'It's a lose, lose for everybody but the criminal'
YAKIMA, Wash. -- The Yakima County Sheriff's Office found a way to avoid laying off deputies, but it comes at a price. Detectives will be pulled off cases and put on patrol.
"I heard a siren coming down here towards my house," said crime victim Dan Bean.
Bean wasn't sure what was going on.
"60 to 80 miles an hour, he said. "The gun shots I thought I heard was actually him jumping over the Wikle Road."
It turns out a burglar with a long record was on the run after getting away from the one officer in the area.
"It's scary it's not something you even want to have happen to your family, Bean said. "Had one of my kids been out here in the road like they always are because we live off the main road, he could have easily ran over one of my children."
This father of eight had to use his own gun to eventually capture the crook and wait for police.
"Thank goodness it was Dan and not someone else," said Yakima County Deputy Matt Steadman.
Steadman has been with the Yakima County Sheriff's Office for more than 10 years. He's never seen the department stretched so thin. It has only six deputies to cover the Valley.
Three more deputies will be added January 1st, but the priority is changing. Detectives will be moved to patrol.
"Those detectives are no longer going to be able to investigate the property crimes, the burglaries the thefts," he said.
And the list goes on. The most troubling is cutting a detective from the Violent Task Force which arrests about 30 dangerous criminals a month.
The only DEA detective for the Upper Valley will be removed. That will put more pressure on YPD.
"It's a lose, lose for everybody but the criminal," he said.
It's the only way the sheriff's office says it can avoid layoffs under a $521,000 loss in the budget.
YSO is holding off on big purchases like new cruisers and monitoring the cost of gas to hold the line on the budget.
How did they do it back in the old days? We had 1 sheriff and 1 deputy. They did it all in one town. Why can't they do it now? Oh that's right the all mighty dollar and the fact the police and such are all union now.
Well, the county never really understood how to attract business so that revenue would go up...they run off more businesses then they have ever attracted. Â And with the recent bungling by YSO in the Harper case that cost this county millions, they could have hired quite a few deputy's. Â They got there sales tax hike sometime back, and the money seemed to vanish. Plus, they got the fancy Mcguire building too. With the bungling on wasted money on the new jail, and the constant fiasco of bungled cases, and to their credit a court system that doesn't care either, those fellows are probably better off on patrol. Coupled with a massive crime surge in this county, the situation doesn't look good. You have to ask yourself, what will this place look like 10 yrs from now?
Duh, Yakima. You all were told nearly a year ago that all of this would happen if you all didn't pass new revenues for the jail. You reap what you sow. Have fun with all the tweakers and gang bangers.