A man sits on the corner of the street, talking to a passerby. A Bellevue police squad car camped on the other side of the street has a good idea what’s coming next.
The man motions for the passerby to follow another man into a nearby apartment. A drug deal has just been completed.
Police know this scenario, but have little ability to stop it. Now, they want the city to step in to stop this street-corner drug business.
Representatives from the Bellevue Police Department spoke to the City Council on Monday about crafting an ordinance that would allow officers to approach, confront and search known drug dealers, users and gang members loitering on primary arterial roads.
Bellevue police officers insisted that the ordinance would not give them free range to approach any “sketchy” looking character on the street.
“This isn’t something where we can say, ‘oh, that guy on the corner doesn’t look quite right, I’m going to go search him,'” Officer Jim Keene said. “It’s a very specific tool for very specific people.”
The ordinance creates a new crime of loitering with the intent of engaging in drug activity, punishable with as much as a year in jail, or a $5,000 fine.
Keene and officer Craig Hanaumi, both veteran patrol officers in the Crossroads area, said they have noticed an uptick in these operations. They named Factoria and Crossroads as the two primary hotspots at the moment.
To illustrate their points, officers used a specific individual as an example. They displayed reams of court documents showing the history of a drug dealer in the area. They said all nearby adults, and some neighborhood kids as young as 6 knew the man sold drugs.
But there was not much police could do about the man, as he learned the rules and understood when and where to make his deals.
“When I see them out on corner and I know what they’re doing, all I can do is park my patrol car and watch them, and they watch me, and it’s who’s going to flinch first,” Keene said.
The ordinance lists 10 instances in which police can justify approaching, or searching a potential suspect. One of which is, “such person transfers small objects or packages for currency in a furtive fashion,” according to the ordinance.
Anti-loitering laws such as this one have been controversial in communities in the past.
Bellevue is looking to Tacoma’s anti-loitering ordinance for inspiration.
It was previously held up by the state Supreme Court in 1992 in the case of the City of Tacoma vs. Luvene. In that instance, officers witnessed men flagging down and conversing with motorists. Their behavior was suspicious enough that police decided to search the men. In their search, Tacoma police found a crack pipe and a bag of white powder on the suspects. One of them appealed the case, saying the rule was too broad.
Bellevue council members engaged in little discussion about the ordinance, but members were curious as to how this law fared in other cities. Did it reduce the crime rate and clean up drug problems? They also wondered how often officers wished they could employ such a tool.
The council favored the ordinance, but requested more information before it is brought back for final decision June 6.
“I think it’s really important to get out in front on this,” Council Member Jennifer Robertson said. “This is a concern if we’re having drug deals on our streets.”
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