By Ruth Longoria
The Mercer Island Police Department must fill three officer vacancies this year.
The most recent void came last week when the department said good-bye to Commander Al Lacy, who was with the department for 30 years. Other positions opened when police Sgt. Paul Dowd retired in March and, recently, when officer Joe Morris left the department to take a job with the King County Prosecutor’s Office.
“After 30 years with the department, it’s sort of like leaving home,” Lacy said Thursday afternoon just before his retirement party at City Hall.
Lacy — who was one of three commanders in the Island’s Public Safety Department, which also includes Police Commander Ed Holmes and Fire Commander Walt Mauldin — was in charge of emergency dispatch, the detectives section and personnel-in-training for the past three years
Commander Lacy grew up in Seattle and graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1966. He earned a bachelor’s degree in geography from the University of Washington and had planned to go into cartography before he entered the Army in 1971. There he got his first taste of police work while assigned to military intelligence in Germany. When he returned home to Seattle in 1974, he began looking for a job in police work.
Lacy’s first real police job is where he ended up staying. He came to the Mercer Island Police Department Sept. 1, 1975, never imagining that the Island would become his home away from home for the next three decades.
“I thought I’d stay a few years and then move on to a bigger department,” he said. “I was excited to get a police job anywhere, but this turned out to be a good place for me.”
Lacy, 57, and his wife, Jane, have been married for 25 years. The couple lives in Issaquah and has a daughter, Andrea, 20, a senior at Seattle University. What makes the Island special is the people here, he said. “I have mixed feelings moving on with my life. I’m glad to be going to a job in the private sector, but I will miss the people here. But I’ll still be around. After 30 years, I won’t just go away.”
It will take awhile before Lacy can be replaced. First, the Island must fill the vacancy left by Dowd. A soon-to-be officer graduating from the police academy Sept. 15 is expected to fill the position. Mike Baker, 30, of Vancouver, Wash., left the business world, where he worked as a mortgage broker, to become a police officer. Mercer Island Public Safety Director Ron Elsoe said he has high hopes for Baker.
“I think he’ll be an excellent police officer,” Elsoe said.
However, there aren’t yet any prospects to fill the vacancies left by Morris and Lacy. To top that off, another 30-year Island police veteran, Dennis Wheeler, has plans to retire next year and will need to be replaced, Elsoe said.
Scrambling to find three new police officers isn’t all that unusual for the Island, since there’s usually a turnover of about two officers per year, said Island Police Sergeant Leslie Burns.
Finding new officers is a little easier than it used to be, Burns added. Previously, when the department needed new officers, ads were placed and the physical testing was done through the department. Now, police and other law enforcement agencies turn to an Internet service, publicsafetytesting.com, for assistance.
“PST (Public Safety Testing) is pretty slick, and a big help,” Burns said.
The service handles the written and physical testing and provides departments with a list of candidates — as well as their test scores, in ranking order — who are ready to be hired.
From that point, it’s still about a 10-and-a-half month process to get a potential officer through the hiring process. First, there’s an oral board test, then the candidate must be approved by the civil service board, and the department must run background checks on the candidate (such as credit, criminal history, employment and personal references). Then, the candidate must pass a polygraph test and meet with Island police commanders to determine if he or she is compatible with the department.
“In a small department like ours it’s important that personalities fit well together,” Burns said.
If everything goes well, the candidate is given a conditional job offer and a psychological test. The candidate also must pass a full medical exam. Next, uniforms are ordered and the candidate begins academy training. But, that’s not all — once the candidate graduates from the academy they begin about a three-month training with an Island police officer.
The process is shortened if a lateral candidate from another agency is found, Elsoe said.
“But then they still go through the three-month training with our officers,” he added. “It takes a while, but then when they’re ready we should have some good officers.”
