Photo by iano50 on Flickr.

An analysis of Seattle Police Department staffing by city council staff concludes that more a quarter of officers on patrol---the so-called "first responders" who show up when you call 911---have been on the force for less than three years. Concerns about a force made up largely of rookies came up after a rookie officer, Ian Birk, shot and killed John T. Williams, a homeless, alcoholic Native American, earlier this year.

Overall, officers in their first three years of service make up 11 percent of the police force. However, rookies represent a higher percentage of those on patrol because new officers typically are given patrol duty as their first assignment, public safety committee Tim Burgess says. Burgess says the number of years officers have served isn't "necessarily a huge problem," Burgess says, noting that "there's a difference between the number of years [served] in the department and the age of officers." Most new officers, Burgess says, are between 26 and 30. Birk, who was in his third year on the force, is 27.

Burgess says a bigger concern is the number of SPD officers who are eligible for retirement. Thirty-eight percent of officers have served for more than 20 years. Nine percent have served for more than 30 years, and one officer has served for 49 years.

"There are several hundred who are eligible to retire," Burgess says. "If they all retired at once, we'd be in deep trouble." In addition to producing an overall shortage of officers, a mass retirement would lead to a surge of inexperienced rookies on the force.

At today's meeting, deputy police chief Clark Kimerer said, "We're not sure what to do about that wave of retirements. It's going to be very, very challenging. ... There's going to be a real bill to pay in the not-too-distant future."

Part of the problem, Burgess says, is that police hiring tends to fluctuate wildly based on how much money is in the budget. One year, for example, SPD hired 117 officers; last year, according to the report, the department hired just 21; "unusually," according to the report, "all were males."

"We need much more efficiency to have steady hiring," Burgess says. "The first step would be to agree on exactly what size police force we need. Once we've agreed to that, you just allocate the money you need to hire more officers---say, 20 to 40---instead of having these big spikes."

In the next year, the police department will transfer 30 officers from other areas to direct patrol duty to bring the total number of officers on 911 duty to 583---still short of the 605 patrol officers called for in the city's neighborhood policing plan.