Police chief acts to boost patrols
Spokane Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick is shifting officers in an attempt to reduce the “quality of life crimes” that afflict the city.
Kirkpatrick and Mayor Dennis Hession on Monday announced the shuffle within the Spokane Police Department that will double the officers patrolling the city’s north and south sides between 10 a.m. and 9 p.m., which the department officials call the swing shift.
“In effect … what we are doing is doubling the impact and our police presence, especially in our downtown core,” Kirkpatrick said. “I’m going to put the focus on quality of life crimes, and those are the property crimes, the vandalism and lewd conduct.”
The goal is to reduce response time and provide a police presence in some areas, which may deter “nuisance crimes,” she said.
“Because we have more officers out there … we have more officers available to respond to the 911 calls. So we hope to see that positive impact in citizens’ lives,” she said. “We still have great needs and demands on our services, so I don’t want to raise the public’s expectations. But we are working toward bringing our level of service to a place where their expectations are being met.”
Except for filling 11 vacancies, the city isn’t hiring any more officers. Instead, Kirkpatrick has disbanded a weekend traffic patrol unit and reassigned those officers.
The city once had 16 patrol teams. But a couple years ago, the department cut that back to 14 teams because of budgetary constraints, Assistant Chief Jim Nicks said.
Kirkpatrick’s move, which begins in mid-January, will restore those two teams so the swing shift has a total of four patrol teams.
“It’s just a reallocation of personnel to address the priority of the department,” Nicks said. “We are giving up something on the other end – traffic enforcement on the weekend. We are reassigning them for more efficient use. And this particular time of day is in great need of additional officers, especially in the downtown area.”
Mayor Hession praised the decision.
“There is likely no higher responsibility of this institution than to ensure the health and safety of our citizens and the visitors to our community,” he said.
“The chief and I also share a vision and concern by the public over property and nuisance crimes that have been somewhat prevalent lately. And this is about to change under this new direction.”