Mill Creek police add licensed clinical social worker, honor longtime victim advocate

Mill Creek Police announced two personnel developments at the Feb. 24 council meeting: the addition of a licensed clinical social worker to the precinct team and the naming of long-time victim advocate Tessa Cole as employee of the month.

The new hire, Greg Golden, a licensed clinical social worker, has been with Mill Creek about a month and was introduced by precinct leadership. "I am super excited to be here with Mill Creek," Golden said, noting roughly 15 years in social work across child protection, juvenile probation, hospital and police social work and crisis intervention. He told council members he is "excited to see the value that Mill Creek has in social work, and that's how that can be collaborated with law enforcement."

Chief Christine Petty Brown presented Tessa Cole as the department’s employee of the month. Petty Brown described Cole’s role: "Advocate Cole ensures victims of persons scribe within Mill Creek are contacted, offered community services, and information on court services." (Transcript speech described Cole’s ongoing work mostly with victims of domestic violence; Petty Brown and other council members praised Cole’s availability, calm demeanor and long tenure.)

Why the addition matters: council and staff said recurring mental-health calls consume significant officer time and sometimes require repeated responses to the same household. The mayor and chief described the social-worker model as a way to build ongoing trust with frequent callers and divert some matters from uniformed responses. Golden described an early success: a local client who previously called 911 repeatedly now uses his direct number for crisis contacts, diverting calls from patrol officers.

Police operations context: Chief Petty Brown reported January department statistics: 2,247 calls for service in January, 804 police reports, 369 citations and 30 booking arrests. She explained staffing figures: while Mill Creek has two "true vacancies," the hiring pipeline — academy plus 12 weeks of field training — means the precinct effectively has eight vacant patrol positions in budget encumbrances while those hires complete training. Chief Petty Brown said priority response times were back to four minutes for Priority 1 calls.

Council members and staff framed the social-worker hire as both a public-safety and fiscal strategy: better management of mental-health incidents can lower repeat emergency responses and free officers for investigative and other public-safety work.