The Washington State Patrol lost an unknown number of emails during a data migration last year and didn't inform state leaders until this month.
The data migration failure in April 2023 caused the emails to be permanently deleted, Cascade PBS first reported Thursday. State Patrol spokesperson Chris Loftis confirmed command staff knew of the issue for more than a year but said Gov. Jay Inslee and Attorney General Bob Ferguson's offices were not informed until this month after Cascade PBS began inquiring about the emails.
"I do not have any information on any other notifications over the entirety of the past year plus," Loftis wrote.
A spokesperson for Inslee's office confirmed it received detailed information about the situation on Aug. 7 this year. A spokesperson for the Attorney General's Office declined to comment as ethics rules prevent the office from sharing communication received from clients.
Loftis said there is no way to accurately estimate the number of lost emails and described the purge as a "regrettable technical and administrative challenge but it has so far not impacted our abilities to provide our core law enforcement duties." Loftis said the State Patrol does not foresee impacts on current or past criminal investigations as any email would be replicated and separately recorded for a case file. Loftis wrote the agency cannot say exactly when all the emails may have originally been sent.
Cascade PBS reported internal communication it requested from the State Patrol warned that "hundreds of thousands" of emails were potentially missing, but Loftis said that estimate now seems to be "excessive."
Loftis said the error was "an honest mistake made by a very caring, careful and professional staff" and they have not discovered actions of intent or negligence requiring discipline.
PBS also reported a staff member wrote they were concerned the records management department would be "hampered in civil legal defense for years to come" because of the failure.
"Not only will we be blind to information we need and surprised in litigation, we may need to duplicate huge volumes of work," the email read.
Loftis said the team is investing in strategies to mitigate any negative impacts of the unrecoverable files and update its current record-keeping systems. He added the State Patrol has not seen any impacts on tort litigation.
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