City Hall
Where Those 30 Cops Are Coming From
Mayor Mike McGinn has hyped the fact that he's proposing to move the Seattle Police Department to "an all-time high of 585 sworn officers assigned to patrol in 2011, up from the current record-high of 555 officers" as part of his proposed 2011 budget.
While that's true, there's a flip side that has gone underreported: None of those 30 officers are actually new; all, in fact, are being moved from other areas of the department. That means that, like King County Sheriff Sue Rahr's department, SPD will lose services in areas other than patrol, including detectives who investigate crimes.
McGinn's office provided PubliCola with a breakdown of the current positions held by the 30 reassigned officers. None of these positions will be refilled unless the city's budget recovers in the future.
• Seven officers will come from SPD's Community Police Officer program. CPTs patrol specific problem areas in neighborhoods, getting to know local residents and business owners and patrolling the same areas again and again.
• Six new patrol officers are currently SPD desk clerks, which will now have just one work shift's worth of desk clerk time per day. Desk clerks staff SPD's five precincts.
• All three of SPD's mounted officers will be eliminated and moved to car patrols.
• Two traffic enforcement officers who were originally assigned to Link Light Rail will be moved to patrol.
• Six detectives---two from narcotics, two from burglary/theft, one from homicide, and one from forgery, fraud, and financial exploitation.
• Two officers who investigate reports of suspicious activity and potential terrorism---will be moved to patrol.
• One of the city's five disaster planning officers will be moved out of that office.
• One officer (of three) in charge of ensuring SPD is accredited will be reassigned.
• One SPD training officer will be moved, leaving nine officers to train new SPD recruits. And
• One of four detectives in charge of doing background investigations on new recruits will be reassigned.
Additionally, under the mayor's budget, SPD would no longer hire the 62 new police officers that have long been planned as part of the city's neighborhood policing plan.
While that's true, there's a flip side that has gone underreported: None of those 30 officers are actually new; all, in fact, are being moved from other areas of the department. That means that, like King County Sheriff Sue Rahr's department, SPD will lose services in areas other than patrol, including detectives who investigate crimes.
McGinn's office provided PubliCola with a breakdown of the current positions held by the 30 reassigned officers. None of these positions will be refilled unless the city's budget recovers in the future.
• Seven officers will come from SPD's Community Police Officer program. CPTs patrol specific problem areas in neighborhoods, getting to know local residents and business owners and patrolling the same areas again and again.
• Six new patrol officers are currently SPD desk clerks, which will now have just one work shift's worth of desk clerk time per day. Desk clerks staff SPD's five precincts.
• All three of SPD's mounted officers will be eliminated and moved to car patrols.
• Two traffic enforcement officers who were originally assigned to Link Light Rail will be moved to patrol.
• Six detectives---two from narcotics, two from burglary/theft, one from homicide, and one from forgery, fraud, and financial exploitation.
• Two officers who investigate reports of suspicious activity and potential terrorism---will be moved to patrol.
• One of the city's five disaster planning officers will be moved out of that office.
• One officer (of three) in charge of ensuring SPD is accredited will be reassigned.
• One SPD training officer will be moved, leaving nine officers to train new SPD recruits. And
• One of four detectives in charge of doing background investigations on new recruits will be reassigned.
Additionally, under the mayor's budget, SPD would no longer hire the 62 new police officers that have long been planned as part of the city's neighborhood policing plan.
