Sheriff's policing plan leaves no cops in Skyway overnight

SKYWAY, Wash. - One of King County's highest-crime neighborhoods no longer has cops at certain hours of the night under a change in how the Sheriff's Office does policing.

Residents in unincorporated Skyway recently learned they have to share police officers with White Center between 2 a.m. and 10 a.m. And they're not happy about it.

Neither are firefighters, who must rely on police to secure a crime scene before they can treat victims of shootings, stabbings or other violence.

"We have already seen a dramatic increase in law enforcement response times on several emergency incidents in Skyway," Fire District 20 Chief David Crossen wrote in a recent letter to Sheriff Steve Strachan.

"It is my opinion that the law enforcement staffing levels being provided in Skyway are putting your deputies and potentially our fire service personnel in an unsafe and ineffective situation," the letter said.

Skyway, White Center and slices of Boulevard Park and South Park are part of a densely populated urban zone with a high rate of violent crime. Skyway, located between Seattle and Renton, has about 15,000 residents, and many are low-income.

One of Sheriff Strachan's first big initiatives after he replaced Sue Rahr in March was to implement a new zone-based model for police service in King County. The thrust of the plan was to make the Sheriff's Office more efficient and flexible in handling 911 calls and to reduce overtime.

The Sheriff's Office, which has lost 143 positions since 2007 through cuts and annexations, exceeded its overtime budget by $1 million in 2011.

The move also comes at a time when residents of the West Hill area, which includes Skyway, are considering whether to annex into the city of Renton. An annexation vote is slated for Nov. 6 after a divided Renton City Council voted to move forward. But Renton officials haven't yet figured out how they'll afford providing basic services like police to the area.

Since Skyway is a pocket of unincorporated urban land, it's expensive for King County to police because the county doesn't have the same tax options as cities to pay for providing services.

Previously, Skyway and White Center each had two officers on duty at all times. Another officer roaming between areas would back them up.

Now, three officers patrol the whole zone overnight -- about 8 square miles -- and respond to calls from White Center. The zone plan took effect in May.

The change was made after considering resources and 911 calls, which drop off significantly after 2 a.m., Sheriff's Chief Deputy Dave Jutilla said.

As a result, the Sheriff's Office was able to put more officers on duty during the afternoon and evening, when 911 call volumes are heavier, Jutilla said.

But for officer safety reasons, officers working between 2 a.m. and 10 a.m. stick together in one area. One officer wouldn't work alone in Skyway, for instance, while the other two are in White Center.

And that has residents concerned. The two patrol areas are divided by Interstate 5, a slice of Tukwila, and Boeing Field. It can take 10 minutes or more for an officer to drive between them.

And a typical domestic violence case, for example, can tie up an officer for two hours or more.

"We have four liquor establishments that close at 2 a.m., and it is therefore unacceptable, unsafe, and unconscionable to have all cars assigned to White Center, and none in Skyway, during these hours," longtime resident Sonja Bowden wrote in letters to Strachan and King County Councilmember Larry Gossett.

"Our citizens are left with no one to provide immediate 911 response between the hours of 2:00 and 6:00 a.m., and if this was common knowledge, taxpayers and citizens would be outraged, and justifiably frightened."

The Skyway area had 4,461 911 calls in 2011, the second highest of patrol districts in what was then the Sheriff's Office West Precinct (now designated as Zone 4).

Gangs and shootings are frequent problems in the area. Four of seven homicides investigated by deputies in 2011 occurred in unincorporated areas in the West Precinct, as well as about 20 percent of all domestic violence incidents, according to an analysis of Sheriff's Office crime statistics. (This sentence has been updated to correct earlier information).

Bowden said she'd heard from a deputy that gang members also were aware of the change and planned to take advantage. She was among 60 people who attended a community meeting Tuesday to voice concerns to a Sheriff's captain who oversees the zone.

Councilmember Gossett, the council chair, also wrote the sheriff, saying he'd a received a number of emails from concerned citizens. Gossett could not be reached Wednesday for comment.

Bowden said she understands that money is tight. But it seems like urban unincorporated areas are taking the brunt, she said.

"This area really has to fight back when these things happen because the bar is set pretty low here," she told seattlepi.com. "We do have a pretty high crime rate and we need to keep a lid on it."

The Sheriff's Office polices an unincorporated population of about 305,000, spread out over 2,100 square miles. The Sheriff's Office also runs municipal police departments under contracts with cities such as Burien and Shoreline.

After an audit and an exercise led by a Boeing consultant in finding efficiencies, the Sheriff's Office shifted from the old system under which the county was divided into three geographical areas, each under a precinct.

The new system treats the entire county as one large precinct divided into four zones. The benefit of the new system, Sheriff's officials say, is that police resources can be more easily shared across zones to react to crime trends or staffing shortages.

The Sheriff's Office also has stopped responding to low-priority calls between the hours of 2 a.m. and 1o a.m. to free up deputies for more serious crimes. Calls that will go unanswered until morning include burglaries and car thefts in which the thieves are gone and lives aren't endangered.

In Skyway, deputies can request aid from Seattle or Renton police, or even other deputies working in areas east of Renton, Jutilla said. If officers aren't available for a 911 call in White Center, then officers from Burien could respond, Jutilla said.

A similar controversy erupted on Vashon Island after residents learned of a proposal to replace their full-time police coverage during off-hours with two on-call deputies.

"This was the biggest deployment change our department has made in decades," Jutilla said. "We are the in the beginning stages of implementation and we'll continue to evaluate and re-evaluate and make adjustments."

"We want to do what's right and appropriate for the community," Jutilla said.

In 2010, King County voters rejected a sales tax increase to pay for criminal justice services.

But if the new patrol plan makes too many people unhappy, it could become an election issue. Strachan, a former Kent police chief, is running to permanently succeed Rahr, who left this year to run the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission.

Facing him in the Nov. 6 election will be retired Sheriff's Sgt. John Urquhart, who most recently had been Rahr's spokesman. Urquhart attended Tuesday's meeting in Skyway.

If elected, he would return 24-hour police coverage to Skyway, even if it meant spending some overtime, Urquhart said. But he thinks money could be found to restore police service in the area.

"Response time matters and fast response times can save lives," he said. "And if you have to send a deputy from White Center, that's not a fast response time."

"The No. 1 duty of a police department is reactive patrol -- we have to answer those 911 calls," he said.