Protecting the people

The purpose of the Lynnwood Police Department, which is to maintain law and order, has remained the same. How the department gets the job done has become more complicated and challenging.

When Deputy Chief Dave Ivars joined Lynnwood police 29 years ago, the department employed about 49 people, mostly patrol officers, clerks and jail officers.

Today, there are 115 department employees who work in specialized task force groups and units, according to department records. Of the 67 sworn officers, the most visible are the 44 patrol officers and eight traffic enforcement officers. Other groups, like the five-person Special Operations Section, work in plain clothes or undercover to catch drug dealers, car theft rings and prostitutes.

“We are very efficient in terms of the overall level of service we deliver to the city of Lynnwood,” Ivars said. “We probably do more and accomplish more than any department of our size nationwide.”

The department responded to 38,595 calls for service in 2004, compared to 33,661 calls for service in 2002. Officers made 3,221 arrests, responded to 1,557 accidents and issued 19,585 citations.

That seems like a lot of calls for service and citations for a city of about 35,000 people until you consider Lynnwood’s business community. The number of incidents is so high because the city’s retail stores and offices attract tens of thousands of people per day, Ivars said.

“The reason we are so effective and achieve so much is we invest so much in training. If your staff is going to be professional, they need to be trained,” Ivars said. “There is no short cut to that level of professionalism.”

Officers need the training because law enforcement is much more complicated than it used to be, Ivars said. About 30 years ago an officer could search a vehicle if he or she had probable cause, Ivars said. Today, the officer has to consider search and seizure laws. Ivars noted that the rules to search a glove compartment are different than a truck.

“They (the officers) almost have to have a lawyer in their back pocket,” Ivars said. “Our policy manual is about 400 pages long and they (police personnel) have to know it.”

The most significant change is technology. For instance, it used to take about 14 hours to investigate a significant traffic accident and re-open the road, Ivars said. Today’s crime scene technicians can investigate a similar scene in about an hour because of the latest gear.

Technology also gives officers access to more information, especially on the road. Police officers use computers in their patrol cars to check a license plate or driver’s license record in statewide and nationwide databases. Within minutes or even seconds, the officer can find out if a car is reported stolen or someone is wanted in another state on a warrant.

“The difference is monumental. We are incredibly technology driven,” Ivars said. “Back then, high tech was having a radio with two channels.”

Crime, unfortunately, has changed as well. Criminals used to steal and write forged checks. Today, criminals steal a victim’s financial information and open dozens of credit card accounts and bank accounts in the person’s name, make thousands of dollars worth of purchases and disappear. The victim’s credit history is ruined. Some police officers specialize in identify theft or computer-related crimes because they require a lot of time and expertise to solve, Ivars said.

Ivars said he is personally disturbed about felony crimes among juveniles. When he joined the force 29 years ago, he was arresting teens for blowing up mailboxes and occasionally prowling cars for valuables. Today, the department is arresting kids as young as elementary-school age for assault and other felonies.

The department needs to do more to reach out to kids before they break the law, he said. Today, the Lynnwood Police Department assigns three officers to youth services and issues. In 1996, the Lynnwood Police Department also formed Police Explorer Post 911, a hobby club for young adults ages 14 to 21. The group, which has about nine members, meet with police officers to learn about police work.

The department’s most effective tool remains people and not just police personnel. Residents also have a significant role in crime prevention, Ivars said. Police personnel cannot be everywhere or see everything in town and they are not as familiar with a neighborhood or its concerns as residents. The public is encouraged to contact the department to report local concerns or suspicious activity, Ivars said.

“We like input from the public concerning problems that are not yet crimes but they may be in the category of petty disturbances,” Ivars said. “We like to address those issues before them come major issues.”

For that reason, one of the department’s key secrets to success is volunteers, residents who train and work just as hard as employees to protect their Lynnwood neighbors. Lynnwood Police Department receives calls from other departments nationwide about how to create a citizen’s patrol because of the volunteers’ reputation, Ivars said.

Among the volunteers, the largest and most active group is Citizen’s Patrol, which has at least 50 members to date. Wearing bright yellow-and-black uniforms, they direct traffic away from car accidents, help people who get locked out of their cars or assist officers in other ways.

Citizen’s Patrol volunteers sometimes deter crime by patroling the city in police cars or on police bikes and calling dispatch when they see something suspicious, Ivars said. The Mountlake Terrace Police caught a Lynnwood youth breaking into houses and stealing stuff in Mountlake Terrace because he felt there were too many cops in Lynnwood, Ivars said.

“They (the volunteers) are driving around in vehicles that look like police vehicles,” Ivars said. “Criminals assume there are police in those vehicles.”

The second largest group, Volunteers in Public Safety (VIPS), works by day and is not as physically demanding as Citizen’s Patrol. When residents go on vacation and ask the police department to watch their property, it is the VIPs who make the house checks.

“They make a huge difference in a lot of different ways,” Ivars said.

One of the things volunteers can’t do is detain suspects or keep them in jail. The Lynnwood Police Department’s Detention Division, which has about a dozen employees, operates a municipal jail at the police station, 19321 44th Ave. W.

The Lynnwood Municipal Jail is reserved for suspects who are waiting to be sentenced for misdemeanors or gross misdemeanors or serving their sentences. A stairway leads to the Lynnwood Municipal Courtroom on the second floor.

Once inside the powder blue walls, suspects trade their civilian clothes for bright orange jumpsuits and plastic flip-flop sandals. They also receive a pillow, towel, a toothbrush and comb.

Suspects are contained in four common rooms, three for men and one for women. Each room has a bathroom, shower, a table and chairs and enough bunks for about a dozen people. Everything is anchored to the floor or walls. There is a skylight.

For entertainment, there are several dozen paperback books, board games and a television in three of the rooms. The jail guards control the television channels and only show general audience programs.

The first room doesn’t have a television because it is reserved for suspects recovering from drugs or alcohol. They tend to destroy the television. If someone become physically aggressive, they can be contained in a rubber room or a restrain chair for the short term or transported to another facility.

“It is a pretty low-key place,” said Ivars. “We are fortunate in that the serious criminals, we are able to ship them off to Snohomish County.”

The building containing the Lynnwood Police Station and Municipal Court seems oddly shaped because it was not built for police work, Ivars said. Roughly 14,000 square feet, it is a former medical and dental facility. The city renovated the building and moved in the police department and courtoom personnel in 1993.

The city council pondered building a new police station in 1998 and several times since then. But there are currently no design or financial plans, Ivars said. The city council may reconsider the issue in the near future.

“The day we moved in here we filled every nook and cranny. We have almost doubled in staff in that period of time,” Ivars said. “We are a very busy city for a city of our size.”