Krista Bair, who last June became the second female Precinct Captain in Seattle Police Department history when she was assigned as Commander at the Southwest Precinct took time with Westside Seattle last week to talk about her leadership style, women in law enforcement, and local issues. Her demeanor, a blend of authority and genuine warmth, set the stage for an intimate conversation about policing in Seattle.

Bair is a 29-year veteran of the force and describes the West Seattle community as generally supportive of law enforcement. This rapport, she believes, is vital to effective policing.

A champion of collaborative leadership, she places a premium on building trust and mutual respect, both within her precinct and with the broader community. "I am all about collaborative leadership," she stated, emphasizing the need for buy-in from the officers under her command. "They have to trust you to be able to tell you what is needed or wanted." This trust, she explained, is cultivated through consistent effort: visiting roll calls, going out to calls, interacting with officers as people, not merely as instruments to complete tasks.

This approach extends to her communication style, which she describes as transparent and explanatory, inspired by the current Chief, Sue Rahr's approach.

She acknowledged that the Southwest Precinct is a place where many officers seek to serve since it is widely known there's a strong sense of shared purpose and camaraderie.

Talking about how police deal with people that might call for the use of force, one option that had been considered was the Bolawrap system. It's a device that uses weighted kevlar cables that wrap around the arms and legs of a suspect, launched with small compressed air charges. It was tested by SPD last year. "It didn't work, Bair explained," The Seattle Police Department continues to look for innovative ways of doing police work and Bolawrap was a potential tool in the toolkit...You have to be willing to try different things in order to move us along."

Still in that toolkit is a new and improved Taser. The TASER 10. It's designed with a 10-probe capacity and a maximum range of 45 feet, making it one of the most advanced and effective TASER devices available.

Bair's commitment to collaborative problem-solving is evident when discussing the Southwest Precinct's approach to crime prevention and community concerns. She pointed to initiatives like the C.A.R.E. team launched a year ago which partners with other city agencies to address complex issues like homelessness and mental health crises. This unit, she explained, goes beyond simply displacing individuals, striving instead to connect them with resources and support. More on C.A.R.E here.

"We want to solve the problems if we can. We don't want to just move people from one location to another," she said. Bair acknowledged that while some individuals embrace these services, others do not. This, she pointed out, is often intertwined with underlying issues like mental health and addiction, creating a cyclical challenge for law enforcement.

Data-driven policing, the result of which can be seen on the SPD Data Dashboard, Bair explained, plays a key role in informing these strategies and ensuring that resources are allocated efficiently. She stressed the fundamentally critical role of community reporting in this process, urging residents to always call 911, "You have to trust the process, and the police reports have to be made in order for our data-driven unit to be able to look at the data." She is aware of what can seem to sometimes be slow response times but the calls remain vital to reducing crime over all. 

Bair acknowledged that data-driven approaches can sometimes lead to displacement of criminal activity rather than outright elimination. However, she emphasized the importance of disrupting criminal patterns, quoting the perspective that "while displacement is always a concern, disrupting criminal activity has value in itself."

On youth crime and issues around it she said, "It's about your community getting involved. You've got your teachers that are involved with the parents that come up with a plan on how to be the best school for their children. It's multifaceted. It connects to everything. So, it's all about trying to establish these things before we are needed."

The conversation shifted to the persistent issue of late-night disturbances on Alki Avenue. She expressed genuine sympathy for residents grappling with noise, reckless driving, and a sense of disruption to their lives. "They have a right to live somewhere that's peaceful and not disruptive, and this poor community hasn't," she stated. She commended their efforts to engage with various stakeholders, including the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), the mayor's office, the Seattle Police Department (SPD), and Seattle Parks and Recreation.

Touching on the potential of surveillance cameras on Alki, promised by Councilmember Rob Saka at a community meeting last summer, she noted that they were recently approved for three areas in Seattle by the City Council. "Clearly, there has to be a pilot. They've got to do studies and figure out if it works... I'm very excited about this though because we'll be able to evaluate it to see if it is something that's successful so that we can indeed expand it if need be."

Cameras as tools can have value as she explained to be used as evidence or to lead an arrest if they are being seen by people with training. "Getting real eyes on from people that have that kind of background and experience and be able to kind of talk you into it is just advantageous all around. I personally think it can only be a wonderful tool to assist the entire community in keeping things as peaceful as possible."

She noted that this kind of data feeds into the Real Time Crime Center. "Wouldn't it be really helpful for the person in the real time crime center to be able to connect with dispatchers and basically say, "Hey, an officer's coming into the area. We just saw a subject that matches that description and he's on this side of the building."

Bair acknowledged that progress on this front has been frustratingly slow. "It's an ongoing issue," she said, stressing that this is not just a seasonal problem. She recounted her own experience witnessing cars driving over lawns and curbs to exit Don Armeni park, noting the disconnect between the intended closure and the reality on the ground.

She detailed her efforts to collaborate with partners on potential solutions, including standardizing park closure times across Alki Beach and Don Armeni to avoid confusion. She also discussed the possibility of environmental design modifications, such as heavy-duty planters, to deter cars from driving over medians.

Bair’s pragmatism extends to the topic of recruiting and retaining officers in a challenging climate for law enforcement. When asked about the $50,000 signing bonus recently offered to experienced officers, Bair acknowledged its potential appeal but cautioned, "I don't want people doing this job for the money...The whole goal of this job, in my opinion, is to serve the community, and if you don't have that heart, it is going to make your job harder."

Mayor Bruce Harrell has announced a comprehensive recruitment and retention plan to address the loss of over 400 officers in the past two-and-a-half years. 

In 2020, the Seattle Police Department (SPD) had approximately 1,369 sworn officers. However, since then, the department has experienced a significant decrease in staffing. As of December 31, 2023, the SPD had only 424 officers working patrol.

This reduction in force has been attributed to various factors, including retirements, officersleaving for other departments, and challenges in recruitment and retention

The recent change to alarm responses by SPD was discussed. As of October 1 SPD will no longer respond to just an alarm. There are 13,000 alarms every year, with the vast majority of them being false. "It's about corroborating evidence," Bair explained, "when you have a false alarm... having things like a witness on site saying, "I saw somebody going in, or the door is open or there's a broken window" or something to corroborate with that alarm, that gets us responding." Which suggests again the importance of cameras as security tools. Not having to respond to every alarm is already proving to be a major time saver. It's approaches like this "which gets officers back on the street to handle calls that are actually in progress. We have all these tools in our our toolkit. Some things work, some things don't. We adjust, we pivot. The alarm thing is one innovative thing that we are doing. The other thing that's freeing up our officers is the C.A.R.E (Crisis Response) team that's out there.

They are amazing. and an amazing partner with us. They're twofold. They oversee the 911 communication center and then they also have behavioral therapists that go out. I literally just used them last Friday. I didn't have them before when I was in patrol. And it brings a lot of assistance and different perspectives and how to deal with different kinds of calls. C.A.R.E are able to hear a call, come out and say, "Hey, this sounds like something maybe our C.A.R.E officers could respond to,"

C.A.R.E. personnel are often dispatched together with police officers. Once a way forward has been determined, the officers can often leave and as such "they're freed up for more calls."  She noted that "the behavioral therapists are the ones that specialize in this and are appropriate to handle these kinds of things and have really helped with prioritizing our responses to more police specific calls, specifically violent crimes. That's huge. So, I'm super excited about that."

The conversation concluded with a reflection on Bair's role as a trailblazer for women in law enforcement. "I think this is the best profession, she said. "It's a challenging profession. but can be a lot of fun. You can make a lot of relationships outside of the department with people you've met.. and what a great chance to touch people's lives. I think honestly it puts things in perspective. It makes you appreciate what you have in the world as far as your impact, as far as the choices you make. It feels good to help others."

She acknowledged the evolution she has witnessed in her nearly three decades with the department, noting, "I definitely think the women that are on our department now have a lot more opportunity to be better heard, to have more opportunities to do a variety of things."

Bair emphasized that policing is not simply about physical prowess, a misconception that may discourage some women from pursuing this career path. "This job is not all about going hands-on and tackling people," she clarified. While physical strength is part of the training, she stressed the multifaceted nature of the work, emphasizing the importance of communication, legal knowledge, and the ability to build strong cases.

She said that the ability to communicate clearly is central to good police work. "Getting all your elements in place, making sure you know the laws and being able to get a solid case so that hopefully you have a way of getting this person to have the consequence that they need to have, or getting the resources to help them or whatever the case is."

Bair's passion for her work and her commitment to serving the community are palpable. When asked what advice she would offer to young women considering a career in law enforcement, she shared, "This profession has afforded me all sorts of opportunities. It's assisted me to be financially stable. I have a lot of different things that have been  presented to me that I've been able to partake in such as getting to work with victims of sexual assault and domestic violence being able to mentor or lead and develop our future officers."

Bair's story is not just about breaking barriers; it's about embodying the values of service, collaboration, and unwavering dedication to building a safer and more equitable community.