Editor’s note: Due to a technical error, the Feb. 23 print edition of the Courier-Herald contained only the first half of this story. The second half, starting from the ‘CHANGING LAWS’ subhead, will be printed in the March. 2 edition.
Catalytic converters, unemployment fraud, drug cases — these are just a few benchmarks that give insight into the changing face of crime and justice on the Plateau.
Enumclaw recently released data on the crimes their officers investigated last year. Mike Graddon, the new operations commander at Enumclaw PD’s patrol division, walked through some of that data and the larger trends in crime in the Plateau in a recent interview. (Graddon worked at Des Moines PD for 20 years before transferring to Enumclaw last July.)
The data counts any time an officer either arrested someone for a crime, or took a credible report that a crime occurred, Graddon said.
In most categories, crime rates have stayed mostly flat or even declined since 2014. Total violent crimes, for instance, have fallen from around 107 in 2014 to only 68 reported last year.
But a few data points reveal trends both local to Enumclaw and far, far bigger than the small city of 12,000.
You can view a spreadsheet of the full data by clicking here or viewing the embedded data at the bottom of this article.
HOT SPOTS AND HOT STREETS
Sometimes, a spike in a specific type of crime reveals a growing criminal market bigger than just Enumclaw.
“Thefts of motor vehicle parts,” for example, had hovered in the single digits since 2014 before spiking to 31 cases last year. That’s mostly due to — you guessed it — the theft of catalytic converters, Graddon said, which are vehicle parts targeted because they contain valuable precious metals like platinum.
Impersonation cases only ran single-digit numbers before 2020 — that year, the department recorded 89 of them. They went back down to merely 7 cases in 2021.
The spike was related to a huge wave of unemployment fraud cases that swamped Washington last year, Graddon said. He should know — he was one of the many targeted by fraudsters.
“It certainly makes you be more aware,” Graddon said. “Internet crimes will continue to elevate. … It’s definitely changed law enforcement over the years.”
Other trends are pandemic related, Graddon said. Over the last two years, jails like Enumclaw have taken steps to reduce their inmate intake in order to reduce COVID-19 outbreaks.
EPD arrested 222 adults in 2020 and 155 in 2021, well below the 8-year average of 343. Jail bookings followed a nearly identical trend. (Enumclaw PD operates its own jail in-house.)
Parking complaints, meanwhile, have swung up: 432 were reported last year, nearly twice the year before. That could be related to the number of people working from home, Graddon said, but an optimist might also see it as evidence that more people are enjoying downtown Enumclaw.
“We have seen a change in parking patterns and vehicle use (likely related to the pandemic),” Graddon said. “We (also) have a gem (in) our Cole Street businesses. The word is out. Enumclaw is really on the map as a place to visit.”
CHANGING LAWS
Graddon chalked up what appears to be decreases in some crimes —specifically around drug cases and DUI arrests — mostly to last year’s police reform efforts passed by the state legislature, as well as court cases like the State Supreme Court ruling in State v. Blake.
The Blake decision last year found the state’s felony drug possession statute unconstitutional, and as a result, caused a seismic shift in how drug possession cases are handled. Drug arrests and cases are down in Enumclaw data, from a peak of 47 cases in 2018 to just three last year.
“It has changed that landscape,” Graddon said. “The officers aren’t making physical arrests for drug offenses like they have previously.”
Changes in use-of-force law can play a role too. HB 1310, passed last year, limits the situations in which police can use force to detain someone. Under the new law, officers can still use force on people who are about to harm themselves or others, and they can still show up to a scene even if a crime hasn’t been committed.
But the new law raised the standard for using force, such as grabbing someone or putting them in handcuffs, when they’re investigating criminal activity. Under the new standard, police need to have “probable cause,” or enough evidence to make an arrest, in order to use force to stop someone they’re talking to during brief detainments. (Those are often called “Terry” stops, situations where someone isn’t under arrest but is also not free to go while the officer investigates.)
Previously, officers just needed “reasonable suspicion” that the person had been, was, or was about to be engaged in criminal activity in order to physically detain them. Now, if they don’t have probable cause that the crime was committed, they can no longer physically stop someone from leaving a Terry stop.
Supporters of the bill argue it keeps situations from escalating into deadly encounters, and that police can track suspects down later once they’ve developed probable cause. But Graddon — and many of his peers in law enforcement — says the changes in law lacked clarity and left officers on the street cautious or restrained in their ability to stop people they suspect are involved in a crime.
Similarly, House Bill 1054 last year limited cops, for the most part, to only engage in vehicle pursuits if they establish probable cause for a DUI or violent crime for someone in the vehicle. DUI cases were about half of their eight-year average in 2021, according to the EPD data, and Graddon said that’s at least partly due to the higher pursuit standards.
Bills currently under debate in the legislature could swing the pendulum back, somewhat. House Bill 2037, which easily passed the House and is now under consideration in the Senate, would let cops once again use physical force if people flee from these brief investigative detentions.
“We still respond to every call,” Graddon said. “If someone calls 911, we still respond, and we assess the situation. … We’re hoping that some of the new laws are going to be a little more balanced, to help the victims and to give us some of the tools back. We’re not asking to go back to where we were. We’re asking for a rebalancing of some of those laws.”
VIOLENCE REMAINS LOW
A broader view of the Enumclaw area reveals a bright spot: major violent crimes — sex crimes, robbery, assault, kidnapping, etc. — remain few and far between.
According to EPD data, there hasn’t been a murder or non-negligent manslaughter reported since at least 2014, which is the earliest data available on the department’s website. That doesn’t include unincorporated areas which are patrolled by sheriff’s deputies.
Since 2014, the majority — around 65—of the city’s average 80 violent crimes each year are simple assaults, which typically include unwanted hitting or touching. (Aggravated assaults typically involve serious injuries or the use of weapons.)
The rest, on average, include about seven sex crimes, five aggravated assaults, two robberies and two cases of intimidation per year, according to the data.
Burglaries, which the Courier-Herald didn’t count in that violent crime total, average around 37 per year since 2014. Last year saw only 24 burglaries, split fairly evenly between commercial and residential victims.
There’s a few reasons for the relative lack of violent crime locally, Graddon said.
The first is geographical: Regionally, violent crimes typically “don’t occur too far off of the I-5 corridor between Seattle and Tacoma,” he said. “That area, from my experience, is riddled with a lot of gun violence.” EPD is well and fully staffed, Graddon said, and that too helps them take a more proactive approach to crime.
“It’s a tough time to be in law enforcement, but this is a bit of a destination police agency, because they know they get the support from (city) council and the community,” Graddon said. “It makes it an easy place to be a police officer.”
None of that is to say the community is immune to killings, kidnappings or other major crimes, of course: “We’re not naïve to that,” Graddon said.
Looking forward, Graddon said Enumclaw faces the same monumental task that cities all around the United States face: “We have got to fix our mental health system and drug abuse,” he said.
“It should not fall on local law enforcement to utilize misdemeanor crimes for somebody who is sleeping outside,” Graddon said. “It’s a broken system. … There has to be somewhere for people to get help. We should not have people sitting in jail who are struggling with mental health and drug addiction. They need to be in facilities where they can get counseling and aggressive medical treatment.”
