Virtual meeting on violent sex offender sent the wrong message | UPDATE

Published 10:05 am Tuesday, July 28, 2026

Editor’s note: This is an update from a previous column written before the KSCO community meeting about Robert Lough.

The King County Sheriff’s Office declined to host an in-person meeting about Robert Lough, the recently-released resident of McNeil Island who moved into Enumclaw.

Instead, the July 23 meeting was virtual.

“An online meeting is the fastest and most appropriate way to get information out to the community. Our meeting facilitators can better moderate an online forum, where they can address as many questions as possible and ensure the information is conveyed accurately,” the KCSO, which has no power or say over Lough’s release, said in a statement. “A virtual meeting also ensures we communicate with as many residents as possible without capacity constraints.”

I agree with the sheriff’s office that speed is an important factor in disseminating correct information.

But a virtual meeting was not the venue for such an important topic, especially considering the city’s recent history with another violent sexual predator that was relocated to (and eventually, moved away from) Enumclaw in 2023.

In response to the community outrage three years ago, the King County Sheriff’s Office, the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, and the state Department of Corrections hosted a public meeting to address their concerns.

It was a complete and unmitigated disaster on multiple fronts. Officials assumed Enumclaw residents would sit quiet for the better part of an hour listening to experts talk with a slide presentation; instead, citizens took control of the meeting half an hour in to ask questions, and the presentation was tossed aside.

The meeting went completely off the rails when a representative from the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center accidently implied it’s the community’s responsibility, not the government’s, to keep their children safe when the sexual predator in question was now living about 500 feet away from a school bus stop.

KCSO came to the same conclusion, saying the 2023 meeting “diverged significantly from its purpose to inform and engage” the Enumclaw community. “Meeting attendees repeatedly interrupted speakers and directed substantial frustration at KCSO and State Department of Corrections personnel regarding topics outside of each department’s authority,” a KCSO letter to King County Council member Reagan Dunn, who requested an in-person meeting, reads.

KCSO added specifically that the 2023 meeting result was why they decided to go virtual this time around.

It is extremely disappointing that the King County Sheriff’s Office has appeared to not learn the actual lesson presented to them.

When it comes to community safety, and especially the safety of children, these sorts of meetings demand live interaction and requires officials to take a step back and allow communities like Enumclaw to air their grievances and ask questions — not to tell residents to sit down, be quiet during a 30-plus minute slide show, and please, leave their inquires until the end.

I asked, in a previous version of this column urging KCSO to have an in-person meeting, whether having an in-person meeting about Lough would have made a difference.

I can comfortably say now, absolutely.

The department couldn’t reasonably measure the success of the meeting by how many people would leave less angry than they came; Enumclaw residents were always going to be frustrated that there’s little the county and state can do about Lough unless laws are changed.

Instead, the department needed to measure success based on how the community would leave feeling about local law enforcement.

The KCSO fell far short here, and numerous people also left not just angry at Lough and their state government, but also that their sheriff’s department wouldn’t meet them face-to-face.

One attendee said the virtual meeting “reduce[d] community confidence” in KCSO, and “law enforcement should be considering that in terms of their reputation and their community engagement.”

Dozens of others criticized the department online, and were far less kind.

If the KCSO wants to host successful community meetings on these sorts of topics, residents must feel listened to. They must feel validated.

Best of all would be for them to feel that there are people on the inside who are working to change the system so that something like this cannot happen again.

I wouldn’t hold my breath here: its been shown several times now that the state government is unwilling to make even basic changes to how communities are informed that high-level sex offenders, especially those from McNeil Island, are planning to or have moved into their area, let alone tackle the monster that is violent sexual predator reform and release and all its constitutional implications.

I think the two former goals were obtainable, if KCSO had empathized with Enumclaw a bit more. They had already separated themselves from the state and successfully conveyed the department has no authority over this situation. Similarly, the slide presentation was short, and detectives got to the Q&A session quickly — both things that were great improvements over the 2023 meeting.

But by holding a virtual meeting, they fell just short of those goals.

I understand the sheriff’s office’s focus on expediency. Trying to accurately inform the community of the facts quickly is normally laudable.

But the Enumclaw community must feel respected before it can be expected to listen. A virtual meeting only signaled to the community that it’s not worth our government’s time and energy.

This won’t be the last time a dangerous individual moves to our city. I hope that KCSO will better engage the Enumclaw community when they’re called next, before the community decides it’s not worth their time call at all.