Some 60 city residents came to Chinook Elementary School’s library on Oct. 24 to hear what local officials had to say about public safety and the recent uptick in yahoos and criminals in their neighborhoods, thieving, dealing drugs, speeding, shooting and otherwise raising hell.

And they came to share their many concerns with people in positions to do something about it.

For their part, Auburn Mayor Nancy Backus, Police Chief Mark Caillier, Auburn School District Superintendent Alan Spicciati, and Director of Administration Dana Hinman and others were eager to hear what the attendees had to say.

It was the seventh and final such public safety meeting in recent months.

“Safety is everyone’s concern,” began master of ceremonies Waylon Menzia. “We all live in a community and we want to be safe. We want to make sure that we can do the things we want to do, our children can do they want to do, and as we get older, our grandchildren can do the things they want to do.”

Some attendees came fired up about aggressive driving.

“I don’t believe it’s enough, just pulling people over and giving them tickets for running a red light, for running stop signs, or speeding, racing — you hear them all day long. What is our police department doing about that, and further about curtailing some of the violence and bad activities?” said one woman.

One man bluntly referred to the offenders as “traffic idiots.”

Caillier said all Auburn officers are fully authorized to make traffic stops, but if they are responding to a higher priority event, they may have to leave that stop. The city’s traffic unit, he said, logs many traffic complaints online, from speeding to people using their cell phones, and officers will respond to those.

At the moment, Caillier noted, the APD is short on officers.

“Right now, there are four traffic officers, so it’s kind of a smaller unit, but it’s what we have, and they try to address the needs in every district in the city,” Caillier said. “So, they do selective enforcement. In the last week, they’ve been down in front of Pioneer Elementary because we get a lot of complaints about speed, especially during school times, and so they’ve been down there with with a high emphasis all week.”

“Auburn is big, so 128 is a good number of officers to have,” Backus told the gathering. “Law enforcement in Washington in 2020 and beyond lost a lot of officers, some who left the state to pursue their law enforcement careers in other states, and others who got out of law enforcement altogether. It’s just not as attractive anymore.”

“We’re bouncing back from that,” Backus said, adding, “if you know anybody who’s an officer, please send them our way. We have not lowered our standards, but there are things that perhaps would have kept someone from being an officer in the past that will not keep them from being an officer today.”

Caillier said the recent uptick in youth violence involves juveniles who aren’t from Auburn, but come here to commit crimes. A lot of these incidents are probably connected to 15 to 20 juveniles and it’s happening throughout the region, he said.

“It’s a small core that’s committing a lot of these crimes across the region, and that’s who we focus on,” he added.

“It’s the kids,” said one man, who lives at the bottom of Muckleshoot Hill and has seen too many incidents there. “I’ve seen video of them shooting at people and shooting up the mall. … Two weeks ago, they drove up and shot my neighbor’s house all up with 32 rounds. They shot out a window a few feet from my head where I was lying in bed.

“Yeah,” he continued, “I know there’s all kinds of problems with traffic and and other stuff, but I’m more concerned about holding people responsible and kids responsible for what’s going on, and gang violence, and what we’re going to do about it. Because it’s ridiculous, so ridiculous.”

Others noted that helpful youth programs like DARE that used to be in the schools have gone away.

“I don’t know if I have a ready answer,” Caillier said. “We investigate these crimes, and make arrests when we can.”

The Auburn Police Department is collaborating with law enforcement in Kent, Federal Way and Seattle to address the violence at a regional level, Caillier said.