Bellevue police earn national accreditation

The Bellevue Police Department has become the 14th police agency in the state to receive a prestigious national endorsement.

The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) accredited the Bellevue department last weekend during the organization's annual conference in Birmingham, Ala.

The approval was long expected. Judges visited Bellevue in December. But the final decision still was rewarding, said Bellevue Police Chief Jim Montgomery.

The Bellevue police dispatch center, which serves 16 public-safety agencies in King County, also received a separate CALEA accreditation.

The department spent three years preparing for the accreditation evaluation and made several upgrades, including a new internal-affairs unit and more detailed long-range planning.

"I feel really good about [the accreditation]," Montgomery said. "... We are a much better department, operationally, than we were before."

CALEA, based in Fairfax, Va., offers the only national police standards in the country. It has accredited about 700 law-enforcement agencies, fewer than 10 percent of all of those in the country.

Other area departments accredited by CALEA include the Seattle, Redmond and Renton police, as well as the Washington State Patrol.

Three CALEA judges — two retired officers and one active cop — spent five days with the Bellevue department in December. Their positive report was the biggest factor in getting accredited, Bellevue police officials said.

The judges said they were impressed with all facets of the department, from its state-of-the-art equipment and training programs to its connection to the community and neighboring agencies, said one of the judges, Patrick Lyons, a lieutenant with the police department in Winnetka, Ill. "We all thought that Bellevue was one of the best we've ever done ... " Lyons said. "Use any adjective to describe a police department, and we thought they were in the upper echelon."

Some departments seem to want accreditation only to add to their lists of awards, but Bellevue really wanted to become a better agency, Lyons said.

"They were doing it for the right reasons."

Ashley Bach: 206-464-2567 or abach@seattletimes.com