MLPD awarded reaccreditation

MOSES LAKE - Next to Chief Dave Ruffin's desk at the Moses Lake Police Department sits a lists of goals for this year. At the top of that list is reaccrediting the department, a goal achieved last week after months of work from everyone within the department.

"It was a challenging process," Ruffin said. "Honestly, it's a tribute to all the men and women that work here because they really got together in a short time and pulled all this together. Without the work they did, there's no way we would have been reaccredited.

The department is required to reaccredit every four years with the Washington Association of Sheriff's and Police Chiefs (WASPC). The department was awarded reaccreditation last Wednesday at the WASPC fall conference.

Ruffin said the WASPC commissioners expressed concern a couple weeks ago about the department's policy and procedure for missing persons and runaways, one of about 130 standards the department was required to meet. Ruffin said the standard set by WASPC had changed since the last accreditation in 2009, which is not uncommon. The commissioners were concerned the department may have been out of compliance for the last four years.

Upon hearing the concerns, the department updated the policy but still needed to show commissioners they had met the standard.

Ruffin met with the commissioners last Wednesday at a hearing in Chelan to discuss the issue, and he said he pulled every missing person report from the last four years to show how the department had handled missing person cases.

The commissioners voted and approved reaccreditation.

"It was a unique process," Ruffin said. "It's not an automatic thing to be reaccredited. It reaffirms that your organization not only has the policies but can prove that they're doing things the way they should be done."

"The people that work here are very proud of their accomplishments, and rightfully, they should be," he added.