Bellevue was tired of being on the hook for other cities, Bellevue City Council claimed Monday night as it unanimously approved a resolution to pull out of a law enforcement agreement.
Bellevue Police Department was one of 10 departments in November 2015 to discuss leaving the King County Investigative Response Team, an interlocal team wherein cities would provide investigative support to others regarding “officer involved fatal or serious injury incidents.”
Bellevue had requested assistance once. and had provided it thrice since the team’s founding, twice taking the lead agency role on the investigation. The team was founded in mid-2012 to provide greater transparency in investigating police-related fatalities or serious injuries. The purpose primarily is to determine if shootings were justified.
Det. Amanda Jensen with the Bellevue Police Department said cost was the major factor for the department in wanting to leave the team.
“It had a decent fiscal impact on the department,” she said. “The return was not what we were putting into it.”
Since council had first authorized the team — created by then-Bellevue Police Chief Linda Pillo — Bellevue had spent more than $52,000 in personnel hours investigating other agency incidents. The Bellevue city budget for 2015-2016 slated more than $24 million for patrols and $9.7 million for investigations.
Bellevue was the commanding agency and had “overall responsibility to manage and coordinate assigned incidents, as well as assure the readiness and training of [team] members.” Each department provided a chief or sheriff to be on the team’s board of directors as well as at least one detective, supervisor or commander.
Bellevue provided three Detectives, two Lieutenants and one Major in 2015.
Before King County Incident Response Team was founded, agencies investigated their own incidents. Bellevue Police Department, as well as the departments of Bothell, Issaquah, Kirkland, Mercer Island, Redmond, Snoqualmie, Black Diamond and the Washington State Patrol and King County Sheriff’s Office.
Seattle Police Department never joined the response team.
The resolution passed at Bellevue City Council will terminate Bellevue Police Department’s participation in the team.
This places the onus of investigation back on the individual police department.
“It will go to the discretion of the Chief,” Jensen said. “He can elect to keep it a Bellevue investigation or ask for assistance from other agencies.”
In other City Council news:
• Bellevue installed hearing loop systems in City Hall council chambers, council conference room and Bellevue Youth Theatre, replacing assisted listening systems.
The loop system feeds directly into a wide variety of hearing aids and cochlear implants, assisting hearing impaired citizens.
Cheri Perazzoli, director of advocacy for the Hearing Loss Association of America’s Washington branch, said the move to update City Hall’s American Disability Act standards was an important one.
“Doing so is a tremendous help to people who wear hearing aids or cochlear implants—these folks can now hear clearly in these public places,” she said. “Hearing aids alone are not enough in large venues, so technologies like the hearing loop connect people with hearing loss to public life in the same way that wheelchair ramps connect people with disabilities to public life.”
