SPOKANE, Wash. — The Spokane Police Department (SPD) said it had a busy weekend. On Monday, it reported four of what they call "critical incidents" tied up several of the department's resources.
Limited staffing remains an issue for SPD, especially over the last month as the department put 17 officers on leave following recent shootings.
A recent example of the department's staffing juggle was over the weekend involving multiple specialty units. Police said these calls involved executing a search warrant, a man shot in a 7-11 parking lot, another man in crisis threatening to kill his family and a suspect pointing a gun at people.
Specialty units responding to these incidents included SWAT, Explosive Disposal Units, hostage negotiators and drone operators. Lt. Terry Preuninger said this level of response took resources away from responding to other potential calls.
"If I'm a patrol officer and I'm on a patrol team of six or seven officers and two of those officers are on specialty units and get called away to a special event, you just took away a significant percentage of the resources that sector had to do their regular patrol job," Preuninger said. "And those calls don't stop coming in."
He explained working on a specialty unit is considered a part time or second job in the department. That means unit members are regular, full-time investigators or patrol officers. So, when they're called away to their specialty unit, that takes them away from their full time position and responding to your calls.
"It does take a toll," Preuninger said. "And it sometimes it puts limitations on us as to what we can go to."
SPD confirms of the 17 officers put on leave, 9 of them returned to work last week. All nine were involved in the shooting on the South Hill in January that killed a man.
SPD said four of them are members of the department's specialty units.
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