New cops on the block

Two assistant chiefs bring different experiences

By Nancy Wick
University Week

Emmet Stormo and Annette Spicuzza both use the word “challenge” when they talk about what motivated them to come to the UW. The two assistant chiefs with the University Police Department have been on the job for only a few months, and each comes from a very different environment than the one they find themselves in here.

Annette Spicuzza and Emmet Stormo

Stormo is used to a statewide agency, having spent 25 years with the Washington State Patrol. Spicuzza is a veteran of municipal departments, from large (Chicago) to small (Kennewick). Both are excited to be working in a university setting and helping to bring about changes.

“There are a lot of people here who are very qualified, very dedicated to this department and have been here their whole careers,” Spicuzza said. “The challenge for us as outsiders is to bring in new ideas and to do it in a way that people buy into them.”

Spicuzza is in charge of the administrative side of the police operation, including detectives and investigations, crime prevention, recruitment, training and development, grants and records. Stormo handles the operations side, including all the patrol officers on the street, the communications center and parking enforcement.

“We’re in the midst of a reorganization right now,” Stormo said. “We’re trying to streamline things - eliminating duplication of paperwork, for example - as well as strengthening the chain of command. That helps the flow of communication.”

The reorganization is only one of the new things going on in the police department. Ever since her arrival as chief a year and a half ago, Vicky Peltzer has been emphasizing the community oriented policing approach (COP). Now Stormo and Spicuzza are working with her to implement the method, which Spicuzza describes as “proactive rather than reactive. You work with the community rather than waiting until they call you.”

Spicuzza adds that many UW police officers have probably been using the method without knowing it. “But now we’ve given them a name for it and more structure and direction with it.”

COP has a corollary of sorts, called problem oriented policing (POP), which is also being introduced into the department. POP is implemented whenever there’s an ongoing, recurring problem that has to be dealt with, and involves the creation of an action plan and lots of documentation for everything that’s done. Right now, Stormo and Spicuzza say, the police are using POP on the thorny issue of skateboarders in Red Square. The department and the community are working hand in hand to address this issue

Skateboarders might seem like a minor problem to two veterans of heavier crimes. Spicuzza began her career at the age of 30 on the streets of Chicago. She was working at a commodities firm, she said, and hated the fact that she spent all her days indoors. Taking a risk on a new career, she took the police entrance exam and passed.

“I worked patrol and some undercover - vice, prostitution, drugs etc.,” she said. “I did pose as a prostitute a few times. That was pretty exciting - especially when we arrested a bridegroom on the day before his wedding.”

But after six years of seeing death and drugs and other forms of human misery, Spicuzza had had enough. “I knew I wanted to move west, and I knew I wanted to be in a smaller department. I started investigating places that would take me as a lateral transfer, so I wouldn’t have to go back to the basic academy again,” she said.

The search led her to Kennewick, where she was a patrol officer and DARE officer. That was followed by a stint teaching in the Police Academy and a job with the then newly formed Federal Way Police Department. Along the way Spicuzza moved up in rank to commander.

Stormo’s career in law enforcement was almost an accident. A Puget Sound native, he was attending Everett Community College on a track scholarship and some fellow runners suggested he take law enforcement classes as electives because, they said, the classes were easy. Stormo took their advice, and one of his instructors approached him to ask if he would consider working for the state patrol.

“I had never thought about police work before, but I was interested in a career where I would be able to retire at an earlier age,” Stormo said. “So I shaved off my mustache, cut my hair and went to take the test.”

He passed, and his jobs over the years included motorcycle patrol and then motorcycle training, followed by serving on the governor’s protection detail and heading up the organized crime and drug task force sections. He held the rank of lieutenant when he retired from the patrol two years ago.

But, Stormo said, he wasn’t ready to retire for good. He and Spicuzza both say they would like to become chiefs before they hang it up, and being assistants in what is considered a medium sized agency (51 officers) is good experience.

The department presents plenty of interest for them both. In addition to the projects already mentioned, they’re working on obtaining more technological tools for police officers. For example, they’d like to get mobile data computers for patrol cars. When these are used, a call to 911 is typed in in the communications center and flashes on the computer screen in the cars, thus eliminating a lot of radio traffic. And Spicuzza says the department is working on creating a records management system, which it doesn’t currently have.

Both said they are happy to be working in a police agency that has a solid reputation and both were attracted by the chance to work with Peltzer, whom they each had met in other contexts.

“This is an ever-changing community we work with,” Stormo said. “I think it will always be interesting.”