YAKIMA, Wash. – On Friday, Commissioners LaDon Linde and Ron Anderson voted to approve $2.8 million of the American Rescue Plan funds to be used for the Yakima Regional Intelligence Center.
The vote was pushed up two months to allow the county to enter into a contract with the Yakima Valley Conference of Governments (YVCG) and speed up the process of bringing the center to Yakima County.
All three commissioner positions are up for reelection this year, however, Commissioner Linde said public safety has always been something he’s taken very seriously.
“There’s such a benefit to be able to move these cases more quickly bring justice more swiftly and so that was my motivation for wanting to move this forward,” Commissioner Linde said.
Chief Dan Christman of the Selah Police Department said he’s excited to see plans for the intelligence center moving forward.
“We’re not waiting for two more months, crimes not waiting, violent crimes isn’t ‘oh we’ll put it on hold for now’ so being able to address it that much sooner,” Chief Christman said.
The center is meant to help law enforcement collect more evidence and do it faster. Rapid DNA testing, crime mapping, a group of crime analysts and NIBIN ballistic firearm examination will all be at the center. The proposed location right now is at the Yakima County Sheriff’s Office in Zilliah.
Chief Christman said for his department, mapping will be the most beneficial.
“We are fortunate here that we don’t have the high rate of violent crime that maybe lower valley or Yakima has been seeing recently and so for us it’s going to be predicting crime,” he said.
The Deputy Coroner for Yakima County Marshall Slight said the rapid DNA technology will also be helpful to his office for identifying the deceased. The test gives results in as little as 90 minutes.
The Regional Program Manager for the YVCG Vicki Baker said this technology could also be helpful to identify missing indigenous people to help with the MMIW/P epidemic. She added it could also be helpful in cold cases.
The DNA would still have to be sent to the state crime lab in order to be used in court, however, Baker said the rapid technology could help give police leads in investigations or eliminate suspects right away.
It could also help identify people involved in low priority crimes.
“Property crimes, for example, will not be run by the state crime lab as a priority because they’re just worried about violent crime,” Baker said.
YVCG will play an administrative role at the intelligence center.
Right now, all the agencies in the valley will be playing to use the center except for Yakima Police Department.
Chief Matt Murray said YPD already has crime analysts and access to ballistic technology so they don’t want taxpayers to pay double for services they already have.
Agencies would be paying a sum to use the services based off population size.
Chief Murray said if the way pricing is done changes and they only have to pay for the technology they use, he might get on board with the center.
