Yelm’s Police Chief Rob Carlson said, as the public is aware, it has been a busy year so far in 2025 for the department.
During a community conversations event on Wednesday, March 12, Carlson spoke to community members on what he and YPD have been working on since the turn of the calendar. As the City of Yelm continues to grow, so does YPD. He said the department’s growth has been important as the town continues to develop.
“Our city is growing. The population is growing,” Carlson said. “The cool thing about it is that in the last five years, our department has completely turned over to a bunch of different folks. A lot of retirements, so there’s a lot of youthful folks working in law enforcement.”
Though Carlson enjoys seeing frequent new additions to YPD, he said he needs to get his officers up to speed on new job activities — including vehicle pursuits. The chief noted that most of the YPD’s officers have never been in a department where they’ve been able to pursue suspects due to changes in state law that were later reversed.
“That takes our training program to another level where we now have to train these folks on what it’s like to pursue somebody and have the effects of the adrenaline, know when to call it off, how to execute pit maneuvers — all of these different things — and now we’re looking at teaching these folks brand new things because they’re usable in the career field,” Carlson said.
Carlson said he was proud to tell community members that YPD officers have accrued over four times the state standard of required training. He said the department trains consistently, and that it doesn’t make sense for the state to require police to attend 24 hours of training each year.
The chief noted that YPD has been busy with calls all year. He highlighted the recent attempted murder shooting on Thursday, Feb. 6, at Yelm’s Sea Mar Community Health Center. Both suspects from that shooting are in custody, according to Carlson. He also gave credit to the department’s new detective, as he’d only been on the job for two weeks before investigating the recent shooting.
“He did a great job. He had tons of collaboration from Thurston County and the state,” Carlson said. “We had to call different groups, which we would have on any major call, but for Yelm, we have to utilize our Thurston County, state patrol, those folks to help us out.”
Carlson also discussed YPD’s involvement in the recent Thurston County SWAT standoff on Tuesday, Feb. 4, which led to the arrest of one Yelm resident. He noted this was the first SWAT callout to occur in Yelm in “quite some time.”
“The SWAT callout, I look at our folks — the Yelm officers who were a part of that. We have officers who are part of the hostage negotiation team. We have officers, four of them, including AC Atkins, that are on that SWAT team. They all played parts in that call, and it was really cool to see them roll through and represent us very well,” Carlson said. “To stand back at the command post and watch all of our folks handle their business just makes you proud. Thinking back, I’ve been here for 20 years as a police officer, and we’ve had very little participation in groups like that. Now, we have a seat at the table with a lot of those different things, and it makes us relevant. It’s cool to see.”
Carlson believes one of the reasons for a rise in criminal activity in Yelm is due to his department’s activity. He said the call volume has increased gradually over the last four to five years, adding it’s due to a growing population but also due to the recent police hires’ desire to make good contacts.
“I had a police advisory board meeting today, and I was talking to those folks and letting them know that the one thing that stood out to me, is we could maybe at one point have three officers working at one time,” Carlson said. “Before, you could drive through town and maybe not see any of them. Now, you can drive through town and see all of them, and it makes three officers look like six officers because you see them everywhere. Being visible and being out in the public not only helps with communication with citizens, but it helps deter crime. That crime level that’s going up, I think, is not only a combination of our officers being proactive, but also our population growth.”
Despite an increase in call volume, Carlson said the rate of property crime and crime against people has stayed around the same pace.
“It’s not something that’s alarmed me,” he said. “For the most part, we live in a good community. We have a good city, good support, and, to me, I think we’re in a pretty good environment.”
