WENATCHEE — An area task force historically charged with combating drug-related and gang-related crimes might expand its mission to include homeless issues.
The move is intended to divert the workload that accompanies homelessness issues away from patrol officers and onto members of the Columbia River Drug Task Force, said Capt. Brian Chance with the Wenatchee Police Department.
“We just deal with so much of it so often that it can become cumbersome for patrol shifts to be the primary point of contact,” said Capt. Brian Chance with the Wenatchee Police Department.
He noted that there are legal requirements related to homelessness can make individual cases lengthy and time consuming.
The Wenatchee City Council on Thursday approved the change to the Columbia River Drug Task Force, but officials need a sign-off from the East Wenatchee City Council, Chelan County Commission and Douglas County Commission before the move takes effect.
“It is something that every jurisdiction in our area, in the valley here, is challenged with right now,” Chance said. “It’s nice to be able to address that issue with a group of officers that can dedicate some portion of their time knowing that … they can go around in any one of the jurisdictions and address those issues as they come up.”
Presuming the remaining jurisdictions approve of the change, patrol officers would often still be the first to respond to a homeless issue, but remaining follow-up work could be handled by the task force.
The task force operates in the two-county area and is composed of a small number of officers from the Wenatchee Police Department, East Wenatchee Police Department, Chelan County Sheriff’s Office and Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.
Pete O’Cain is a graduate of Central Washington University, served in the Marines Corps and covers public safety in Chelan and Douglas counties. He also leads The Wenatchee World’s wildfire coverage.
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