Crime is down in Lacey this year, but it won’t last without more officers, chief says
Lacey Police Chief Robert Almada delivered some good and bad news to city council on Thursday regarding the state of crime and policing in the city.
The good news is that through the first nine months of the year, violent and non-violent crime is down 12%, he said.
The bad news is that Lacey, like many communities throughout the country, has experienced a shortage of police officers. Police are accomplishing those results with 50 officers, down 30 percent from the 68 officers he is budgeted to hire.
“The model we’re using is working,” he said about his department.
The reduction in crime is largely being addressed through overtime, Almada said, including the creation of what he called a “business district augment overtime detail,” in which an officer works 6 p.m. to midnight daily.
They patrol the retail areas of the city, including along Sleater-Kinney Road Southeast and in Hawks Prairie, to prevent organized retail theft, he said.
Still, he called the results “finite,” saying there will come a point when his officers will say, “I can’t work anymore, I’m burned out,” he said. Some will need to use their vacation time because they can no longer roll any more of it into the next year, he said.
“We will be out of people. ... We have to get ahead of this,” he said.
He said the department has new officers in the hiring pipeline, but he added: “It takes a long time to replace police officers.”
Almada said he has taken steps to try to streamline the hiring process and to delay promotions to lieutenant.
Although he is authorized to hire around 68 officers, he needs even more than that to bring the department to a statewide average of 1.36 officers per 1,000 residents, he said. At the authorized number of officers, Lacey comes in at 1.15 officers per 1,000 residents. To get to the statewide average, he needs about 80 officers, Almada said.
Council member Lenny Greenstein asked how the council could help.
One area that would help with retention would be providing officers with take-home patrol cars, which they have asked for, Almada said.
That might sound like an unusual request, but Greenstein, who told the council he has participated in recent ride-alongs with Lacey police, confirmed the interest. The topic of take-home vehicles came up in every single conversation he had with police, Greenstein said.
Almada said he has made a budget request, although he’s not sure he’s going to get it.
“There are challenges to take-home cars,” City Manager Rick Walk said. The fleet automatically doubles, there are capital equipment costs and then there is the expanded support network of mechanics and space to work on the vehicles, he said.
“It creates an exponential challenge,” Walk said.
Greenstein acknowledged that it wouldn’t be easy, but it’s something clearly wanted by the officers.
Almada said a phased-in approach to acquiring more vehicles makes the most sense.
This story was originally published October 13, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
