Taking the helm: New MLPD chief talks department goals

MOSES LAKE — Kevin Fuhr is a lawman. Having spent 25 years in law enforcement in various levels of authority Fuhr knows what makes a good police department. That knowledge of what makes a good department played a big part in his decision to take the helm as Moses Lake’s new police chief, as he says the department was already well run when he officially took over on July 1, making his transition into the role of chief a fairly easy one.

Fuhr was born in California, but spent the majority of his childhood growing up in Moscow, Idaho. His family moved to the Tri-Cities when he was a senior in high school. Fuhr graduated in Kennewick and subsequently started his career in law enforcement as a reserve deputy with the Kennewick Police Department in 1990. He worked in Kennewick for a little over a year, eventually moving on and accepting a job with the Ritzville Police Department in 1992. Eighteen months later the acting Adams County sheriff recruited Fuhr and brought him into the department.

“So I went to work for Adams County in November of 1993 and was assigned to Othello. While in Othello I was the first traffic deputy for the department ever and spent five years doing traffic, so I handled all our major collisions and did DUI enforcement and all that stuff,” Fuhr recalled.

After five years in the traffic unit Fuhr transferred into investigations and became a detective with the department in 1999. Fuhr was tasked to investigate major crimes in the county all the way up until 2002, when his sergeant was elected sheriff and named Fuhr his undersheriff in 2003. He would hold the title of undersheriff for a little over four years, until an opportunity for a chief position in the city of Rathdrum, Idaho presented itself in 2007.

“The city has about 7,500 people. It’s almost the exact same size as Othello. 7,500 residents and at the time I took over we had a department of 12, when I left we had a department of 14,” he explained.

When it comes to comparing Moses Lake and Rathdrum in terms of crime statistics, Fuhr said the two cities are diametrically opposed. He said Rathdrum had its traffic, DUI and property crime problems like any other city, but nowhere near the magnitude that is seen in Moses Lake, and the rest of the Columbia Basin for that matter.

Nevertheless, under Fuhr’s administrative oversight, the RPD aggressively went about investigating crimes and apprehending criminals. That hard work paid off in 2013, when Rathdrum was voted the seventh safest city in Idaho, with no other city in northern Idaho even making the list. Fuhr touts the department’s relationship with the Rathdrum community as one of the biggest factors into the city becoming an all-around safe city.

“Our success as far as keeping crime in the city low was because the community was helping us doing that. And that was one of the biggest accomplishments that we had while I was there,” Fuhr remarked. “Which was great. Because when I took the department over we didn’t have that type of a relationship with the community and we didn’t have that type of a reputation.”

Fuhr says he loved the time he spent in Rathdrum, but when word came out of a chief position in Moses Lake the decision to apply was an easy one. Equipped with a general knowledge of the community already and longstanding relationships with other local agency heads, like Grant County Sheriff Tom Jones and Ephrata Police Department Chief Mike Warren, Fuhr knew the players in the area and knew the Moses Lake gig would be a good fit.

When Fuhr took over in Rathdrum he took over a department that had a lot of needs and had to be rebuilt and reorganized during his tenure. In Moses Lake, however, he says he knew before taking the job that the department was already well run and didn’t have serious overarching needs.

“The only real issue the city has is budgetary, just because of Moses Lake’s budget the last few years. So I thought this would be a great fit,” he said. “Give me some projects to work on as far as funding and trying to get some equipment needs met. But other then that, I knew I wasn’t going to have to come in and do a complete remodel, which was very attractive for me.”

Moses Lake’s new chief says one of his biggest goals for the department is to bring the MLPD into the 21st century when it comes to technology. Under Fuhr’s oversight in Rathdrum, the RPD was the first police agency in northern Idaho to deploy body-worn cameras to every officer in the department and he says he wants to see a similar program instituted in Moses Lake.

“I’m going to kind of step back and assess some of the issues. Now that’s not saying that in the future you don’t see some programs started here that are like the programs that we ran over in Idaho. I’d like to see how they would work over here,” Fuhr explained. “A lot of those programs will not just be Moses Lake programs. They will be programs that we will collaborate with the sheriff’s office and some of the other outlying agencies.”

Fuhr is currently in his 25th year of being a cop and says he would like to get a good six or seven more years in to make it up to 30 and, if everything works out, hang up his hat up for good in Moses Lake.

Richard Byrd can be reached via email at city@columbiabasinherald.com.