Local force
From a freshly paved cul-de-sac 350 feet above about 3,200 homes, with tree-lined streets and manicured lawns, Liberty Lake can appear idyllic.
And as Police Chief Brian Asmus sees the city from his SUV parked in the Legacy Ridge development, things do look good – mostly.
“It’s a safe place, everyone has that perception,” Asmus said. “But the criminal element realizes that and they end up victimizing people.”
The safe streets that make Liberty Lake an attractive city to live in also attract several property crimes. Violent crimes dropped from seven to two from 2004 to 2005, but property crimes increased 16 percent, from 95 in 2004 to 110 in 2005.
But that keeps police busy in a town that some might shrug off as sleepy. As the city has grown since its 2001 incorporation, its troubles have shifted from speeders to stealers.
“I remember our first year there were 1,000 speeding tickets,” Asmus said. “We took a lot of heat for that.”
Liberty Lake became known as a merciless speed trap. Eventually people got the message, Asmus said, and now the department writes two to six tickets each week.
“People are slowing down, and we also don’t have the time that we used to,” he said. “We’ve been busy with other issues.”
Most of those other issues involve property crimes, such as car break-ins, garage thefts, Internet crimes, and identity thefts and fraud.
“Those crimes are hard to solve,” he said. “But we’ve been very good at solving them, but part of that is luck and part of that is good police work.”
Property crime cases take more time and are harder to solve because the department is so small – at only eight full-time and two reserve officers – that they don’t have a detective to follow investigations. Instead, the officer who responds to each call follows the case all the way through to its prosecution.
It may sound like a lot of work, but it ends up being a morale boost for officers, Asmus said.
Last month, Officer Erin Lance arrested 25-year-old Robert Hahn outside of a Spokane County courtroom in connection to thefts in Liberty Lake. Lance had taken a fingerprint on a car break-in last May, followed the case, found Hahn’s identity and used pawn shop records to link him to dozens of other crimes in the city.
Going full circle on a case is rare for officers, Asmus said.
“Officers can see they’re making an impact,” he said. “Most officers never see that happen, but being a small agency, we can.”
Plans are in the works to hire a full-time detective next year, Asmus said. The position will likely be filled by someone within the department, he said.
Whoever is hired will have a technologically advanced police force working with them.
Each police cruiser is a rolling library of information. Officers can check a suspect’s criminal history and booking photos from their cars. They also get instructions from their central dispatch via messages on the computer, sometimes circumventing radio commands. Officers can send messages to each other on the computers instead of over the airwaves.
Also, several cameras that peer down on properties like Pavillion Park and City Hall can be watched from each car. A check last week showed live video of several young people skateboarding in the park.
Asmus said he hopes to expand the system, and might even get a portable unit that can be set up in a high-crime area such as a construction site to record video that can be checked live by any officer at any time.
Along with watching the community 24 hours a day, police officers in Liberty Lake can be easily reached. Officers carry cell phones that any resident can call. If a resident goes on vacation, officers will make a log of the number of times they drive by to check on the house, then give the vacationers their reports when they get back.
Police also interact regularly with the community. Asmus meets quarterly and gives a “Meet the Chief” talk, and officers help citizens participate in the neighborhood watch programs and the McGruff House program.
It’s a long way from where the department started. Asmus was hired as chief in December 2001 and was told he had six months to have a full-fledged police department. By May 2002 officers were on 24-hour coverage, and agreements and contracts were in place for dispatch services and jail use.
The department now runs on a $759,000 budget, and there is one officer for every 650 people. The city of Spokane keeps about 1 officer to every 700 people, including detectives.
The steady growth has kept city officials happy. Liberty Lake Mayor Steve Peterson said a local police force makes for quicker response times and better interaction with the community.
“To have your chief and some of your officers live in the community, it makes them more effective in their relationships with not only the parents but the kids in the community,” Peterson said.
As the city grows and crime filters in, Peterson said, the community is lucky to have its own force to take care of local problems.
“Heavy duty things have been cared for that might not have been if we didn’t have our own presence,” he said. “It’s been a really good thing for the city.”
The department has helped with large cases, such as a doctor who fled Pennsylvania and moved to Liberty Lake. Richard W. Illes Sr. was arrested in December 2002, and Asmus flew to Pennsylvania to testify in his murder trial. Illes was found guilty of killing his wife.
But some cases aren’t so big. Part of an officer’s responsibility is animal control, said Lance.
If an officer sees a dog on the loose in the city, they’ll do their best to catch it and take it to the Harvard Gentle Care Animal Hospital, where it will wait for three days for its owner, then get sent to SpokAnimal CARE, she said. If the dog is too unruly, though, officers will call SpokAnimal for help.
In the meantime, the city of Liberty Lake shows no signs of slowing down. A new annexation and plans to build hundreds more homes will keep the department busy but Asmus said he has a strategy.
“You just have to stay ahead of growth, and not just respond to calls for service,” he said. “The only way to have an impact on crime is to be proactive. You can’t be reactive.”