After a 2-year hiatus, Spokane’s neighborhood resources officers are back. It’s about a ‘sense of connection’ with police

For two years, the city of Spokane went without neighborhood resource officers as a result of budget problems.

Not anymore.

Following the passage of a public safety sales tax increase proposed last year by Mayor Lisa Brown, the department was able to replace its previously revoked resources into the widely known neighborhood squads Monday.

Officers Deanna Storch, Micah Prim and Tyler Heiman all applied for the open positions and engaged in a selective interview process in which they were picked as neighborhood officers for their “invested interest in neighborhoods” and “wanting to connect with the community,” Prim said in an interview Tuesday.

Storch, who was a neighborhood resource officer in the Nevada-Lidgerwood area for three years, had made valuable connections in that time, such that people were developing enough trust to call her if they felt unsafe, she said.

When the neighborhood resource unit was canceled, she kept up with public safety trends to see how the lack of those neighborhood officers could correlate with crime, Storch said.

She felt like things got worse.

She noted that following the COVID-19 pandemic, police weren’t keeping a close eye on chronic nuisance properties.

“We were starting to clean up those areas and the program got shut down,” she said. “When no one was working those areas, problems grew and we are still trying to get a grip to clean up some neighborhoods.”

It becomes imperative to establish valuable relationships with the community members in those neighborhoods , Storch believes.

“It’s nice to rebuild those relationships with folks that I knew prior. Some of them have been reaching out to me already,” she said.

“I know they feel that sense of connection.”

The officers’ day-to-day duties will center around attending neighborhood council meetings or working with patrol to determine crime hot spots where the officers can focus their attention.

“When we are stationed in those neighborhoods, we have more freedom to tackle those nuisance or quality-of-life issues that patrol has to take calls for service for often,” Prim said.

“Sometimes, when they’re dealing with those 911 calls, they might not have as much time to go work with the community.”

Spokane Police Chief Kevin Hall called the program an example of the commitment of the department to the city of Spokane, which will “build a safer, healthier Spokane together.”

Brown also said in a statement released Monday the program is a “ direct investment in our neighborhoods” to fulfill the public safety goals of the community.

Storch is assigned to northeast Spokane, Heiman to northwest Spokane and Prim to downtown and the South Hill.

In Storch’s experience, dealing with common offenders or neighbors boils down to one mantra: “treat people with dignity and respect.”

“I am just human with them,” she said. “… That’s a huge part of the program.”