Bellevue police become one of few cities in Washington to close hiring gap

The Bellevue Police Department hit a milestone this month, hiring enough officers to eliminate all their vacancies. It’s the first time since at least 2011 that the department has been fully staffed.

BPD, hiring, and previous marijuana use

Chief Steve Mylett says it’s been a huge project since he was hired back in 2015, when they were short 21 officers. At the peak of the shortage, BPD was down 23 officers. The department has hired up to 20 officers a year to make up for cops moving or retiring, to the point that the chief says more than half of officers currently on patrol were hired during his tenure.

“When you have a hole — a vacancy in the department — that’s work that’s not being done. And when you multiply that by the numbers that we had, that’s a significant deficit. The officers that maintained employment here stepped up their game. So the citizens didn’t see a decline of services. But the officers stepped up their workload.”

Chief Mylett says the shortage didn’t hurt investigations of major crimes like murder, but affected quality of life issues. The department had to shift officers from their bike unit and motorcycle division, and even detectives into patrol cars to respond to the most pressing crimes. That means spending less time with the public, less time on each call, and less time doing proactive policing.

“With the bicycle patrol specifically, they’re able to be very mobile, they’re able to get out to places where a patrol car can’t,” he said. “And, on top of that, they’re able to interact with pedestrians because they’re not behind the steering wheel of a car going by at 20 miles an hour. When we have our bike unit adequately staffed, we’re seeing more proactive arrests with drug problems, quality of life issues. There’s just an overall presence people feel when they seen an overall police officer and they’re able to interact with them.”

To close the gap, Chief Mylett said, a few strategies worked well for them.

• Every officer as a recruiter — many people were hired after line officers pitched their own contacts on the departments.
• Boosting recruiting staff — hiring a dedicated staffer with a background in baseball recruiting, and dedicating more staff to process applications and background checks.
• Offering a $16,000 signing bonus for lateral hires.

But Mylett said they would not have been nearly as successful if Bellevue weren’t a great place to live and be a police officer.

“We work in a very supportive community,” he said. “Our approval rating from the residents and businesses in Bellevue is always in the high 90th percentile. The relationship that we have from the public is something special. Our elected officials support first responders — and all city employees — better than any city I’ve ever worked in. There’s financial support, there’s moral support, and there’s support for our operations.”

According to the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC), the officer shortage isn’t just Bellevue’s problem. It’s considered a long term issue nationwide because there isn’t enough new blood to replace officers who retire. The WASPC doesn’t have precise numbers, but confirm contextually that nearly every department in Washington is short a number of officers.

Both Chief Mylett and the WASPC say a series of high-profile officer-involved shootings have shaken trust in law enforcement. Combined with a good economy that gives potential applicants a wide range of choices, the appeal of law enforcement as a career has soured over several years.

Bellevue’s skateboarding police officer

The Bellevue Police Department has worked to regain community trust by launching more advisory councils — meetings where groups representing the Muslim community, and LGBTQIA community, among others, can meet directly with police, ask questions and address concerns. The department has even brought in guest speakers to educate officers on cultural differences that might help them with outreach in those communities.

Chief Mylett says working on those underlying problems helps recruit new officers, and helps the department solve crimes. Better relationships leads to more confidence in the department, he says, and a better likelihood people will report crimes and reach out to officers with tips. It also means more professional interest in the department. Increasing diversity has been a major priority for Chief Mylett.

While the Bellevue Police Department doesn’t have any openings for officers right now, they are still hiring. They have eight openings for civilians. They’re also always looking for volunteers to help with their community policing mission.

Listen to Bellevue Police Chief Steve Mylett, and Steve Strachan with the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, discuss staffing challenges.