March 26, 2105 meeting notes


The meeting was attended by 23 members, 1 guest and our speaker.  Information about possibly meeting at Sessions Village was presented and discussed; other possible meeting locations were also mentioned.


Our speaker was Cheney Police Chief Hensley.  He's been Chief for 3 years and the department was in good shape when he came.  When he came, the city was divided into 7 sectors with one officer assigned to each due to limited staffing.  This meant that sometimes the assigned officer was not on duty when a citizen reported a problem; also this focused more on officer recognized problems rather than citizen reported problems.  Now there are  no sectors; when a problem arises it is assigned to an officer and their partner also is aware so either can follow through.  There has also been a change in response philosophy:  no call is too small and officers are encouraged to slow down and fix the problem the first time.  During the Chief's tenure the number of formal complaints per year has dropped from between 5 to 8 down to 1.  The department is also the first Eastern Washington department to achieve accreditation, it passed recertification and has had 100% compliance for three consecutive years.


While staffing is still a challenge, it is now policy to have 2 officers on every shift with an increase to 3 officers on shift on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights when EWU is in session. 
He said the most reported problems are:  (1) domestic violence - this includes roommate situations, (2) car burglaries and (3) alcohol and drug abuse.  He also said that 96% of sexual assaults reported in the last 10 years were linked to alcohol/drug abuse.