Blog Post: September 14, 2025.
The first time I gave thought to being a cop was when I was 12 years old in 1984. I was in the wrong place at the right time to catch a local child predator in my neighborhood- and report him to Puyallup PD. I was awarded by the Puyallup Chief of Police at the time with a letter and ceremonial badge. Check out the image below. I mean, it’s a hell of an origin story. It was a formative experience where I learned real bad guys are out there- right in my neighborhood- and I wanted to protect and serve my neighbors.
I grew up a little and went to Rogers High School and became a Police Explorer Scout with the Police Dept. After graduating high school, I spent time as a scuba instructor and running a small business. At 26, I was a new husband and a new father to a 6 month old girl, my oldest daughter. That same year, in 1999, I finally achieved that childhood dream and began my law enforcement career at the Enumclaw Police Department. I moved to Bonney Lake PD in 2002 and eventually landed back in Puyallup in 2005, right where I wanted to be- back in my own neighborhood. I was working where I’d always wanted to, now with my wife and two young daughters, Emma and Polly.
Beat Cop Bennett
From 2005 to 2015 I was a ‘regular’ police patrol officer, and I loved my job. I worked all the shifts; days, swings and graves. I loved it. As much as I enjoyed the nature of police work and all that came with it, it was hard not to have the heartstrings pulled witnessing the hardship my neighbors faced.
In the years of aftermath from the Great Recession and the still burgeoning opioid epidemic, the homelessness crisis really began to break through into suburbia- and it became something unavoidable in Puyallup. Like most other residents, I felt for these people. Homelessness to me is not merely an unsightly mess that need be scrubbed away (some might disagree). They are real humans, often with afflictions of addiction or mental illness (oftentimes both), who deserve humanity and a means to rise out of their crises. My duty as a police officer was to serve the community, to keep the streets safe, to protect people and families. That included everyone, regardless of where they rested their head. I began to try and take approaches to helping people that didn’t involve handcuffs. The department gradually came around to my way of thinking.
Community Outreach Officer
The command staff at Puyallup PD noticed my work. My approach gained the respect of my colleagues, the Fire Department, emergency services, and my neighbors across the city. This was becoming a priority to me. Conducting business as usual with our homeless neighbors was not working. A new approach needed to be adopted.
In 2015 I was taken out of full time patrol duties and given the title of Community Outreach Officer. The ad hoc work I was doing was now my full time job. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude and credit to then Captain Scott Engle (now Chief Engle) for bestowing that honor. He proposed this position to the PD’s Command Staff and all should be credited. By this time the homelessness across Puyallup was spiraling into a very visible, very apparent problem- and I was entrusted almost exclusively with the responsibility of taming it.
I should note here that I was not at all alone. I received tremendous support from CPF&R, Multicare (Good Sam Hospital), local NGOs, the Sheriff’s Dept, as well as our own municipal and Pierce County Superior Courts.
I will say Puyallup PD was receiving next to zero support or guidance from City Hall at this time. For a near-constant rhetoric of ‘Cleaning Up’ our city, the resources they dedicated to executing that cause were very little. Council green-lit my position after the incredible efforts of the PPD Command Staff to make my position a full time gig, but other than that, Council was absent. I didn’t pay too much attention to what the Council said behind the dais, their posturing had little effect to us on the ground. Bottom line, I was making up the city’s response on the fly, always with the support of leadership at PPD.
That’s not to say that the Council left me alone. I think the biggest fan of my work was Mr. Jim Kastama. The longtime State Senator turned City Councilman. The ex-Democrat turned fringe online activist. Kastama committed to literally following me into encampments to take pictures of me and post them online, to a Facebook group that his supporters created dedicated entirely to trashing Puyallup PD’s homelessness response and harassing myself and others. He would get in his car and follow me site to site, always with a camera in hand ready to ‘catch me’ doing the exact work our police department assigned me to do. Whether it was to score political points or fulfill a personal vendetta, or both, I’m still not quite sure.
During my five years as the COO, I had broad trust and support of my colleagues at PPD. The work I was doing, along with my partners (NGOs, etc.) in the homelessness space, took the time-consuming work in this arena away from the patrol officers. It allowed them to get out there to fight crime and catch the real bad guys- while I did the important work of mitigating the homeless issues- getting support to homeless citizens while working tirelessly to keep the citizens affected in our neighborhoods safe.
I did the work in the middle of a camp on a Thursday in the pouring rain.
I did the work driving a homeless man to a treatment center in Yakima after working with him for months, trying to get him into treatment.
I did the work by supporting a woman who I’d arrested but then supported as she succeeded in Pierce County Drug Court and got back on her feet.
I did the work with people on all sides of this ongoing crisis.
I did the work.
During my tenure I was also asked and accepted the role of Law Enforcement Liaison with Pierce County Superior Court Drug Court and Puyallup’s own Community Court. This assignment proved to be some of the most impactful work I ever did in my 23 years of law enforcement.
But, just because I was doing this very important, community based work it didn’t mean I wasn’t still a street cop at heart. I was always listening to the radio, monitoring what my partners were doing and dealing with. In 2018, a call came over the radio that couldn’t be ignored. My partners and I put our lives on the line and became involved in a very dangerous incident involving a man with a high powered rifle at the Puyallup Recreation Center.
I, along with others, would eventually be awarded the state’s highest law enforcement award, the Washington State Law Enforcement Medal of Honor.
Cop to Councilman
Homelessness is still a large issue for the region as a whole, there is no denying that. I retired in 2022, and I bring a perspective no one else in this race can. I know what works in the real world because I’ve lived it. There is much work to do, and as a candidate I am committed to meeting the challenge head on. There is no one in the entire city of Puyallup who has the same level of experience and know-how on addressing homelessness as myself. In the same way that we must not just be tough on crime but smart on crime, we must be smart about how we handle homelessness. Bringing a first responder’s outlook and experience to council is paramount.
When I was the Community Outreach Officer, the support I received from the PD Command Staff and my peers was second to none. They believed in me because they saw what I was doing was working- building relationships in the field, supplying resources, keeping the peace.
The support the Police Department received from the Council was almost non-existent, and while the Council was very good at commenting on where we supposedly went wrong, the helping hand they gave looked only like finger-wagging. That’s not leadership. When I am on the Council I will commit to meeting with the new COO and police leaders to give them the support and resources they need to combat this crisis in the smart way. That’s the leadership of someone who knows what they’re doing. I also won’t harass any cops on Facebook. I promise.
The Endorsement Elephant in the Room
I am very proud of the endorsements I have received in this race. As a first time candidate, cultivating relationships with officials and organizations has been an exciting challenge, but it is true I don’t have the established base of someone who has been in politics for thirty years. When it comes to the endorsement of the PPOA (Puyallup Police Officers Association), I didn’t ask for it. There’s a few reasons for that.
Number one, I make no bones nor will I apologize about my political beliefs no matter who I’m around. That may make me a bad politician, but it’s me. But cops aren’t known to be a liberal group. The rank-and-file at PPD are often polar opposite of my beliefs, and that’s okay. Do I have the support of a lot of the great folks I worked with? Hell yes. Do a lot of my friends from ‘back in the day’ routinely stop by our home to shoot the breeze? Hell yes. Did I trust my life and well being to these amazing people, then and now? Absofreakinlutely. But, do we see eye to eye on a lot of things politically? No, we don’t.
Who am I to ask a group with so many Republicans to back my candidacy? I will say, there are about four members of the PPOA who live in the city. Four. So, while I appreciate the heck out of every one of them and the work they do every day, they almost all live outside of town. Make no mistake, this by no means takes away from their dedication to our town and their willingness to put their lives on the line- but the folks who are endorsing in this race by and large are not voting in this race. Take that as you will.
Also, after having served on the PPOA executive board ‘back in the day’, I know full well that the fine men and women on today’s executive board are going to back the incumbent. I’m not bitter about it, and I recognize and respect the strategy they have. I won’t question their bureaucracy. I loved and still love the people I worked with, but I’m not going to ask for that endorsement.
When I want to see a cop who supports my candidacy, I look in the mirror and to those lifelong friends.
I look at my old cop buddies like Scott Lien, a lifetime best friend of mine. He recorded a #CommunityEndorsements video backing me in this race- not because he believes in everything I believe- hell, he’d tell you that’s an understatement! But he knows me as a man, as a father, as a husband, and as a public servant, and he’s supporting me because someone with the real experience of being a cop knows how to do this job. That really speaks volumes. Much more than any political endorsement I could ask for.
A lot of people can go to a conference, or read a whitepaper on a topic, or sit behind a camera, cell phone or keyboard and talk shit online. As far as being a cop, I did the work. As far as homelessness is concerned, I did the work. I didn’t have the luxury of sitting on the dais and second guessing what the worker bees do or did. Decisions in police work oftentimes have to be made in split seconds. The luxury of sitting behind a nameplate on the dais must be wonderful. I was a police officer for over twenty years, 17 of them in Puyallup. I championed solving tough issues like homelessness for five years, and I’m ready to do it again for the next four.
Jeff Bennett for Puyallup City Council 
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