Seattle City Councilmember Lisa Herbold shared this news via her constituent newsletter:
Many thanks to SPD for their work to arrest a suspect after last weekend’s late-night shooting at Alki Beach. The arrest of the 21 year old suspect was made in Snohomish County.
Gun violence affects our communities, not only in Downtown, but throughout Seattle. There is no one action that will end violence in our community. All jurisdictions must work together. The City’s 2020 State Legislative agenda states, “We support common sense, responsible solutions to reduce gun violence, including efforts to limit high capacity magazines and expanding gun free zones, and we believe that local governments should have the ability to regulate firearms or weapons to ensure the safety of their communities in accordance with local circumstances.” If you want to learn more, contact the Alliance for Gun Responsibility at the link here.
During the last few years, SPD has conducted emphasis patrols in the Alki neighborhood during warm weather months; the Council approved funding in 2020 to ensure emphasis patrols continue.
Community Service Officers (CSOs) will begin work in coming months. CSOs are unsworn officers who can prioritize community services associated with law enforcement such as crime prevention and non-emergency tasks, and free up SDP officers for 911 response.
Reinstatement of the CSO program has been a Council-driven initiative and the Council, after providing funds in 2017 for the 2018 budget, has been keenly interested in the deployment model for these CSOs. The Council, in 2018, passed Budget Action 38-5-A-2, “SPD Report on CSO Program Development and Implementation.
The CSO program re-launched in April with 10 officers and two supervisors; the jobs were posted in May for application.
The Mayor subsequently proposed adding an additional 5 CSOs and a supervisor in the 2020 budget, which the Council approved. The proposed 2020 budget notes, “The five officers and supervisor will expand the CSO team to 18 which will allow the teams to be based in precincts.” I know that some have suggested that a full third of CSOs should be based in a downtown storefront to address public safety issues in the Westlake area. I will continue to be an advocate for distribution of this important new resource to Southwest Precinct communities, with deployment based upon needs and defined by crime data.
