Chief Must Play A Dynamic Role

Wed., May 13, 1998

By John Webster johnwe@spokesman.com (509) 459-5421

Diversity. Connectivity. Community. Sensitivity.

The search for a new Spokane police chief features so many buzzwords that a person might wonder if the city is trying to hire a law enforcement officer or a social worker.

Actually, the chief’s job requires both. Public safety does require more than a badge, a gun and a flashing blue light.

But no one should forget, as Spokane follows up on the good and bad aspects of the last police chief, that in the end, police work seeks the sound of snapping handcuffs and clanging prison doors.

During the tenure of Police Chief Terry Mangan, Spokane became a leader in community-oriented policing, a progressive strategy that gets officers out of their patrol cars and into closer relationships with residents and their neighborhoods.

At the same time, paradoxically, Mangan left scars and suspicions in the community, particularly the black community, as he tried to bring Spokane to grips with the arrival of drug-dealing gangs here.

Combine these experiences - one good, one unfortunate - and the result is a search process designed by City Manager Bill Pupo to overcome the bad with the good. Applying the collaborative spirit of community policing, he has welcomed community comment and interaction as he evaluates finalists for the police chief’s job.

Pupo is trying to build a foundation of trust and engagement, a foundation that can only help when the new chief is on the job and things get difficult - as they surely will.

In a perfect world, catching criminals would not be a politically volatile undertaking. But, tensions over race and class occasionally form barriers between police and the neighborhoods they work to protect. Community policing breaks down those barriers, with its neighborhood cop shops, volunteer networks and neighborhood resource officers.

When there’s a serial killer in town, for example, it helps to have supportive neighbors calling in clues, adding their eyes and ears to those of the police. Same goes for the war on gangs, which have done so much harm to so many neighborhoods and kids.

Spokane’s next chief must know, of course, how to build a professional force that can catch predators and thieves, battle the culture of unsafe driving and gather evidence that will stick in court. The new chief also will need the whole community’s aid, and that’s why all those buzzwords matter.

Local journalism is essential.

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