Fife Police Chief raises concerns after juvenile detention center doesn’t take assault suspect

Fife Police Chief Peter Fisher decided to go public after the recent arrest of a 17-year-old suspected of assaulting his parents during a domestic dispute.

“This 17-year-old was 6 foot or better,” Fisher told KIRO Newsradio. “And 200 pounds, or north of 200 pounds and so there was a size mismatch between the offender and the victim, and there being the potential for further violence.”

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Fisher said when officers arrived at Remann Hall, Pierce County’s juvenile detention center, they were told the facility was only accepting those juveniles accused of felony crimes. The 17-year-old was not and would not be booked into the facility.

“They are placing our officers in no-win situations and the liability attaches to the officers and individual cities and in my opinion, that’s just not acceptable,” Fisher said.

KIRO Newsradio reached out to Remann Hall administrators Wednesday afternoon but, as of this writing, has not received a response. They did however release a statement to KOMO News.

Our secure detention facility can only house up to 40 youth and we have about 26-32 young people in there each day. Most of the young people detained are here for very serious felony offenses including murder, armed robbery, and serious assaults.

At the same time, we have an override policy that we utilize for young people that are brought to detention on allegations of committing a misdemeanor crime and we assess whether or not detention, despite our booking policy, is appropriate on a case-by-case basis,” Remann Hall administrators wrote in a statement to KOMO News.

However, The Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office took issue with that statement and released a statement of its own to KIRO Newsradio.

When Remann Hall will not book these juveniles for misdemeanors, it puts officers in a bind. The assertion by Remann Hall administration that there is an ‘override practice’ available to police officers is not accurate. Often times, these are situations where families don’t want the juvenile back home right away, CPS won’t take the juvenile and Remann Hall is saying no.

What should the police do, drop juveniles off at the bus station and say good luck? That’s obviously not the right answer. My office and the police chiefs have met more than once with the administration overseeing juvenile detention to ask for a solution to this problem,” the Pierce County Prosecutor said in a statement.

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Fisher said his department has had the problem before. He said he only wants a solution in the best interest of everyone involved.

“I don’t know how you don’t see this as a bad policy, not to, at least temporarily, hold juveniles when it involved physical assaults, and physical assaults against household, and family members,” Fisher said. “It makes no sense to me whatsoever. When you have laws and there’s no accountability there is incentive to keep committing crimes and violence and we’ve seen that.”

James Lynch is a reporter at KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of James’ stories here. Follow James on X, or email him here.

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