Spokane police announces major reorganization, emphasis on patrols and reducing 911 response times

The Spokane Police Department and Mayor Nadine Woodward announced Thursday a major reorganization of local law enforcement in an effort to cut down 911 response times, reduce overtime and better serve the community.

Police Chief Craig Meidl laid out plans to move dozens of officers and command staff to the patrol division and assign patrol teams to one of four precincts – northeast, northwest, south and downtown – reducing drive time and giving officers a sense of ownership over particular areas of the city.

The changes are set to take effect Sunday.

The increase in officers will be most pronounced downtown, where currently there are only about three officers at any given time, except during emphasis patrols around downtown bars on Friday and Saturday nights. By next week, the number of officers regularly downtown will double, Meidl said.

Overall, the number of patrol officers will be increasing from about 115 to 145, accompanied by 16 corporals, 22 sergeants, 11 lieutenants and four captains working patrol, an increase of 14 supervising officers. Downtown Spokane will be assigned 25 officers while the other three precincts will each be assigned 40 officers.

The new patrol officers will be reassigned from elsewhere in the department, including traffic officers, neighborhood resource officers, and members of other specialty units. The Major Crimes and Domestic Violence units will not be affected nor will any other detective positions, Meidl said.

“This implementation does come at a cost,” Meidl said. “We didn’t have officers in positions that we didn’t need or want there, but one of the things we realize is that the No. 1 priority has to be our response to 911 calls.”

To mitigate the impact of reducing the number of traffic officers, the department is pushing for the purchase of speed radar systems for all patrol vehicles, Meidl said. The City Council has approved around 10 radars under a pilot program, he said. Patrol officers will be expected to still enforce traffic violations when not responding to calls.

It isn’t the first time the department has reassigned traffic officers to the patrol division. In 2021, the entire traffic unit was eliminated due to staffing shortages, though it was later reconstituted.

With the reassignment of neighborhood resource officers, who focus on improving quality of life issues in neighborhoods, patrol captains will become the point of contact for neighborhood concerns, Meidl said.

The changes were prompted in part by concerns raised by officers and command staff, Meidl said. A survey released last year indicated low morale was a rampant issue in the department with respondents citing understaffing, especially in the patrol division, making it common for officers on one shift to be held over for part of another shift.

“Our officers truly are frustrated that they’re not able to provide the level of service that they would like to in the community,” he said.

Calls for police have also increased in number and complexity, leading to excessive overtime and burnout, according to Meidl. There were nearly 240,000 calls for police in 2022, or about 273 calls per day, a 6% increase from the prior year. Of those, SPD responded to nearly 100,000, 5.7% more than in 2021.

The City Council budgeted for around $2.8 million in overtime in 2022, but the department was expected to rack up an additional $5.3 million in overtime costs by the end of the year. The increase in patrol officers is intended to reduce the amount of mandatory overtime the department had implemented to ensure it was meeting minimum staffing requirements, Meidl said.

For example, Meidl anticipated the department will be able to eliminate the emphasis patrols near downtown bars on Friday and Saturday nights when five to six officers work overtime details.

The additional patrol officers and the assignment of patrol teams to particular sectors will not only help shorten response times to 911 calls.

A captain will be assigned to each of the four precincts along with dedicated command staff and patrol officers. This change will allow patrol captains to take ownership for problems occurring in their sector, Meidl said, with dedicated resources that can be deployed according to their priorities.

As the department adds more officers, those four precincts could be broken down further into specific neighborhoods, he said.