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Tacoma is still reeling from the shooting death of a 14 year old girl on the hilltop.

But it's just the tip of the iceberg as neighbors fear a repeat of the bad old days of the eighties and nineties when Tacoma wasn't the city of Destiny but a place to stay the heck away from.

Tacoma has worked so hard for so long to become the Puget Sound region's place to be.

But as Seattle has learned, decades of progress can be destroyed in a few short years, with the road back long and hard into this environment.

Steps Tacoma as new police chief Avery Moore, and he's our guest next on Northwest.

Now.

Murder, robbery, arson, kidnaping and car thefts are all up sharply, both last year and this year.

But it's the firearms related crimes that have really shaken Tacoma to its core.

Now, to be fair, Tacoma is just part of a national trend.

But in Washington state, with police complaining about reform efforts gone too far and the virtual elimination of anti-drug laws, the challenges here are unique in an era when tensions are running high among families and in the neighborhoods.

And let's talk some truth here.

Predators sense a power vacuum as police officers flee to lower stress departments into retirement or just pitch their law enforcement careers altogether.

With that said, the Prison Policy Initiative reports that new Tacoma, which includes the Hilltop, has an incarceration rate four times the city rate, which is seven times higher than the statewide average.

So zip codes matter when it comes to enforcement, with no comment here about whether it's justified trying to manage all of that is Tacoma is new police chief Avery Moore.

Chief Moore, thanks for coming to Northwest now.

Great to have you here.

I know you're the new guy, so I want folks to get to understand who you are a little bit.

Give us a little bio where are from and talk a little bit about your last job and some of your experience.

So where I'm from is really kind of interesting military kid, so kind of say I'm kind of from all over.

I used to claim Oklahoma simply because my father retired there and that's where I pretty much lived my teenage years and also where I went to college.

Transition from Oklahoma to Dallas was able to get hired by the Dallas Police Department.

And I spent 31 years plus as a Dallas police officer, worked my way up from police officer all the way up to assistant police chief.

So had a great career, career exposed to a lot of different things coming from a large city.

Dallas is the seventh largest city with the ninth largest police department.

So I had a lot of opportunity in Dallas from violent crime.

I actually was over the old airport that follows Entourage.

So have a really good, strong policing background.

And so I just claim Dallas to make it simple.

31 years.

I have a question about your experience in Dallas that that may or may not be relevant here to Dallas.

Go through a transition where there were like some bad times, then some good times and then not so good times came back.

Was there an ebb and flow in Dallas over those 31 years between the eighties and nineties and maybe the crack cocaine thing?

And now to present day, have you seen some of that ebony and flowing in the past?

Yeah, ebbing and flowing is probably consistent with every major city.

Dallas is no stranger to that.

You know, with those ebbs and flows, that's kind of how police morale works.

So went through a lot of those, you know, my mantra and I learned this from my father, he was a 27 year Army veteran.

You make yourself happy.

Don't rely on a job or other people to make you happy.

Make yourself happy.

So although those we went through those ebbs and flows, I don't remember having a bad attitude at all.

I don't remember being bitter.

And I remember the biggest thing that we went through was our pension debacle.

And it caused a lot of people to retire early, just in fear.

But even through that, you know, I just kept going to work, doing the best I could do and had a good time doing it.

So that's my philosophy.

You make yourself happy.

What do you love about policing?

Do you miss being on the street?

A little bit?

So I do because I love people.

That's the the in my opinion, probably the most overlooked component that people that sign up to do this job really have to love people.

And if you don't.

Again, my opinion, you should probably really question if this is the right line of work for you.

Loving people is what this is all about.

And that's it.

And that's a great entryway into a discussion about culture, the People piece, because there's also this very tight, thin blue line piece us against them, piece of, you know, warrior culture almost that's that's come into policing.

Has that gone too far?

Do you see that as a problem or not?

So much as that's something people on the outside perceive.

What's your take on that kind of thin blue line us against them culture?

So you used a very good word.

It's perception.

The thin blue line.

The US against them has been completely exaggerated, hyper mobilized and kind of accepted as norm.

So let me tell you this as a police officer going on my 32nd year and I'm going to speak for all police officers, what we hate worst is a crooked officer.

So there is no thin blue line when it comes to that.

Our expectation is that you do this job the right way and you do it for the right reasons, and that's the way it should be.

So from that perspective, it's been overexaggerated as if officers are okay with corruption in their police department.

Bad behavior and bad behavior because we're not.

Especially me.

I'll hold my officers accountable.

They know that because I tell them.

So I think that us against them.

I know it was kind of born out of because it was presented that way.

But the reality is we have to change that mindset and it has to be us together.

The only way we can impact and actually affect change is if we do it together.

We will never have enough police officers and I'm being general across the whole country to account for every crime.

Yeah, we absolutely have to partner and rely on each other to make the impact that we want to make.

So you've been in Tacoma for a while.

You've been talking to people, going to events.

You know, everybody says, hey, chief, here's here's my take on everything.

What is your perception of how city leadership and city residents are feeling about crime and law enforcement right now in Tacoma?

What's the environment is, as people are telling you.

As far as crime?

Well, first, let me answer the first kind of part of that far, as you know, city manager, city council, they have been completely supportive of me and the police department because.

That was one of my questions are you get what you need from.

Them.

Absolutely.

I'm completely supportive of the communities as I meet with them.

Completely supportive of the police department of me.

And they really want and I'm going to emphasize want to work with the police department.

So we're in a good space.

You know, there's some crime that has gone up post-COVID, pre-COVID during COVID.

So the residual of that we're dealing with now, but we've had some success in the last month that we're very proud of and we're going in the right direction.

But I can't overemphasize the hard work of the police department.

My men and women, they bring it every day, you know, and they do that not for a paycheck, but going back to what I said before, they care about this community.

They care about the people that not only live here, that work here, that come here to play and just have a good time.

So we're going to do our part and we just asked the community to join us.

Let's make this city the safest city in the country.

Because that's the thing about Tacoma, too.

And a lot of people who are familiar with the city are live here.

There's there's almost kind of a little bit of a grief process to some degree, because the bad old days here in the eighties and nineties were so bad and so much progress has been made.

I mean, you if you lived here, this is a different town, different place, different infrastructure, different.

It's it's completely different.

Has been wonderful.

We're kind of like, I can I try not to talk too much about it because we're a little bit the secret here in Puget Sound Country as far as I'm concerned about what's going on.

But then to see this slide back into the bad old days is upsetting.

I can say that personally, and I'm sure it's the same for for the other people you're talking to.

How do you try to reassure them?

What are you telling them to say?

Calm down.

I got this.

The truth, you know, coming from a major city, I can tell you that Tacoma is no different than a major city, a smaller city.

What we're dealing with is across the country, but we're dealing with it again.

We're making some good impacts as it relates to having less victims, which is the matrix that I use.

And I'm really pleased with the hard work our officers are doing.

You know, they've bought into our new crime plan.

We're executing it very well.

So just be patient with this.

We didn't get in this position overnight and we won't get out of it overnight.

It's going to take some time.

But know that the police department, we're doing everything that we can to make this city safe.

We're going to talk about your crime plan, but I also wanted to take this opportunity.

You you addressed it generally.

And I know everybody has an opinion on this.

This is this is pure opinion.

What is your view of why we're seeing what we're seeing?

And like you say rightly, it's not just Tacoma, it's across the country.

It can't all be covered.

There has to be things that are kind of acting in concert and acting together to magnify the problem.

What is your take on that?

So specific in Washington I Tacoma some law changes impacted it and the impact was felt from a policing perspective.

Pursuits drug crimes those.

Exactly so officers felt like their hands were tied to the point that they couldn't do their job.

So a lot of what was going on was just that confusion area.

They felt like there was no support from their leadership, no support from city leadership, and no support from community and when you feel that way, then sometimes you find yourself saying there's nothing we can do.

And unfortunately we went through that phase too, where officers felt like there's really nothing we can do.

You know, the laws are against us, the community is against us.

We don't have the support that we need to have from leadership.

So that caused us, if you will, to shut down.

And you and even though the time between then and now has been relatively short, you feel like there's been a change in those attitudes, a change in community support and in some positive movement.

Absolutely.

You know, I sent out a leadership philosophy.

My very first day and it's a couple pages.

But one thing I say in there that every issue in policing you can trace back to leadership.

And what I meant by that or the lack thereof.

And officers need to feel like their leadership hears them and supports them.

They understand again that if I do something wrong, there's going to be accountability.

But when I'm right, I need to have a voice that says I was right.

And that's what I do for, you know, give them credit where credit's due and we hold them accountable when we need to.

Let's talk about your crime plan.

You recently roll that out to the city council after, I'm sure, building it and taking some ideas, putting them together and coming up with a presentation and a plan.

One of the ideas is focused deterrence, which I if in your comments, I believe you mentioned you kind of picked that up from Boston.

They've they've worked on that what is focused deterrence and how how does that play into your plan?

Well, focused deterrence, realistically, is probably 2 to 3 years down the road.

It's the last phase and two to keep it basic.

What it basically is, is that we will know who some bad actors are, if you will, and we'll do our or call in, for example, local church, local school gymnasium.

And in that school, I'll be there some faith leaders, some family members and some resources.

So it's kind of add a little comedy to it.

You remember the show, Let's Make a Deal.

It's kind of based off that.

So you have door number one and you have door number two.

So I'd come to Avery.

The easy way or the hard way, right?

Pretty much, yeah.

And say, hey, we know that you're doing bad things that are going on, you're going to be held accountable for.

So if you go through door number one, any resource that you could need is waiting for you.

Whether it's a d d, teach you how to fill out a resumé if you need some housing assistance, whatever that resource is, go through that door.

It's all good.

You're productive in society, but if you say no and some will and you go through door two, then on that door is going to be Central Time.

And if you know anything about Central Time, it's day, four day.

So there's going to be some partnerships that will have to go in with our federal partners, state partners.

But that's really what focus deterrence is.

It's really for us to say, hey, stop doing what you're doing.

If you have a root cause again, lack of education, don't know how to fill out a resume, can't find a job.

We have people right here today that will give you a job that will help you find housing, etc.. That's the preferred route.

Right.

And we understand not everybody will take advantage.

Right.

And you're trying to deal with that.

I don't know what the numbers are.

I've heard several people comment on this over the years.

And you were one of them that I'm going to make up numbers.

But the 10% that caused 90% of the problems, that's who you're really trying to focus on.

Exactly.

And that's pretty much consistent throughout the nation from a perception perspective.

We think it's everybody committing all the crime and it's really not.

It's the same people that are repeat offenders that are doing it over and over and over again.

And this is a way to to give them a wake up, say, hey, this has got to stop.

You need help from prosecutors and judges, though, too, don't you?

I am just appalled every time I you know, this guy who just pushed a lady down the stairs in Seattle.

Oh, it turns out he has a you know, he's got a murder under his belt.

And that is a consistent story.

That's not an outlier.

All these cats have long rap sheets.

Why?

What is what?

What is wrong?

What is going on?

I know the cops don't like it, but this is your chance to talk about it.

So we live in a country that's the greatest country in the world.

Right?

And in that comes a lot of freedoms.

So sometimes we forget that when we see something as tragic as that, the reality is, is that whatever your sentence was, you honored that.

So you get out free in as long as you.

Time served time, everybody that's going to.

Get out, that's the system that we love but that we hate.

Right.

And until we look at that system and see if there are some areas of the system that we should tweak change, that's going to always be it.

That's why I'm talking about No.

One offenders.

They continue to do it.

Maybe because they were never actually told, hey, we're here to help.

You know, we'll have judges there.

Hopefully we'll have some prosecutors.

We're all here to deter your behavior.

Yeah.

And that door number two is serious.

Door number two, you don't want.

To that again.

But some people will go down the one, number two, and will arrest them and they will get whatever they're supposed to get federally.

So you take that offender population and you add another layer in on top of it, which is a particular concern here in Tacoma, which is guns got a lot of firearm is a lot of gunplay taking place.

What is what is up with guns?

I hear different things from different police organizations.

Some are very pro-gun control, some very pro-Second Amendment.

Depends on where you live.

Are you ready?

You're blue.

I get that.

But what is your take on?

I think everybody can agree we need to get guns out of bad guys hands if possible.

Is that possible?

What's what are your thoughts about the firearms piece of this?

Who is it?

I asked the easy question.

Yeah.

Is it possible in totality, man?

I think it's going to be difficult.

The reason is, is that, you know, the guns that are being used in offenses from our perspective are the ones that are illegally obtained, whether it's from a young adult, all adult or even juveniles.

So somehow that's what we have to have an impact.

I think it's great that from a legislative perspective they strengthen it, that stops those impulsive, violent acts that pretty much are domestic violence related or known person to person related.

So it will have an impact there.

But these ones that are what I consider the violent crimes, aggravated assault, usually it's a person you don't really know, robberies, you don't know the person, homicide, you don't know the person.

Those are guns that are coming by illegal means.

And until we can figure out a way to really disrupt that enterprise, it's going to be difficult to get all the guns off the street that shouldn't be on the street.

The people that are responsible shout out to you, thank you.

Continue to be responsible and let's really start maybe at a smaller level.

Keeping guns out of kid's hands, I think will have an enormous impact.

And then we can go to the next level and then the next level.

In a big piece of this, too, which is a great way to introduce this part of the conversation.

The community piece is folks keeping an eye on each other and their kids and knowing what firearms are out there and who's doing what a little bit.

There's over the years been you know, the community organizations here in Tacoma have really made a difference from safe streets to we had Project Ceasefire Tacoma Ceasefire Project Peace of all been initiatives that TPD has been involved in over time in conjunction with the Coalition and Neighborhood Group.

Talk a little bit about the importance of those connections and those neighborhood groups, even though some of them been operating for 40 years in this town, you know, they made a big difference in the eighties and the nineties.

Can they be instrumental in making a difference again?

What do you need from them?

Apps lutely Safe Streets, all of them that you named.

I have a chief of staff now who's going to reinvigorate all of that.

The ones that are doing great continue to do great.

The ones that have fallen off a little bit.

Our hope is that we can get them together and even if it just becomes one big group or if we stay with our individual entities, that's fine.

But we need community and we need those who are willing to actually be out in neighborhoods, pay attention.

You know, it's an old adage in policing, you hear something, say something.

We really, really, really want to re-emphasize that because it's so important.

Because one thing I know about people who break the law, they don't want to get caught, so they don't want to be seen.

So if they know that someone who's not afraid is saying, I see you, I'm on the phone with police right now, that's going to be a good, good deterrent for us.

So we're going to reinvigorate we actually already have, like I said, have a chief of staff.

Now, that's his primary function.

I said, that is very interesting that you've assigned somebody to own those neighborhood groups, because if you if it's kind of everybody's job and we try to stay in touch and make a phone call, but if somebody owns that, that's so important because it provides the energy required to keep those folks engaged.

They want to be, but they have jobs.

They care this, you know, COVID, you name the car broke down.

They have other issues.

But for somebody to own that piece, I really think is is it was that your idea or have you seen that work in the past?

So where I come from, we have someone who owns that.

So the mindset I learned I'm didn't create it.

But to bring it here, they they were already kind of working from 21st century policing recommendations on having a chief of staff.

I was just able to kind of get the chief of staff to kind of go this direction instead of the way that was originally planned.

Because I felt like community for me is so important that I do need someone and I'll use your word to own that piece because I have so many responsibilities that I can't be the owner.

But our chief of staff extremely experienced with it and he knows how to do it.

So really, really pleased thus far.

And where we're going, I'm even more excited about.

You talked about some of the elements in your crime plan focused deterrence, focusing on the likely offenders and some of those things all of and then wrap that in with 21st century policing.

We've seen things come and go.

Community based policing has kind of come and gone, although elements remain broken, windows comes and goes.

But the thing that kind of seems to to hold true and to continue and I'm reading between the lines and what you've talked about in your approach is that at the end of the day, if you kind of fall back on the idea that it needs to be data driven, let the data tell us what the problems are, where the problems are, who the problems are.

It can tell us if we're open to it, talk a little bit and talk a little bit about that data driven piece and the role it plays in your department going forward.

Yeah, we're completely data driven.

Our entire crime plan is evidence based.

Offer our data.

So our data told us where our hotspots were.

They told us the days of the week when they were most prevalent down to the exact times that they were most prevalent.

And it it identifies the behavior that we want to impact, which for us is homicides, aggravated assaults and robberies.

That's why our crime plan is really geared toward violent crime.

But I'm excited to say this, but we've actually had a very good impact on property crime as well, which was a little unique here because as I was out in communities, a lot of the discussion was about property crime, you know, windows being broken, car prowls, that type of thing.

But the priority always has to be preservation of life because that's what we take our oath for, to save lives.

So we're going in that direction, have an impact as well as in property crime have an impact.

But our entire crime plan is evidence based and it always will be.

Always will be.

That keeps us out of that bad light of us versus them, because we're not targeting people.

We're actually focusing on behavior.

The last 30 seconds, the hardest question I'm going to ask you, what's something surprising that people don't know about you, Chief Moore, that they should.

I start my day off with prayer.

I'm an ordained minister and I'm an advocate gym rat.

So you'll see me in the gym and I. I truly, truly, truly love people.

They probably have figured that out.

Now I'm a big hugger.

I typically hug everybody and I tell my officers I love them.

It's probably weird.

Probably.

I don't think it's uncomfortable because I'm seven months in, but probably the first time they heard it, they responded like this do.

It's a little weird, but I think they've gotten used to it.

So those are the biggest things that people may not know.

I don't drink, don't smoke, that kind of.

Thing.

Great discussion, Chief Moore.

Thanks for coming in Northwest now.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Tacoma has good leadership that is showing signs of pivoting toward an increasing appreciation of the vital participatory role law enforcement plays in making the South sound an example of what can go right when communities come together.

It worked in the eighties, in the nineties, and it can work again.

The bottom line.

Our thanks to Chief Moore for coming to Northwest now with a sincere wish for good luck in turning things around.

I hope this program got you thinking and talking, so watch this program again or to share it with others.

Northwest now can be found on the web at KBTC dot org and be sure to follow us on Twitter at Northwest.

Now, a downloadable podcast of this program is available now under the Northwest Now tab at KBTC dot org and on iTunes by searching northwest.

Now that's going to do it for this edition of Northwest Now and Till Next Time.

I'm Tom Layson - thanks for watching.