Pierce County Sheriff’s Office gaining officers from Seattle police exodus

Numerous Seattle police officers are leaving the force, and it appears several are headed to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department. Their spokesperson is Ed Troyer, who is also the leading candidate for Pierce County Sheriff. He joined the Jason Rantz Show to discuss how the defund movement is pushing officers there.

“We have a lot of people from Seattle and other agencies up north that are applying for our department because we have 27 openings right now ready to go, and we can only hire them so fast, only put them into the police academy so fast. So right now, with Seattle officers coming out, it’s excellent for us because they still get to keep the job, even though Seattle is letting them go or giving them away, I should say,” he said.

“We get to take them, hire them and they don’t have to go to the police academy saving us $50 to $60,000 and they go straight to the street patrol. So we get service from them right away, and a lot of them lived down here … Just today and yesterday we’ve offered five Seattle police officer jobs and they are taking them and we expect them to be on the road working for us within a month.”

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Troyer says he didn’t always expect this kind of exodus because it’s often been the reverse, but regardless, Seattle police officers will get the opportunity to do the kind of police work they’re often restrained from doing in Seattle.

“Down here we still do police work. So not only are they joining a really good department with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, they’re actually signing up with the department to do something that they probably always wanted to do, but probably felt restrained and haven’t been able to do in Seattle,” he said.

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“We didn’t expect this much of an exodus, because over the years, Seattle and other big agencies were trying to take people from us with signing bonuses and get people to come to their departments. Now the roles are kind of reversed … We’re not looking at it as if we’re stealing officers from Seattle, we’re looking at Seattle’s giving them away to us. And why not? We’ve got these very qualified people and we have jobs for him and they still get to do police work. And so it’s working out for everybody, except, unfortunately, the citizens of Seattle. I’m sure most of them don’t want to lose their police department.”

When he sees what’s going on down in Seattle, what’s going through his mind?

“We just don’t want that type of attitude and that type of mindset to drift down into Pierce County. So far, it hasn’t. Our politicians and our councils have stood up and said, ‘That’s not gonna happen here,’” he said.

“Black people’s lives matter, absolutely,” he added. “Can we do things better? Maybe with the homeless and people with mental health conditions. Can we bring other agencies in to supplement what we do? We appreciate that, and we would like that, but what we won’t do is de-police.”

Listen to the Jason Rantz Show weekday afternoons from 3 – 6 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (or HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here.

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