COPS Shop opens at SCC

Spokane COPS opened its 13th COPS Shop Wednesday at Spokane Community College, 1810 N. Greene St., Building 1, Room 149.

“I feel really confident that this will be a very active shop in the next six months,” said Christy Hamilton, COPS director.

The shop is a collaborative effort between Spokane COPS, the Spokane Police Department, the state Department of Corrections and SCC. Because of its connection with the school, Hamilton estimates that the new shop is the first of its kind in the nation.

Typical COPS shops offer information about Block Watch, McGruff Houses, Operation Family ID and other programs. They also answer questions neighbors have when there is a problem in their neighborhoods, such as graffiti, abandoned cars and suspected drug houses.

They also offer a place for neighborhood resource officers to come in, use computers and check on what seems to be the biggest concerns in the neighborhood. It also provides an opportunity for the officers to interact with the neighbors.

The neighborhood resource officer at the new COPS shop is Shanie Redmon.

Some COPS shops also have officers from the Department of Corrections available for parolees to check with on a regular basis.

For those parolees attending SCC, this makes it more convenient for them to check in with their parole officer.

The new COPS shop at SCC also offers opportunities for students in the school’s criminal justice department to volunteer. Since the shop shares office space with campus security, there are other areas to collaborate.

Hamilton noted that campus violence has been in the news a lot in recent years and having campus security affiliated with the COPS shop can only help improve the students’ safety.

Not only will the shop serve the students of SCC, but also the neighbors who live in the Chief Garry and Minnehaha neighborhoods of Spokane.

In the past, these neighbors would have to visit the Logan, North East or East Central COPS Shops, but now, they have their own.

Of course, anyone can visit any COPS shop no matter which neighborhood they happen to live in, but your own neighborhood COPS shop has a better understanding of the issues the neighborhood is facing.

Many of the volunteers that work in COPS shops live in its neighborhoods, so they generally know what is happening there. In the case of the SCC COPS shop, students in the criminal justice department can volunteer, but there is still a need for neighborhood volunteers to man the store.

Each volunteer goes through extensive training to learn to deal with the unique problems every caller has. It might be a noisy neighbor, it might be abandoned cars, or it might be that the caller is simply mad.

Hamilton sites a call she once received from a man who was fed up with his neighbor’s maple tree. The tree was dropping leaves in his yard, and he was tired of raking them. He told Hamilton he was ready to cut down his neighbor’s tree. Hamilton said she learned from the man that he enjoyed the shade the tree provided and eventually calmed him down enough to find out he was just having a bad day.

“We refer people to all kinds of things,” Hamilton said. Many callers to the shops generally don’t know what department or phone number to call.

Other duties include keeping track of all the incidents going on in the neighborhood. Each incident is entered into a log, and many times volunteers are the first to notice patterns.

They also arrange for neighborhood resource officers, and COPS volunteers to talk to children who might be falling in with a bad crowd or explain the consequences of their actions if they have been getting in trouble.

Hamilton hopes the new shop will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day.

The shop is fairly cost efficient, since the school has donated the space. Generally each shop is funded by the police department, and each individual shop also has fundraisers to help maintain it. The Department of Corrections pays for its own space next door to the shop, which Hamilton estimates runs about $1,000 a year. The DOC also supplies all of the paper used in the shop.

Hamilton said that some shops get funds from HUD, as well.

“We won’t have a lot of costs,” Hamilton said of the new shops. “From an economic point of view, this shop is probably one of our least expensive.”

The shop threw a grand opening celebration Wednesday. Guests included Gov. Chris Gregoire, Spokane Mayor Mary Verner, Spokane Police Department Chief Anne Kirkpatrick, City Council president Joe Shogan, DOC Secretary Eldon Vail and more.

There was cake from the school’s culinary arts program and coffee, while visitors were able to find out what is going on at their new COPS shop.

“It’s a nice location,” Hamilton said.

Staff writer Lisa Leinberger can be reached at 459-5449 or by