SPOKANE COUNTY, Wash. — The Spokane County Sheriff's Office latest recruiting tactic is turning heads in several major western cities.
SCSO has launched a series of billboards in Portland, Seattle, and Denver that advertise a hefty bonus for sufficiently experienced officers.
"We put up billboards in Portland as close to the police precincts as we could get, saying '15 thousand dollar signing bonus. We're hiring 40 lateral deputies. We want you,'" said Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich.
It's no accident that the cities he's targeting are largely liberal and have had some of the largest protests calling for major overhauls to policing.
"Their leadership in those areas, either political or law enforcement, have not stood behind their law enforcement, have actually gone out and talked about defunding and all that stuff," said Knezovich.
Knezovich says it's usually hard to convince people to leave well-paying jobs in big cities, but he believes the current political atmosphere creates a unique opportunity to poach top talent.
"Would you work for a place that didn't like you, that didn't respect you? Would you stay there?" he said. "And they're not. They're leaving. And we want to get the best of the best from them."
So beyond just the signing bonus advertised on the billboards, Knezovich is relying on the reputation of Eastern Washington to attract certain candidates.
"Our community support their law enforcement," he said. "And we use that as a springboard into... when you come to work here, it's not like the place that you left."
He says the campaign has already scored some hits.
"We started about a month ago," said Knezovich. "We have seven people that have contacted us, and I think they're actually in the process."
And the sheriff says if this keeps up, they'll try it in more cities.
"Every month we'll pick a different area, and our goal is to hire as many quality lateral officers as we can," he said.