http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2019/jul/29/study-examining-moving-downtown-spokane-police-pre/
“There are currently 10 officers stationed downtown covering three shifts.”
“Though officers are on foot or patrolling by bicycle whenever they are able to, Police Chief Craig Meidl has said that the department’s first priority will always be to respond to calls for service.”
Good job Adam Shanks, it is nice to see Meidl will answer some reporters questions he sure won’t answer mine.
As I stated in this July 26th, 2019 story;
“The obvious question would be how many of those 10 Officers who are assigned Downtown are actually working Downtown during any given shift or are 10 Officers assigned Downtown every shift?”
https://examplepro.me/2019/07/26/the-gold-seal-of-approval/
Along with the Media the Spokane City Council should be asking one heck of a lot more questions of Meidl.
In case people didn’t do the math 3 shifts of 10 Cops actually turns out to be 3.333 Cops per shift assigned Downtown, no wonder Cops complain about showing up for roll call only to find 1 or 2 Cops in their Sector because so many other Cops are assigned to some specialty detail.
Another common complaint I hear is that often there is no one available at the Precincts and they are always locked up with a sign on the door. So, the obvious question is if there are only 3.333 Cops per shift are they all out fighting crime or do they leave someone behind to watch the store.
What the heck does this mean?
“Though officers are on foot or patrolling by bicycle whenever they are able to, Police Chief Craig Meidl has said that the department’s first priority will always be to respond to calls for service.”
Well of course SPD’s first priority should be to respond to calls, but what all of a sudden changed that prohibits walking beats or bike beats from responding to calls? Okay so if the staffing level per shift is 3.333 Cops and “whenever they are able to” what do the beats look like, are the beats one Cop or two Cop beats?
To heck with trying to point out Mayor Condon and Chief Meidl’s secrecy about how SPD is actually staffed, I’ve done that enough and it is time other people should be asking questions. Speaking of questions Candidate Beggs will likely remember, because he was standing right next to me after a Public Safety Committee Meeting during which Chief Craig Meidl made the absurd statement that he needs more SPD Captains because currently his Captains are so overwhelmed with doing “Crime Analysis” and I tried to ask Meidl why in the heck Captains were preforming a Crime Analysis Function, Beggs had to have noticed how quickly Meidl escaped when someone asks legitimate.
If you are from Spokane and watched how government works here you have to know that any issue has to be brought up over and over depending upon the political climate.
Most people probably don’t remember when City Council Member Mike Fagan was on the Public Safety Committee and he brought questions forward when SPD was going to move from the STA to the Intermodal. (How are things in DC Mitch?)
It is an election cycle so whether you are a Progressive or a Conservative to get elected or re-elected you have to find a way to placate the Downtown Power Structure, especially the Cowles folks so it is no surprise Council Member Lori Kinnear who championed Condon’s choice of Meidl to become Chief of Police wants to get input from “downtown business owners and community members”.
But first, Kinnear said, she wants to get input from downtown business owners and community members.
“We need a process to involve the community that lives and works downtown,” Kinnear said.
So, what does the Downtown Spokane Partnership want for staffing?
The purpose of my FB post above was twofold, first to give folks some idea of what the Downtown staffing levels use to be, and secondly to give other reporters a heads up on how to find some data on the ever-conflicting data associated with calls for service Downtown. Even though I’m fortunate enough to receive documents from other sources because Chief Meidl is wasting a lot of resources trying to find out who leaks information to me I have to also go through the PRR process to protect sources. For those that don’t know the Downtown Core and the East Central Areas are Alcohol Impact Areas (AIA) and SPD has to submit data to the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Control Board annually.
Buffalo Brian Breen 