City to concentrate extra officers in downtown Spokane over 30-day crackdown on ‘predatory’ crime

Police will concentrate their resources over the next month on Spokane’s downtown to tamp down crime in the city’s core.

The effort is a pilot program for what Mayor Lisa Brown and newly installed police Chief Kevin Hall hope will be Spokane’s new approach to public safety.

“This is how we hope to develop strategies and programs and policy in the future – evidence based, data driven and science informed,” Hall said. “I’m five weeks on the job, and this is our first foray into how I believe we’re hoping to approach policing in the next few years in Spokane.”

The “Crisis Outreach, Response and Engagement” plan will deploy at least eight additional officers to the downtown area each day over thirty days. They will add to the 24 current officers assigned to the downtown precinct.

According to Hall, these new officers will target micro-areas in downtown that have had the most crime in the recent past. On foot and bike patrols, these officers will identify the “most predatory” in those areas and “stabilize downtown,” Hall said.

The CORE plan will also expand the number of first responders and behavioral health providers who will join these officers, including from the city’s Behavioral Health Unit, Behavioral Response Unit and CARES Team. Those in need of opioid use disorder treatment or other assistance will be directed to those resources.

“Folks who want treatment will find treatment. And the folks involved in criminal behavior will be arrested and no longer welcome in the area,” Hall said.

Crimes targeted by this additional police force include open air drug use, trespassing, vandalism, unlawful camping and pedestrian interference, he added.

The 30-day campaign will begin Monday. Brown called the strategy a “coordinated, holistic approach” that aims to become a long-term solution. Should the new strategy be found effective, it could “absolutely” become permanent, Brown said.

The pilot program is a redeployment of city resources and a new expense. The additional police officers will be paid for out of the department’s existing overtime budget. Hall stressed the CORE plan will not impact any other precincts in the city outside of downtown. But should the program become permanent, Brown said her administration would work with city council to find the funds in a city that is already overbudget.

“Unhoused, lack of behavioral health and criminal activity associated with fentanyl – the scale is large, and our resources have not been adequate to meet the scale of the problem,” she said. “The long-term growth of these structural problems is not going to disappear overnight, and we will need to continue to evaluate if we have resources deployed as efficiently and effectively as possible.”