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Police report: staffing steady, ALERT and SMART-team participation, outreach housing results
Summary
The police chief reviewed year-end staffing and operations data, described department participation in the ALERT civil-disturbance team and the county SMART investigative team, noted increased proactive policing and license-plate-reader integration, and highlighted outreach work that secured housing for 34 people.
Chief Jonathan presented the police department quarterly report, describing staffing, incident volumes, specialized-team participation and outreach results.
He said the department was fully staffed at year-end and had added a budgeted position for 2024. Chief Jonathan highlighted participation in the ALERT allied law enforcement response team, describing it as a civil-disturbance unit for rare, high-liability incidents and explaining the value of having Arlington officers trained and available on short notice. "If we did not have members on this team and we had a request for them, it would be on a first come first, need basis," he said.
The chief described increased proactive, self-initiated policing compared with the post-COVID period and said total incidents returned to pre-COVID levels at over 27,000 for the year. He discussed license-plate-reader training for dispatch and the need to replace bullet-resistant vests on a roughly five-year cycle; he used "bullet resistant" in preference to the colloquial "bulletproof."
Chief Jonathan also reviewed outreach-team outcomes and said the outreach team "secured housing, 34 people, taken off the street and into secure housing." He noted the SMART (Snohomish County Multiple Agency Response Team) investigation team includes several Arlington investigators and that Commander Barrett serves as a commander on the SMART team, increasing Arlington's countywide investigative role.
Councilors asked about time commitments for staff on regional teams and about counseling resources for officers; the chief described a chaplaincy and monthly on-site licensed mental-health professional available to officers and their families and said the city has extended some of those services to other departments. He also said some federal grant reimbursements were received for ballistic-vest purchases.
The presentation was informational; the transcript does not show separate council action on the report.
