The Coalition of Small Police Agencies was established in 2002 to create a forum to address the concerns of small police agencies in King County and to find ways to provide alternatives to the high cost of utilizing Specialty Services.
The Coalition consists of 14 small city police agencies throughout King County, in total; these agencies employ approximately 150 commissioned officers serving a combined population of over 66,000 residents.
Small agencies often do not have the budgets to send their employees to necessary training to be safe in their jobs. The coalition has implemented a training program to meet the needs of the small agency. The training that is now available through coalition resources include:
Defensive Tactics/Firearms
Fire Arson Investigation
Bicycle Patrol
Blood Borne Pathogen
Domestic Violence
Incident Command
Narcotics Detection
Radar/Lidar
Emergency Vehicle Operation
Active Shooter
The cities have found that by combining resources, to include personnel with specialty training and expertise, manpower and equipment the cities can save a substantial amount of money. These resources not only could be used during times of emergent need but to help one another in keeping pace with the ever increasing requirements placed on law enforcement.
By combining coalition resources they can now can provide manpower and equipment for:
Critical Incidents
Crowd Control
Special Event
Interpreters
Asset Seizure
K9
Polygraph
Helicopter
In-Service Training
In 2005 the coalition formed a Major Crimes Task Force; the investigators on this task force will have the appropriate training to investigate most types of major crimes. The task force will include:
4 commanders
10 investigators
WSP Crime Lab Response Team
Liaison from the Prosecutors Office
Liaison from the Medical Examiners Office
Two fully equipped crime scene vehicles
To help defray the cost of forming this task force the coalition has received a grant from the State of Washington for the amount of $100,000.
At this time the members of the Coalition of Small Police Agencies are the cities of:
Algona
www.cityofalgona.com/