6:02 PM: Just hours after one of the highest-profile crimes in West Seattle this year, the noontime smash-and-grab robbery at Menashe and Sons Jewelers in The Junction, the city’s bringing its community-safety forum to West Seattle tonight. We’re here at Delridge Community Center for the forum, which is scheduled to be about half speeches – primarily from the city’s three public safety chiefs (police, fire, CARE) – and half table discussions – the tables are labeled with these planned topics:
-Crime prevention and small business activations
-Youth and community investments
-Neighborhood beautification
-Neighborhood traffic safety
-Neighborhood park safety
-High-impact crime reduction
-Substance use disorder response
-Effective emergency response
-Gun violence reduction and prevention
-High-impact crime reduction
We’ll be updating live during the forum, at least every 10 minutes. Organizers were worried about capacity but there’s still plenty of room in the DCC gym as this gets started, so there’s time to get here if you’re interested.
6:12 PM: The emcee stressed that collaboration would be key. Continuing introductory explanations, she walked through what the mayor’s office calls the “One Seattle Restoration Framework.” She introduced District 1 City Councilmember Rob Saka:
“We’re all here because we care about public safety in District 1.” He said it’s the top issue his office hears about. He said he takes the job “very seriously” regarding working on this issue (he is vice chair of the council’s Public Safety Committee). He promised to “listen, learn, and act” as a result of the forum.
SPD Chief Shon Barnes spoke first, saying his presentation at these forums has been “getting shorter and shorter … How do we return Seattle to the Seattle we all know and love?” He said he’d spent his first six months on the job putting together “not just a plan but a commitment to public safety,” which he calls “Seattle-Centric Policing.” It’s “about partnership,” not always police-led, he said, so they have broken it down into priority issues, priority areas, “priority offenders …we have to set them on the right path if we can and if not we have to hold them accountable for their actions.” He said the plan is “crime- and harm-focused” so they can “find the right partner” to address an issue. “It’s city-supported and service-oriented.” He said that in other cities he’s had trouble ‘bringing people together” but not here. He says the work is harder to collaborate with “service providers.” That might include nonprofits, the faith community, people who want to help, people who are already helping.
Communication is key, and he said SPD is changing some of that. They’re working on a “community concern portal .. I know that your concerns are valid, we’re not just going to listen, we’re going to be ‘boots on the ground’.” They’re also piloting “neighborhood-oriented policing” with an unnamed neighborhood where two officers are spending their entire shift in the entire neighborhood, and they’re going to measure whether that reduces crime, adds to neighborhood and officer satisfaction, etc., before potentially expanding.
He said they’re reorganizing the department, with bullet points including combining and centralizing “units that support cre and harm reduction planning and analysis.” That involves developing a lot of strategy for how to address different problems. They now have a new manager dedicated to this area. “We’re working on a more science-based approach,” Barnes said. He spoke about focusing on “an area where people like to go to test fire weapons” in “this precinct” and addressing that. (He didn’t say where; we’ll follow up.) He also mentioned the Real-Time Crime Center.
Moving on to “recruitment and retention,” he said this is on track to be the year with higher hiring than any preceding year, He said that preceded him because the community wanted to “restore the police department” He put up a slide showing that crime is going down in some categories, “but there’s still a long way to go” and he wanted to make it clear he’s not taking a victory lap. “This is good, but we can do better.”
6:22 PM: Chief Barnes said that when things are going better, it’s the time to work together to try to improve. He gave a shoutout to community members including members of the business community – he mentioned going to the scene of the Menashe and Sons robbery to say he was glad to be able to offer a little reassurance to them – “I have a big heart for the business community” because his dad ran a small business.
He promised “you’ll hear from me when things are going well, when things are going not so well … Everything we do to keep you safe, you should see (us) working to solve the problem.” With that, he took a few questions that had be written. The first one was about parking enforcement. Precinct commanders can deploy those officers “as they see fit,” he said. He said that will be part of the Community Concern Portal and that they hope to integrate more concerns into Find It Fix It. “We need quicker response, a more coordinated response ., and we want to be able to report back to you when we found out about the problem, what we did about the problem.” Second question was about ensuring that police investigate crimes reporting online. “We direct people (there) when you don’t have leads” or anything else to follow up on. He said they’d like to “make some tweaks .. improving the customer-service experience” and that his new managerial hire is interested in that.
6:32 PM: Fire Chief Harold Scoggins took the mic. He started by introducing some of his staff. “Saving lives and prtecting property and the environment is what we’re anchored in,” he said, adding that “trust” is paramount, as people trust his crews to come into their home to handle whatever the crisis is. Their job also is “to be a national leader” such as with the Medic One program. He showed and briefly explained his department’s org chart, as well as its non-emergency roles such as building inspections. “Prevention, education, and mitigation: are their focuses. Last year, the department responded to 112,320 calls. more than half of them were “basic life support” (lower-level medical), and more than 10 percent were “advanced life supprt,” with less than a fourth of them “fire-type response(s).” He ended with a plug for the department’s monthly newsletter, promising it will leave you “dialed in”; he pitched the SFD’s blog-format Fire Line website too.
6:42 PM: Scoggins also got to answer questions, revealing they were provided in advance; the first one asked about ways in which the department provides information and education. He mentioned Firefighter Story Times, Fire Safety Fairs, educational events at Housing Authority buildings. Second question: What steps are being taken to ensure enough staff to respond to emergencies? He mentioned the extra ladder truck added to West Seattle back before the bridge closure and the added Medic unit at the same time in South Park. He also mentioned the nurse line through which some 911 calls might be referred if it seems more appropriate than a “lights and sirens response.” He talked about 4,000 calls “pulled out of the 911 system” last year alone to connect people with resources.
CARE Chief Amy Barden was next up. She declared that she’s accessible and ready to answer questions about anything. Her department, with 911 and crisis responders, will mark its second anniversary in October. They have about 30 on the response side. Then comes the dispatch side – the 911 Center has to decide which of the three departments a call should be addressed to. Chief Barden said it’s imperative that the departments be equal – hers, SFD, SPD.
In the first half of this year alone, 911 dealt with 416,615 calls. She said right now they only have three vacancies in the center. She talked about response time, but police are still averaging 11 minutes she said.
6:52 PM: She said that moving 911 into an independent department meant they could participate in the “911 community” nationwide.