HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Committees - Public Safety Committee - 05/09/2017Public Safety Committee
Minutes
Approved August 8, 2017
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Date: May 9, 2017
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Place: Chambers East
Attending: Dana Ralph, Les Thomas, and Jim Berrios, Chair
Agenda:
1. Call to Order
2. Roll Call
3. Changes to the Agenda
There were no changes to the agenda.
4. Approval of Minutes dated April 11, 2017
L. Thomas moved to approve the Public Safety Committee minutes dated April
11, 2017. D. Ralph seconded the motion, which passed 3-0.
5. Service Delivery Model – Information Only.
Chief Thomas updated members on how the department is moving forward on
five different service delivery items that include the high volume of calls the
police department directly receive, fraud investigations, electron filing of felony
cases, housing for the fire arms simulator, and evidence storage space.
On average, the department receives 97,000 calls per year; this number does
not include 911 calls to Valley Communications. A couple of ideas that line-
level staff and the Kent Police Officer’s Association have shared with each
division’s assistant chiefs to work smarter, rather than more harder are:
Online police report system: e-reporting, has been reinstated. Once a
resident submits an e-report, through the department’s webpage,
he/she will automatically receive a case number; that report will be
forwarded to the Neighborhood Response Team. Types of reports to file
online are harassing phone calls, identity theft/fraud, damaged
property, theft, hit and run, theft from vehicle, vehicle tampering, and
vandalism. It is estimated that 2000 to 4000 calls per year can be
eliminated.
False alarms: starting June 1, police officers will no longer respond to
unverified, problem or chronic business alarms but will respond to high
risk alarms at gun stores, drug companies, all residential alarms,
camera or sound verification, and/or a witnessed break-in. Staff have
already met with Kent Chamber of Commerce, Kent Downtown
Partnership and alarm companies. Future outreach will be discussed at
Public Safety Committee
Minutes
Approved August 8, 2017
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the May 10 community meeting and finally during the May 16 Council
meeting. It is estimated 99 percent of more than 3,000 calls are false
alarms and that lost cost to the department is $100,000 to $200,000
per year.
Currently, fraud investigations are not getting any prosecutions on lower level
fraud charges. For example, if a credit card is stolen within Kent and that same
card is used in another city police are spending a lot of time investigating in
outside jurisdictions with no results. Command staff is fine tuning how
investigations will be handled going forward; one idea is for the Kent police
department (KPD) to stop aiding outside jurisdictions investigate their own
frauds. KPD is one of the last cities that will investigate fraud outside of Kent.
The way electronic filing of felony cases is being processed is a duplication of
work for patrol officers and detectives. At this time, patrol officers are
investigating, writing up the reports which then get sent to detectives who
have to read through and submit the report. Command staff is considering
giving patrol officers the ability to submit the report eliminating the duplication
for detectives.
The fire arms simulator will be permanently housed at the old East Hill
substation near the training station. Set-up and break-down of the simulator
takes several hours of valuable staff time to complete. The cost to retrofit the
substation will be approximately $30,000.
Last item of discussion was about the lack of evidence storage space and the
current software program. The department is looking to purchase new
evidence processing software program and drying stations as there is not
enough space to dry out evidence. The existing program is slow and arduous
with many duplicate steps needed in order to release old evidence. Staff is also
looking to purchase a commercial refrigerator to accommodate adequate
storage of evidence in one location. Currently, there are small fridges at
several locations. The cost of the new equipment will be approximately
$100,000.
Eventually, Chief will come back to committee to request funds for any
possible future requests regarding the substation retrofit and the purchase of
new evidence equipment.
6. Regional Gun Violence Update – Information Only.
Chief provided an update to gun related violence that has seen a dramatic
increase within South King County cities. Mayor Cooke, Chief Administrative
Officer Derek Matheson and Chief attended a meeting in Federal Way along
with other local area mayors, police chiefs, city managers, city administrators,
the Seattle Police Department, the King County Sheriff, and members from the
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Minutes
Approved August 8, 2017
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Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), Drug Enforcement Administration, and
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF).
Since January 2017, spanning between south Seattle to the King/Pierce County
line, there have been 16 gun related homicides, an additional 48 shootings
where people were injured, and over 100 instances of shots fired. Although not
all instances are gang related the greater portion are. To date, 27 guns have
been reported stolen from vehicles as people are not properly storing their
guns, there were 20 reports last year.
An agreed proactive approach is to refocus the current Valley Narcotics
Enforcement Task Force to become the Valley Enforcement Gang and Narcotics
Task Force which will have full support from the FBI and ATF. Residents are
encouraged “if you see something, say something” even if it’s anonymously
shared information.
7. Chief’s Report – Information Only
Chief spoke on staffing levels in the department. Since the beginning of 2017,
there have been seven to eight officers hired to the department. A new-hire
will be sworn-in during the May 16 Council meeting and there are a couple of
cadets of interest that will be graduating in the next month. A retirement is
coming up in June and a current officer will be leaving the department in
September to be a pilot for a major airlines. Unfortunately, due to attrition
there have been no huge steps forward in staffing levels.
8. Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 5:04 p.m. by J. Berrios.
J. Hays
Jennifer Hays
Public Safety Committee Secretary
May 9, 2017