Hours after interim Police Chief Adrian Diaz‘s media briefing about staffing changes, Southwest Precinct commander Capt. Kevin Grossman spoke with the Kiwanis Club of West Seattle, online. He said he has no further details, yet, about how the 100 “redeployments” will affect his staffing levels, but of course he’s hopeful it means more officers headed this way. Right now, Capt. Grossman said, the precinct staff is 10 percent below what it was when he started, due to attrition – retirements, officers moving to other parts of the city, or moving to other cities’ departments. In addition, this precinct and the others all have to contribute to the “task forces” that deal with some of the ongoing protests on Capitol Hill. On another note, he and operations Lt. Sina Ebinger, who also was at the meeting (as was Crime Prevention Coordinator Jennifer Danner), will not be regularly attending community meetings as they have since taking over two months ago. Grossman says he wants patrol officers to attend the meetings in the areas they cover, so they can build relationships. (That was part of the reason Chief Diaz cited on Wednesday for moving more officers into patrol.) A special focus of the Kiwanis’s community work is mentoring youth, particularly via Key Clubs, so some Q&A last night focused on that; Danner will be working to set up meetings where she and officers can talk with high-school and middle-school students and hear their concerns.
P.S. Another Kiwanis note – they’re expecting this year’s Pancake Breakfast, usually the first Saturday of December, to be a “virtual” event, so stand by for more on that.
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