The Bellevue Reporter sat down with Bellevue Police Chief Linda Pillo to discuss her perspective on issues facing the department and law enforcement. Following is an edited version of that conversation.

Reporter: How would describe the Bellevue Police Department in one word?

Linda Pillo: Outstanding. Our organization is made of of highly trained trained professional personnel.

What’s the community’s biggest concern?

Pillo: Well, in the last few months, we’ve certainly taken a hit with three unrelated personnel matters (Seahawks incident, fraternization, harassment). Each of those incidents were thoroughly investigated and the employees were held accountable for their actions. I can reassure our community that any type of complaint or harassment is thoroughly investigated.

Some in the community seemed to feel that the police officers in the Seahawks incident should have been fired.

Pillo: There are steps that you go through in any process where you need to take a look at the whole picture. Each incident has its particular nuances, so you can’t just put everybody into a bucket and say “fire them all.” We did our research and I truly believe that the discipline that was imposed on these employees was fair and also quite firm. And my colleagues equally agreed.

What’s the biggest frustration you might face on a day-by-day basis?

Pillo: Well, certainly personnel issues are very stressful. We are hiring human beings and we want them to be super-human, but they are definitely human and they make mistakes. I have a feeling that if you asked any CEO what keeps you up the most at night, it’s trying to figure how best to handle each of those. But there are many, many good things.

What are some of those?

Pillo: We still respond and investigate calls that many agencies in this region do not even send an officer out on. For example, car prowls. We gather evidence, we actually have solved many car prowl crimes through latent fingerprints, and bringing these folks to justice.

Just recently, we solved a homicide from 1980 – a cold case. It was fantastic the way our detectives still had those cases open.

Just Tuesday (March 19) we caught four burglars who then took our detectives around and showed them other residences that they had broken into. The majority of residents feel safe walking around their neighborhood and downtown, even after dark. That says a lot.

What are the challenges of dealing with an increasingly diverse community?

Pillo: Language is a big barrier. Then we have the cultural piece. In many countries, there’s a fear of law enforcement. That’s why we are proactive, getting out in the community, educating them, and let them know that we are there to help them.

Have you seen success in that?

Pillo: We have this great initiative going on, citywide, on diversity, where we are doing workshops with all of city employees to learn more about how to do outreach efforts to our diverse community. How to ensure that we’re meting the needs of those communities.

Talk about police officers in the schools.

Pillo: We have a school resource officer in every one of our high schools and one middle officer who is spending his time working through the middle schools. It’s a hard program to measure through their presence how many crimes they’ve prevented, but I know that the work that they do where they identified youth who may need some extra help and have worked with (others) to try to find what that young person needs to get them back on track.

They’re much more a counselor, but they still wear that badge and they do have to do law enforcement.

Do you think having a police officer in a school would prevent a shooter coming in?

Pillo: Our officers are equipped with rifles if they do encounter any active shooter situation. I don’t think having armed security in every school is the answer. I think having a school resource officer in the high schools has done wonders in reducing assaultive behavior, identifying youth and helping them work through various difficulties that they have and really they are a preventative measure. And they have truly helped to keep our schools safe.

Should red-light or speed cameras be used to solve other types of crime?

Pillo: If you were driving out on a public street, I would think you’d have a low expectancy of privacy to have your license plate captured. If, say, at 3 a.m. a major crime occurred near an intersection where a red-light camera was placed, we would want to have the ability to take a look at what vehicles drove through that intersection. [The city also has traffic cameras at some intersections.] If we’re able to get a tape, there’s no restriction as far as being being to review them.

How has technology changed policing?

Pillo: Technology has certainly been an incredible tool, along with DNA, to help solve crimes. When I was a detective, you’d sit at your desk and you’d have to call other agencies. Now it’s just linked through a data base. Being able to have that technology has just truly been a blessing.

Now, there’s a double-edge sword to that, too. It also has increased our fraud cases such as identity theft and ATM skimming. Technology has brought on a whole variety of additional crimes.

Has the use of technology changed who you look for officers?

Pillo: The good news is that our younger officers are being hired and they’re training some of our older officers in technology. They grew up in this technology world. It’s nearly a given that they are very technology savvy.

Looking back on the time you’ve been in law enforcement, are there some things that you would have like to have known then that you know now?

Pillo: We’ve been talking about technology and I’m truly amazed that we were able to solve crimes back in the day without the use of technology. If you look back to years’ ago, the crime rate was much higher in the city of Bellevue with much lower population. Major crimes continues to be at an all-time low.

Is there a trend to the type of questions you get from the public?

Pillo: The only trend-type questions that I get are from people who want to tell me about their traffic tickets. The reason that we pull people over and enforce the traffic laws is for their safety. I think the red-light cameras are a win-win. It is proven that red-light cameras and camera enforcement improves the behavior of our motorists and the revenue, if there is any, goes to other programs that will improve the safety of our community. You can opt out of the camera enforcement program by not committing a violation.

Also, if you do get a violation [from] a camera enforcement, [it’s better for you financially than] by an officer because it’s not considered a moving violation on your driving record so your insurance isn’t affected. Also, you don’t get a higher [penalty based on speed.] If an officer pulled you over, the penalty goes higher the faster that you’re speeding.

Does Bellevue need more staff?

Pillo: You won’t hear my mantra of “we need more people.” First of all I need to make sure that we have done everything we can to work as efficiently and effectively. I challenge my staff, “can you find a better way to get the job done?” The work that we’re doing, is it creating an outcome to improve the safety of the city? If we’re doing work that we don’t have a positive outcome, then we need to make some changes. After all of that is exhausted, then I will look to adding more staff.

Where should the Bellevue Police Department be in the next fine years?

Pillo: My goal is for this year is to get some type of “smart” device into every single first-responder’s hand, whether that’s a smart phone, a tablet, whatever it is. We actually have a [device] out in the field right now that will read a fingerprint. So someone can put their print on the small, little hand device, send it to AFIS, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, and you can get an identification of that person right there in the field. If the officer has any concern whether that person is giving a true identity, we have that device.

What I would like to see five years from now is to use technology to the very best that we possibly can to solve crimes and improve the safety in Bellevue. We’re not there yet, so that would be my goal.

Say there are commercial burglaries that are going on. We’ll put up surveillance cameras. From a tablet, detectives can look right there, real time, at what that camera is capturing. You don’t have to be sitting in that surveillance van and waiting for a crime to occur. It’s amazing what this technology can do to help solve crimes.

Some cities use cameras in high-crime areas. Should Bellevue?

Pillo: It’s very efficient and it’s very effective. There certainly are issues – Big Brother watching – that we will need to work through. It comes down to a trust. I would hope our community would trust their police department to use it legally and not use any video information for anything but to solve crimes.

Any final thoughts?

Pillo: I hope that I’m right in knowing that the community is very supportive of our police department. We have highly trained professional staff who go out there and dedicate themselves to keeping our city safe. Although we’ve had a rough patch, it’s how you address issues within an organization that makes you stronger and. We’re learning to be even better.

About Bellevue Police Chief Linda Pillo

Chief Linda Pillo began her career in law enforcement on Mercer Island in 1979. She came to Bellevue in 1986 and began her career in Bellevue by working patrol. She rose up through the ranks serving in a variety of assignments before becoming Bellevue’s first female Police Chief in 2008.

She is a member of the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, The International Association of Police Chiefs and the Bellevue Downtown Rotary. Chief Pillo is also a board member of the Commission on Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA), a national organization that maintains standards for public safety agencies.

A graduate of Washington State University with a degree in Criminal Justice, Chief Pillo also did post-graduate studies at Seattle University. She is a graduate of the FBI National Academy and has her Executive Certification with the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission.