April 16, 2015 meeting:


The meeting was called to order at 7am and 23 members were present.  Rande is our new interclub organizer. 


Our speaker was Jay McNall of the Spokane County Sheriff's Dept.  The department currently has about 200 commissioned officers.  Their training includes 6 months of academy work, 3-4 months of working with a training officer and one year of probation.  He is a commander of SWAT teams and the team members have to meet special forces physical qualifications.  SWAT teams are only used when there is violent, armed crime in progress or when there is a possible hostage situation.  The county is #4 in the nation for stolen cars.  Most theft is due to drug addicts;  pawn shops have voluntarily agreed to report all items that are pawned (so it is critical to keep a record of serial numbers in case of theft).  Meth is still the drug of choice but number of meth labs have dropped off due to harsh sentencing.