Cops Shop Planned On Lower South Hill

The COPS neighborhood crime-fighting effort on the South Hill is expanding to cover a wider area.

Residents living in the southwest section of the city are organizing a new COPS shop to be housed in the lower level of an apartment building at 820 S. Monroe.

COPS Southwest should open within a month, after details of a lease are worked out through City Hall, said Shirley Wilson, an organizer of the new COPS shop.

Spokane’s South Side currently is served by COPS Southeast at Lincoln Heights and the East Central COPS shop.

About 80 volunteers already are signed up so far to staff the new South Side office, take crime reports, patrol the neighborhood and help eliminate graffiti.

“This is a really good cause,” said Wilson. “The police cannot do everything that needs to be done.”

COPS Southwest will share a neighborhood police officer, J.D. Anderson, with COPS Southeast.

The COPS Southwest organization will have responsibility for the area bounded by Interstate 90, 29th Avenue, the Latah Valley bluff and Bernard Street.

Wilson said the organization hopes to curb drug dealing on the lower South Hill, especially near its office in the vicinity of Ninth and Monroe.

, DataTimes