Police calls triple in Liberty Lake

Clean, tree-lined streets and well-manicured lawns don’t mean an area is without crime.

While the city of Liberty Lake’s population has doubled from 2002 to 2006, the local police are responding to three times as many calls for service this year as they were when the city was founded, with a disturbing increase in the amount and intensity of reported domestic violence, said Chief Brian Asmus.

“It happens everywhere, even in small, affluent cities,” Asmus said. “We’re not immune to crime because of the type of community we are.”

This year, officers have responded to 16 domestic violence cases, Asmus said. Many of them are so serious that people are being injured. One couple used knives against each other. One man’s threat to kill his ex-wife was so serious that Asmus worked to put the man behind bars for as long as possible.

“The severity of the cases this year is much worse,” Asmus said. “It’s not just the pushing and shoving match; it’s serious assault with injuries occurring.”

The domestic assaults are happening in every neighborhood in the city, from the Big Trout Lodge apartment buildings to homes in the elite gated estates of Legacy Ridge.

Domestic violence calls can be some of the most dangerous for officers, Asmus said.

“It’s an emotionally charged situation, and alcohol is often a factor,” Asmus said. “That can make things dangerous.”

State law mandates that anybody who has committed a domestic assault be arrested immediately. Officers give the abused party a packet of information from the Department of Social and Health Services.

But prevention is a difficult task for local officers, who often only find themselves at the violent end of arguments, Asmus said.

“There are too many factors to get to the cause of each case and prevent it,” he said.

Beyond the increase in domestic assault, other crimes in the city have taken an upswing. Earlier in the year, the city saw many vehicle break-ins and thefts, but those have mostly given way to white-collar crime such as fraud, embezzlement and Internet crimes, Asmus said. The city is also seeing some identity theft cases.

In order to keep officers on patrol instead of in the office doing paperwork, Asmus is proposing a first-ever detective position for the department next year. The position would likely be filled by the current sergeant, Ray Bourgeois, Asmus said.

Asmus continues to fight a public perception that the department does nothing but write speeding tickets, he said. In the department’s first year, officers wrote 1,000 speeding tickets. In the past few months, the department averages around four tickets each week.

“People still think we’ve got too much time on our hands,” Asmus said. “It’s just the opposite.”