SEQUIM — Sequim’s 19 police officers were busier than ever last year, when they arrested 406 on investigations of felonies, 786 accused of misdemeanor offenders and 150 juveniles, Chief Robert Spinks told the City Council this week.
At the same time, the department is understaffed, Spinks added Monday night, with two fewer officers than in 2007 and no executive assistant for the chief.
That vacancy — which he hopes to soon fill from a pool of 71 applicants — is the reason the Police Department Annual Report is coming two months later than it did last year, Spinks added.
His 40-page report included the Sequim 2008 “crime clock” that paints a picture of criminal activity in this town and a paragraph noting that this rural area is a long way from the crime-free image it’s had for years.
Every 38 minutes
In 2008, Sequim officers responded to a call every 38 minutes, including reports of:
• 110 assaults, or one every three days.
• seven rapes, or one every 52 days.
• 286 thefts, or one every 1.3 days.
• 67 burglaries, or one each week.
• four robberies, or one every three months.
Spinks’ report contains a comparison page showing that his city, with 47.4 crimes per 1,000 residents, had a higher crime rate than the statewide figure of 40.1 in 2008.
Sequim was, according to the report, safer than Port Angeles, where the 2008 rate was 52.1 crimes per 1,000 people, and Forks, whose rate was 57.7 per 1,000.
Yet his report found that Sequim wasn’t as safe as Port Townsend, where the rate was 44.8 crimes per 1,000 residents.
Among the better news was a decrease in reports of domestic violence in the Sequim area.
Police investigated 46 reports last year, a drop from 2007’s high of 71, Spinks said.
He added his officers receive annual training in domestic violence interviewing and investigation, and he believes the resulting thorough responses act as a deterrent.
But there’s another effect, a “troubling part of the equation,” he said. Better investigations by police can deter reports of domestic violence.
This necessitates “educating the community while making the policing staff that much more sensitive to being able to build a case with a reluctant victim,” Spinks said, “and to look for the precursors of actual physical assault.”
Though 2008 saw a slight increase in juvenile arrests — 11 more than in the previous year — Spinks emphasized such arrests have dropped 15 percent since 2006, when his officers arrested 176 minors.
“Sequim is not just a community of ‘haves.’ There are a lot of ‘have-nots’ in and around Sequim, and that also means kids who are ‘at-risk,'” he added.
“Some increases in arrests have involved better reporting of victimization by kids, where a suspect may be another juvenile or an adult.”
Sequim officers have striven to build trust with the community’s young people, with school staff and the staff of the Sequim unit of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula, Spinks said.
‘Instrumental’
He believes such relationships were instrumental in several cases of identifying child victims, including several girls who were reportedly sexually assaulted.
As he has done in past years, Spinks highlighted his officers’ swelling workload.
“The department made an average of 2.4 arrests every day,” last year, “while arresting a felon once every 1.1 days. Unfortunately, a juvenile was also arrested every 2.4 days.”
Mayor Laura Dubois, noting that the Sequim Police Department’s $2.4 million budget in 2009 is a large chunk of the city’s $7.8 million general fund budget, said she doesn’t anticipate any increases in police funding next year, other than cost-of-living adjustments.
The city has been hit hard by the recession, she said, so it’s unlikely Sequim can afford to add officers.
Spinks, however, was characteristically upbeat and facile with figures.
“In 2008, the Sequim Police Department was a best buy,” he wrote. “On a per-capita basis, the citizens of Sequim paid 99 cents per day for policing services.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladaily news.com.
