SPOKANE, Wash. — In an effort to service the community, Spokane Police Chief Kevin Hall plans to reintroduce Neighborhood Resource Officers (NRO’s) citywide.
This comes as part of his two year plan to enhance safety in the city and build trust between the police and people.
NRO’s were reassigned to patrol units in 2023 to improve response times to calls. Since then, a lot of people in the community have been asking for them to come back.
“I just hope this goes quickly because the neighbors, the neighborhoods, really want the NRO’s back,” said Pia Hallenberg, Chair of the Riverside Neighborhood Council.
Hallenberg knows just know useful NRO’s can be.
“They were often the officers who knew about the problem houses,” she said. “They were there, officers who knew the street, people that caused trouble. The officers were often the first people that people reached out to.”
They act as a liaison for the community to the police.
“I just want to reiterate that this is a philosophy that’s going down to all officers, detectives, command staff, is that we are a community centered police department,” said Chief Hall.
The Spokane public safety tax that passed on November’s ballot funds NRO’s return to our neighborhoods.
“In the two year time frame, we’re hoping to bring up seven,” said Chief Hall. “That’ll give us enough to put at least one in each of our four precincts.”
Chief Hall noted that we won’t see these officers back in our neighborhoods overnight. SPD still needs to fill those positions and hire replacements for the officers becoming NRO’s.
“These are tenured officers who are already working at the police department,” he said. “Some of them were in our roles previously.”
Chief Hall said the first NRO will hit the streets in March.
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