Cops Volunteer Suspended For Not Following Procedures

Deborah Wittwer, the volunteer architect of one of the city’s most successful community oriented policing groups was suddenly suspended last week by the Spokane Police Department and the COPS board.

Wittwer, co-chair of the Nevada-Lidgerwood organization, was dumped because she was putting the Spokane COPS organization into a “potentially litigious situation” by not following required “procedures for paperwork,” said COPS director Cheryl Steele.

“The board took action to protect the non-profit status” of the COPS organization, said Steele.

Wittwer also made “statements, in several public settings, that cast doubt on community policing and continually cause controversy,” wrote Spokane Police Lt. Glenn Winkey in a letter informing Wittwer of her suspension.

Wittwer refused to comment, saying she was appealing the suspension. Her keys to the NevaWood COPS shop were taken, and she won’t be allowed to volunteer her time.

But members of the neighborhood council had plenty to say.

“Who appointed you God?” Al French, president of the Nevada-Lidgerwood neighborhood steering committee, said in a letter delivered Tuesday to Winkey and Police Chief Terry Mangan.

“Are we to be partners or are we to be adversaries?” he said Monday, questioning the relationship between the police department and the neighborhood COPS shops.

Wittwer helped create the Nevada-Lidgerwood community policing organization, which has been credited with reducing neighborhood crime by organizing observation patrols and an award-winning youth prevention programs.

An unpaid volunteer, she ran the NevaWood COPS organization out of her home for three years. She encouraged neighborhood residents to volunteer more than 31,000 hours and raised money for the $207,000 COPS building now under construction at Addison and Wellesley.

The Nevada-Lidgerwood neighborhood steering commitee recently named Witter the neighborhood’s “Most Valuable Volunteer” for 1995-96.

Steele described Wittwer as a friend with a lot of assets, but said she was not an effective leader. Wittwer did not tell the neighborhood governing board enough about COPS policies and plans, said Steele.

“Deborah was trying to be all things to all people,” said Steele. “I am deeply, deeply sorry that we couldn’t come to an agreement about how her skills could be used in the COPS organization.”

Steele wouldn’t elaborate, citing confidentiality of personnel matters. She said the board had authority to suspend a volunteer who did not follow the rules.

Winkey, head of the police department’s neighborhood resource program, agreed. He also wouldn’t elaborate.

“We offered all the nurturing, teaching, leadership we could,” he said.

French said that assessment is untrue. “The big issue is who has control over neighborhood organizations?” he said Tuesday. “When Spokane COPS was created and NevaWood COPS incorporated into it, we were still under the idea we controlled our own destiny.”

The NevaWood COPS received just $350 from the police department toward this year’s $11,000 operating budget, he said. The organization also has not signed any contract giving the police department and Spokane COPS authority to suspend Wittwer, he said.

“I say this (the COPS organization) is a very controlling institution and intimidating institution,” said French.

Wittwer was told about the suspension when Steele and Winkey showed up at her home Monday, demanding keys to the COPS shop’s Franklin Park Mall office.

The incident has “significantly damaged” morale in the all-volunteer COPS organization, French said. Wittwer’s co-chair, Harmony Dusek-Frederick, resigned in protest.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Jonathan Martin Staff writer Staff writer Kristina Johnson contributed to this story.