Patrolling Kootenai County
9-1-1 Magazine Rides Along
In Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
Article and Photos by Sheila Tarvin
| Sheila Tarvin is the former Communications and Records Supervisor for the Carlsbad (CA) Police Department. Retirement affords opportunities for travel, and Sheila reports on law enforcement and communication agencies she encounters along the way. |
| Illustrations: (select thumbnail to view detail image) |
 Dispatch Supervisor Joan Halverson at the Kootenai County Communications Center. She dispatches for the county Sheriff's Department as well as for the towns of Sandpoint, Post Falls, and Dalton, Idaho.  Kootenai
County Sheriffís patrol boat, one of 5 boats used to keep law
an order on Coeur d' Alene Lake and 16 other deep water lakes that
abound between the hills of this former trading post. Two
Kootenai County deputies investigate a subject during a vehicle stop. Deputy
Darell Stidham and K9 Enno discovering marijuana hidden in the trunk
of a car stopped by another deputy. |
This article can be found on
page 40 of the Nov/Dec 1997
issue of 9-1-1 Magazine.
The town of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, advertises that it is the "City with a Heart" because the French translation means "heart of the awl." Historians believe it is an old French idiom referring to the sharp trading practices of the local Indians. The area was first discovered by French and American fur traders in the 1700s, when the hundreds of small and large lakes teemed with beaver, and the woods brimmed with deer, bear, elk, fox, mink, and other fur-bearing critters. The area is still beautiful, if not the wilderness of old.
Located on Highway 90 about an hour east of Spokane, Washington, the Coeur d' Alene area is dominated by the lake of the same name. The county covers approximately 1,700 square miles. In addition to 9,000 permanent residents, nearly 200,000 visitors use the region's widely acclaimed recreational areas in the peak seasons. Law enforcement in the region is the responsibility of the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office and the Coeur d' Alene Police Department.
"The county has 16 deep water lakes including Coeur d' Alene Lake, making 54 miles of navigable waterways." Sheriff's Office Sgt. Ward Crawford told me. "Our marine division has a sergeant, a full time deputy and one summer temporary deputy as well as 8-10 seasonal temps comprised of college kids recruited from all over the country. There are five boats in the fleet including one 26-footer and two 20-footers with jet engines. We have some really remote terrain. The department has approximately 150 personnel, but only 35 of them are working patrol. It can get busy."
That's not surprising, as sixty percent of the county is a designated National Forest. Summer hiking, boating, camping, and fishing give way to winter recreation, including cross country and down hill skiing, snowmobiling, ice fishing and any other outdoor sports you can imagine. Hunting is also big business in the fall.
Senior Officer Tom Knight was raised in the Kootenai area. He has two brothers on the Post Falls Police Department just east of Coeur d' Alene. Tom spent 3 years in the U.S. Army Military Police in Germany and Kentucky prior to joining the Sheriff's Department in 1989. "This is a sparsely populated area, mostly rough wilderness, pine forests and lakes," he told me. "We don't have enough law enforcement personnel to patrol the wild areas except in response to an actual emergency."
The County also provides law enforcement service for several contract cities. "There are four `district' deputies who are residents of the areas they patrol and are basically on-call 24 hours a day," said Knight. "Coeur d'Alene Lake with its 150 miles of shoreline splits the county almost in half, making response time and coverage in some areas extremely difficult. Your backup can be a long time coming."
Like most communities, Coeur d'Alene faces drug problems, with marijuana and meth being the drugs of preference for locals. Outlaw bikers operate chop shops in the region and are into drug distribution. Teen gang activity, while not yet a great problem, is increasingly evident.
"Mostly gang kids from Spokane and other big cities come up here looking for trouble," Knight said. "We do have some `wannabes,' and there has been some tagging around town."
Central Communications is an independent operation which dispatches for Kootenai county, as well as for the towns of Sandpoint, Post Falls, and Dalton.
"We have two county radio positions, a fire/med EMD position, and a call taker," said shift supervisor Joan Halverson. "All positions can log on all services and all frequencies. Each operator can configure their terminals to suit themselves." The dispatch center is authorized 26 dispatch positions, and currently uses a Spillmann CAD system.
"We handle all 9-1-1 calls for the county." Halverson said. Kathy Balzer the dispatcher on the primary channel demonstrated the ease at changing configurations. I noticed several additional unstaffed terminals in the room. "Those three calltaker terminals and a supervisor's console are for growth," she told me.
Deputy Knight mentioned that originally the center was to include Coeur d'Alene Police Department, but the city decided to keep their own communication operation. "Local control was the issue," he grinned.
We responded to a call on the other end of the county, contacting a man whose ex-wife had not returned their daughter to his custody as required by court order. "I think I've been out on them before," Knight said. "The parents are fighting over a 2 1/2 year old girl."
The 40 mile drive was beautiful at dusk, passing trees, lakes and winding mountain roads bathed in the golden and then lavender hues of the setting sun. We arrived at a rustic log cabin and were greeted by three huge malamute dogs. Deputy Knight talked to the bearded father who had court papers showing custody. His ex-wife is a doper, he told us, and had called from Spokane saying she didn't intend to bring the baby back tonight, as required. Knight filled out a short report and gave the victim several phone numbers to contact in the morning. As we drove out he said, "I've seen his little girl several times, she's cute. It's sad to see her being bounced around like this."
The sky is still bright but the trees are inky black and the headlights do not seem to make much of a dent in the deep gloom as we twist and turn along the narrow road. Three deer dash across the roadway, eyes flashing green in the headlights. We brake sharply, but they disappear into the underbrush and intense dark. "That is a hazard up here all year round. Hitting a deer is no fun," said Knight.
Back in town at 8 PM, we were heading for dinner when another deputy asked for a cover unit on a car stop; he also requested an officer from the Narcotics Task Force.
We were the nearest cover unit and soon we pulled off the highway behind the original unit. The deputy had the driver out of the car and Knight assisted getting the two passengers out of the car, patted down and hand-cuffed. The Narcotic's Task Force, working a stakeout across town, arrived about 40 minutes later. The traffic stop, for a minor infraction, escalated when the officer smelled marijuana and observed what turned out to be drug paraphernalia being tossed out of the car as he made the stop.
Deputy Darell Stidham arrived with his drug-sniffing dog, Enno. The dog jumped inside the car. The vehicle's driver authorized a search of the trunk, which interested Enno greatly. He jumped in and nosed things around. Deputy Stidham removed a piece of luggage, some bags, some trash, but Enno began digging at the carpet on the trunk floor.
Enno, on lead, jumped out of the trunk while his deputy now removed most of the large items and lifted the carpet. There are five or six neat bundles, carefully wrapped in plastic and tape under the carpet. Each bundle holds approximately a pound of cured marijuana. "Eureka!" exclaims Stidham as he saw the packages. Enno got a treat and a hug for his efforts. The driver and two passengers went to jail.
The Kootenai County jail is located behind the Sheriff's Office in Coeur d'Alene. Deputy Mat Young gave me the nickel tour. "The jail capacity is approximately 120 but on holiday weekends we can have 212 in here," he said. "That's the high to date."
The facility was modern, with six pods radiating around a control center. Felony and high risk inmates wear red jump-suits, medium risks wear orange, low risk prisoners were suited in green and the prisoner workers (they did not want them referred to as trustees) were dressed in blue.
The blue quarters were separate and not under the same direct scrutiny as in the pods. Workers were housed in quarters off the huge kitchen area in rooms more like a dorm than a cell block. "We have three civilian cooks who oversee the meal preparation, but all the clean-up and such is done by the prison workers," deputy Young explained. "At any given time we have approximately 10 females in custody. They are housed in an area separated from the main population. We do have a cell for juveniles, but we don't usually house them here."
The following morning found me yawning along with the dayshift officers at the Coeur D' Alene Police Department. It was early Saturday and very quiet in the downtown. Patrol is short units and I am entrusted to Reserve Officer Al Harrison. He served eleven years with the department as a regular and is back with three years on as a reserve. Reserve officers are paid to fill shifts when shortages occur.
Coeur d' Alene has a population of about 25,000. The department strength is approximately 48 regular police officers and 10 resource officers who provide functions such as DARE (Drug Awareness Resistance Education) and Neighborhood Watch. The city held out on the dispatch consolidation and still maintains its own communications center. "I like having dispatchers I know and who know me," said Harrison. " Dispatchers are an officer's lifeline. You want someone you can trust."
The town is fairly small. We covered the beat around the lake front, which has a number of beautiful, resort hotels. Harrison said that there was not a lot of drug trafficking in the town, but where there was the drug of choice was usually marijuana. There had been some graffiti and gang type activity in the summer months when there were large numbers of visitors in the area. The recreation and resort areas in the city swell the population in the range of 100,000 on holiday weekends and there are huge parks which also attract crowds. "There has not been a drive-by shooting in town," he said, "Yet."
We drove along the beach to one of the most beautiful police stations I'd ever seen. "This used to be a restaurant that went bankrupt. The town leases it now as the detective division and administrative offices. There just isn't enough room for us in the old station." Located right on the lakefront, the building looks out over the pier where osprey nest on pilings topped with nesting platforms.
"We have a bike patrol in the summer. It gets so crowded down here in the downtown that bikes are the best way to get around." Besides the huge resort hotels, there were rows of shops, restaurants, a small mall and other recreational businesses associated with tourists. "This area is a nightmare on summer weekends," he groaned, but this morning it was deserted.
We drove into a residential area looking for a car. "I have a warrant that needs to be served for a stolen vehicle. The guy knows we're looking for him, but I like to check and see if his vehicle is around. He has a girlfriend up here." The car wasn't around.
We investigated a hit and run accident from the night before. A couple got up in the morning to find that their brand new garage door would not open. The reason was that it had been caved in by a vehicle during the night. So had their new Jeep Cherokee, which had been pushed into the interior garage wall, causing moderate damage to both car and wall. There was almost no physical evidence except some skid marks and some white paint transfers on the garage door. Surprisingly they slept right through the accident.
Back in the station, I hung out at the front counter while Officer Harrison handled some paperwork. Connie Schmidt, a very professional and knowledgeable clerk, was in the middle of a 12-hour shift. "The station is open 7am to 7pm every day except Sunday," she said. She mentioned an event the past summer where 60 "skin heads" from other states congregated in town. Most of the trouble makers come from other areas, she observed. "Most people here are decent, church-going, and law-abiding, and find that kind of thing abhorrent."
The town of Coeur d'Alene and Kootenai County are very much like any tourist area anywhere in the country. The influx of tourists often stretches resources to their limit. Small local populations and tourist based taxes mean budgets that are limited and often shrinking for public agencies.
Still, the local law agencies' level of experience, training, and professionalism were equal to any I have encountered. In fact, I have to admit I am impressed that the federal money pumped into law enforcement in the seventies and eighties have allowed even rural areas to afford modern equipment, training and technology.
