike and says that focusing on them separately instead of emphasizing their symbiotic relationship is where the discussion is veering off-course.

"I'm tired of labor pitting (owners) against workers," Chunn said. "Our business owners look more like their workers than large corporations ... the problem with restaurants is we're a labor-intensive industry. It's why we're the largest private sector in the country but it's diverse in how we show up."

Bartender Stef Rider said responses to the rising minimum wage will differ even at the two Seattle bars where she works: Liberty Bar on Capitol Hill and Georgetown's 9lb Hammer.

Liberty is an upscale cocktail bar that serves sushi. Benefits include paid time off and full, employer-paid health care, vision and dental. Rider makes $19.25 an hour — but averages $50 hourly with tips.

Meanwhile, 9lb Hammer is "a neighborhood dive bar." Over the past few years, she's watched drink prices slowly climb, with formerly $5 pints now going for $8. She makes the expiring adjusted minimum wage of $17.25 an hour and has no benefits, but "I make way more in tips," Rider said.

"I make Saturday money there on a Wednesday. It's not a terrible trade-off."

Liberty is getting creative to offset wage increases, looking to generate new revenue by hosting private parties. As for 9lb Hammer, Rider said, "I think they're going to weather the storm and increase prices quietly."

Neither bar is planning to implement a service charge to offset labor costs yet, Rider said. She doesn't think it would fit at either workplace.

"It's one solution that I can see is very appealing if you're running a certain kind of program," Rider said. "I also think it's something that only higher-end businesses can do. So where does that leave the rest of us?"

The one common thread? The majority of Rider's paycheck comes from tips at both bars. With businesses bound to react to the new minimum wage by inflating menu prices or other means, and workers making most of their money from tips anyway, it can feel like the conversation is missing the point.

Higher prices, lost tips

At a Seattle Times panel in September, restaurateur Ethan Stowell said he supports the rising minimum wage. He also added some context.

"We as a community have decided that we feel like there's an ethical responsibility to raise our minimum wage to the highest in the nation," he said. "If we are going to have that mission — which I'm for — we're going to have, simply put, the most expensive restaurants in the country."

But not every restaurant can raise prices and expect customers to stomach the difference. Seattle is a city where you can find a $54 Manhattan or spend hundreds on a "splurge" meal, but there's a ceiling. Not every coffeehouse, cocktail bar, pizza shop or burger place can make their money back by lifting prices.

Price increases come with repercussions — negative reaction to higher prices can lead to less business and lower sales, which lead to fewer shifts being available or layoffs.

Jessie Larson works four days a week as a bartender at Foreign National, a Capitol Hill cocktail bar. She currently earns the adjusted minimum wage of $17.25 per hour. With tips added in, she makes between $30 and $40 an hour.

She worries that when the minimum wage goes up, her tips will take a hit.

"The only reason I can afford to live in the city limits is because I'm getting tipped on top of my hourly. I can't afford to live here on $20 an hour," Larson said. "I would have to make some serious life changes if the tips were to decrease, which is a strong possibility."

She worries about backlash from customers in response to the wage hike.

"How is guest perspective going to change when they know I just earned a $3 raise an hour? Are they going to tip the same?" said the craft bartender. "Will they go out less frequently or be a little bit more conservative when they are going out?"

Larson wonders why minimum wage is the main focus when it comes to raising the quality of life in Seattle.

"There are other things to consider," Larson said. "Liquor tax, sugar tax in Seattle, commercial rent, rent in general — I think there's a lot of other things to consider that could increase pay and quality of life for working-class people, other than just $3 more an hour on their paycheck."

Brendan Newcomb, a manager at The Garrison in Ballard, wonders what more the city could do to support the industry.

"The city bends over backwards for companies like Amazon to be here, to stay here," he said. "If there are tax subsidies for Amazon to stay downtown, why aren't there some for restaurants to stay where they are?"

In the meantime, Newcomb is trying different solutions to make ends meet at The Garrison as wages are set to bump.

Bartenders seat people most days of the week instead of staffing a host. There's still a happy hour with $2 oysters and $3 Hamm's tall boys, but there's also a $24 wagyu patty melt, meeting customers at different price points.

"It's like any other model — something happens and the ones who adapt survive," Newcomb said, "and the ones who don't get a memorial story in the paper."

Benjamin Wright, vice president for the Washington chapter of the United States Bartenders' Guild and bar manager at Capitol Hill's Herb & Bitter, said "we're raising prices" to prepare for the impending wage jump.

Beyond that, though, Wright sees other bumps in the road. For instance, when new wage rules go into effect, the staff at Herb & Bitter will make the same hourly rate as him.

"I'm getting no raise," Wright said. "What will be taken away is my financial incentive to manage."

"Only so many levers to pull"

At coffee shops, there isn't much wiggle room to cut shifts or raise prices. People like Alex Sciarrotta "feel complicated."

The longtime-barista-turned-owner of Narrative Coffee in Everett wants to do right by his workers. He's reluctant to raise prices and unwilling to skimp on quality. He supports pro-worker legislation, but he's wary of the butterfly effect of the minimum wage bump.

Currently, the Everett minimum wage is $16.28 an hour, but in January, it will follow Seattle's, rising to $20.24.

Sciarrotta still thinks of himself as a worker, not an owner. He remembers the last time the coffee shop raised prices, nearly three years ago, upping the cost of a drip coffee from $3.75 to $4.50. As the manager at the time, he implemented the change.

Since that time, wages have already gone up $2 an hour, and all of Sciarrotta's operating costs have increased, he said. He's reluctant to bump prices again but he's running out of options.

"We've been just holding off because I've been trying to tread water and not charge people more, because I don't like that," Sciarrotta said. "One of the primary guiding principles for me in business is trying to think, 'How do I build better lives for everyone internally regardless of where they're at?'

"There's only so many levers to pull as a business owner."

When the city of Bellingham, where Narrative has a branch, raised the minimum wage by a dollar this year, Sciarrotta saw "a lot of people get laid off up north," which doesn't sit well with him, either.

"You can cut labor, but not only does that have the opposite effect of what people were trying to do with raising the minimum, because people are out of jobs, you're also kind of asking your staff to have worse working conditions, which is something I'm not OK with," he said.

Right now, everyone on staff at Narrative makes above minimum wage, plus tips. There are scheduled yearly raises of $2.50 an hour over three years and a cost-of-living increase that mimics the minimum wage increase each year. They also offer PTO and sick time plus a matching IRA program.

Sciarrotta was trying to offer health care to employees, but this wage increase pencils out to an additional $150,000 in labor costs between the two cafes, so he's going back to the drawing board.

"I'm tentatively nervous. I'm not nervous because I don't want to do this, but because I'm worried that the consumer base is not going to be OK with price increases, which is really our only option if we're not trying to negatively impact our staff," Sciarrotta said.

"I'm for pro-worker legislation," he continued. "But I think treating it as a monolith isn't really solving the core of the issue. And pretending it's easy and pretending most of these smaller places just have wads of cash lying around is just not true."

©2024 The Seattle Times. Visit seattletimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.