The Kent Police Department hosted a Community Meeting on Wednesday, June 22 at Kent Elementary School, featuring a presentation by Guardian 1, King County’s helicopter Air Support Unit.
Here’s a few of the questions by residents and answers by police at the meeting as posted on the Kent Police Facebook page:
• “How can we get extra patrols in our neighborhood?”
The best way to get extra patrols in your neighborhood is to call 911 when you witness a crime or are a victim of a crime. We track where crime is occurring within the city using our Intelligence Led Policing and focus our resources in those areas. If we don’t know crime is occurring in your neighborhood, we won’t know to focus our resources there.
You can also contact your sector commander if you are having issues within your neighborhood. Your sector commanders are the following:
Cmrd. Todd Durham, tdurham@kentwa.gov, handles the West Hill. Cmrd. Rob Scholl, rscholl@kentwa.gov, handles the valley. Cmrd. Jon Thompson, jthompson@kentwa.gov, handles the East Hill. Cmrd. Matt Holmes, mholmes@kentwa.gov, handles the Panther Lake area.
• “How do you decide whether to fingerprint a home after a crime?”
We train all of our officers on how to take latent prints from a scene. We also, when available, use King County AFIS personnel who are housed in our detective unit. Officers use their discretion on whether to conduct a fingerprint check at each scene they investigate. Most times, they will print areas that could result in prints being found. There are instances in which they will not which could include the area of the crime is wet, the surface is not conducive to taking prints, or the area is so dirty the oil from fingerprints won’t show up.
• “What is the definition of allowable number of parked vehicles per individual residence?”
There is no definition in our city code which lists the allowable number of parked vehicles per individual residence. We have a couple of city codes that talk about junk vehicles, non-operational vehicles, and parking on the grass in their front yard. These are all code violations that are covered under our city code 8.08.030, 15.05.030 and 15.08.090. These violations are enforced by the city’s code enforcement officers.
• “Have there been any recent incidents of anti-LGBTQ, Muslim, or religious groups, mosques, etc?”
We have not had any recent incidents involving the LGBTQ, Muslim or religious groups in the City of Kent.
• “For stolen vehicles or persons of interest, is it possible to post some of these on Facebook so we can look and keep an eye out for them? Often apartments don’t have a neighborhood watch.”
Yes we can. We have done this in the past and try to only send out the most serious offenses or pattern crimes. We don’t want to overload our Facebook page with every person of interest or stolen vehicle. Also depending on the sector, we will send out these photos to our block watch captains in those areas. It’s not Facebook, but does go out to those areas affected.
In regards to the apartments not have a block watch, we fully support our apartment complexes to become a block watch, even if it is just one building or one floor of the apartment complex.
You can contact John Pagel, jpagel@kentwa.gov, or Stacy Judd, sjudd@kentwa.gov, and they can give you more information on how to form a block watch.
• “How do you identify a tennis ball bomb?”
A tennis ball bomb is very easy to identify. It is a real tennis ball that has some sort of fuse sticking out of it. The tennis ball could also be completely wrapped in duct tape with a fuse sticking out.
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