Police in most communities across Kitsap County dealt with an increased number of drug-related incidents while the reports of stolen vehicles slowed, according to the Crime in Washington 2024 report.

Reports of crime to police across the state dealt with last year are outlined in the publication, put out by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. The report is aimed at informing residents, government officials and law enforcement data-driven information about local crime in their communities.

Of the five police departments in the county, Bremerton had the highest number of crimes for every 1,000 people last year, per the state report. The city’s crime rate was 88.2 per 1,000 compared to 68.6 in Port Orchard, 38.3 under the sheriff’s department, 47.3 in Poulsbo and 20.5 in Bainbridge Island. By comparison, Seattle recorded 87.4 and Tacoma 120.

Here is a recap of noteworthy crime statistics of each police agency in Kitsap County, taken from the annual state crime report.

Sheriff’s department

Deputies dealt with more serious assaults, guns and drugs on the streets of Kitsap County in 2024, says Kitsap County Sheriff John Gese. On a positive note, the number of car thefts dropped by nearly half. Meanwhile, the sheriff’s department may be headed for staffing cuts.

Regarding assaults, there is good news and bad. Aggravated assault calls went down last year by nearly 15%, however, the number of most serious assaults in this crime category went up.

“We are seeing a lot more serious assaults,” Gese reported.

Top-tier physical attacks – first-degree assaults rose from 17 to 23 and second-degree assaults climbed 39 to 52, between 2023 and 2024. Drive-by shootings, included in the assault category, climbed from 2 in 2023 to 9 the following year. Strangulation reports also rose from 2 to 12 over the same period.

Gese was unable to pinpoint a reason for the uptick in violent assaults. “I really don’t know. I would speculate it is due to changes in society from the pandemic in the last couple of years. Kids were out of school for almost two years and families were not going to work and being together, that maybe caused a rise,” he said.

“It looks like violent crimes are going down in some areas – in our area, not so much – but hopefully soon,” the sheriff said.

Deputies encountered more weapons on the street. “Weapons law violations really stand out,” he said. Between 2023 and 2024, weapon law violations soared from 69 to 164, representing a 71% increase.

“What is scaring me is in the last couple of years – compared to 5 or 10 years ago – deputies are running across more people who are armed,” he said. “A lot of those weapon law violations are felon in possession of a handgun.”

The upsurge of individuals carrying firearms puts deputies is tough situations, he said.

“We are at a time when police reform asks us to make sure that we do everything in our power to end the situation peacefully and deescalate. At the same token, we are being forced to deal with more people that are armed and potentially willing to use those weapons.”

Rape reports climbed nearly 60% last year. In 2023, there were 61 reports and 96 the following year. Again, Gese was at a loss to explain the jump and said this is tough on deputies. “If (sex crimes) were tied to a particular person or tied to a particular group of people we could adapt by working those people or work in those areas,” he said.

Drug violations nearly doubled last year, climbing from 133 in 2023 to 255 last year.

Legislative action contributed to the rise in drug arrests. In 2021, the state Supreme Court declared the state’s drug possession law was unconstitutional. In 2023, lawmakers in Olympia reworked the law enabling police to again make arrests for possession, resulting in an increase in drug busts.

“Officers and deputies are feeling comfortable with (the current law). The amount of drug use is very, very high in our county so they are making more arrests. On the same token, we’re also referring some of those people to drug addiction treatment and other things too,” he said.

Stolen car reports dropped by nearly 50%, going from 569 in 2023 to 295 last year. Factors leading to the improved numbers – deputies were able to put prolific car thieves behind bars and popularity waned of TikTok videos demonstrating how to hotwire Kia and Hyundai vehicles, Gese said.

Relaxing the police pursuit law also helped reduce car thefts, according to the sheriff. Police now have more discretion to decide when to conduct high-speed chases, including when attempting to stop a stolen vehicle.

Meanwhile, homicides remained stable with 10 occurring in both 2023 and 2024.

Looking to the future, Gese foresees a budget battle with the county to maintain what he describes as an already understaffed department.

The county is facing a $4 – $6 million deficit and county administrators have proposed a $1.7 million funding cut to the KCSO, Gese said. This could result in the department – whose current budget is nearly $58 million – having to lay off three deputies and three corrections officers in the jail, he stated.

Bainbridge Island

The most common calls Bainbridge Island cops received last year related to thefts, police chief Joe Clark said.

“The bigger drivers of our overall crime are theft offenses, or larceny crimes – it could be theft of property like shoplifting or bicycle theft. We’ve had a few bikes taken from the bike barn up at the ferry terminal. E-bikes seem to be targeted a lot,” Clark said.

While theft reports were prevalent, the number of such calls remained the same between 2023-2024, with 193 happening each year.

“We all have a role to play in crime prevention and keeping our cars locked, our doors locked and securing property. Anything that we can do to prevent that opportunity helps keep those numbers down,” the chief said.

Bainbridge Island Police Department was the only force in the county to experience an increase in car thefts. Stolen car calls slightly rose from 13 to 16, between 2023 and 2024.

The city suffered a rash of counterfeiting/forgery calls last year, nine compared to three the prior year. In 2024, several fake $100 bills were turned in by local merchants, he reported.

Fraud offenses dipped nearly 22% last year. “Even though fraud was down there are some pretty sophisticated schemes out there,” Clark cautioned. Several residents reported receiving calls from someone claiming to be from the sheriff’s office and demanding money owed and that payment be made in the form of a debit card, gift card or Bitcoin.

“This year, they were using one of our sergeants’ names, calling people and telling them they had warrants and asking them to pay a fine. Of course, we would never ask for money over the phone, especially in those payment methods,” Clark said.

Property destruction calls on Bainbridge Island dropped 41% last year, from 119 in 2023 to 70 last year. Clark attributed the reduction to officers being visible while on patrol.

The number of robberies remained stable while burglaries dropped from 38 to 33 over the last two years.

Bainbridge Island had the lowest crime rate of all Kitsap County police departments, with a crime rate of 20.5 per 1,000 people.

Bremerton

Bremerton police chief Tom Wolfe believes the city’s high crime ratio of 88.2 per 1,000 people is because 60% of his force consists of new officers – hired within three years. At this point, the new cops are more seasoned and proactive during their shifts, he explained.

“The more proactive policing you do, the more people you arrest, the more cases you create. When you proactively arrest people, your crime stats go up,” Wolfe said. “They are getting to know the problem people, the problem houses. And because of that, you’re seeing a lot more arrests and action taking place against criminals.”

Also, helping drive up the city’s crime numbers was the attention officers placed on drug offenses, Wolfe said. Drug and narcotic violations climbed from 117 in 2023 to 271 the following year, representing a 132% rise.

“In 2024, we began emphasizing (drug arrests) because we had so much open-air drug dealing taking place down around our homeless shelter. We started making numerous arrests for that. That is continuing in 2025,” he said.

Aggravated assaults increased nearly 32%, moving from 119 to 157, between 2023 and 2024.

“A lot of the aggravated assaults center around our homeless shelter. It’s the epicenter for a lot of our assaults and theft and things like. As we bring in more and more people from outside Bremerton, many operated with impunity in other places. They come here and they get held accountable,” the chief said.

Wolfe differentiated individuals at the shelter working to better themselves and get off the streets from a portion of the homeless population who he described as “vagrants.”

“Criminal vagrants live a lifestyle outside of the boundaries of rules and regulations. They want to do their thing when and where they want to do it. They prey upon the homeless and each other,” he said.

Robberies went down 15% last year. There were 41 in 2023 and 35 last year. “Most of these robberies involve people who know each other. It’s not some masked guy sticking a gun in someone’s back at an ATM machine. We’re not seeing those,” Wolfe said.

Weapon violations increased by a third, from 63 to 84, between 2023 and 2024. “This is focused around a group of people in the county that are definitely violent and are committing the majority of these crimes. It’s really limited to a number of bad guys,” he said.

Car thefts in the city dropped from 272 to 180 between 2023 and last year. “We’ve got the major car thieves in jail right now,” Wolfe said. The chief credits Detective Sergeant Jason Vertefeuille for getting repeat car thieves off the street.

The state crime report showed nearly a 100% increase of rape calls in Bremerton, but those numbers are misleading, the chief said. The report indicated, between 2023-2024, rape reports jumped from 30 to 59 incidents. In actuality, the number of cases found to be credible and charged remained the same over that period, he said. “We had three or four persons that reported the same issue over and over and over again (to different officers),” Wolfe said, who added these reporting parties were found to have behavioral health issues.

Poulsbo

Luna, a drug-sniffing dog, is credited with Poulsbo law enforcement dealing with more than a 440% increase in drug incidents last year. In 2023, Poulsbo police handled only 21 narcotic calls. That number skyrocketed to 114 last year.

“In 2024, we brought back our drug program with our dog Luna,” said Ron Harding, Poulsbo police chief.

“In ‘23 and prior years, there wasn’t a lot of prosecution going on; we went through that whole phase of drugs essentially being legalized, which changed legislatively. When that change took effect, we really focused on a lot more drug cases. We put the message out – if you’re a drug dealer in Poulsbo, we’re going to try to arrest you,” Harding said.

Weapon law violations also jumped from 5 to 21 between 2023 and 2024, a 320% increase. Harding said the weapons recovered were largely tied to drug activity. “I would say probably 90% of last year’s cases were related to also finding weapons – usually handguns.”

Burglary and stolen car incidents both went down last year, per department numbers. Burglaries dropped nearly 40%, from 34 in 2023 to 21 in 2024. Meanwhile, stolen car incidents decreased from 43 to 23, or 46%, over the same period.

Harding said drops in both crime categories were largely because police across the state were given the green light to conduct high-speed pursuits of suspects. “Word got out that we could pursue again. We need that tool in our tool belt. It’s one that we don’t want to use often, but when we need to use it, we should be able to. It’s a deterrent,” he said.

Looking ahead, Harding reports his department will continue to focus on drug investigations since a significant portion of narcotic cases are associated with firearms. Speed and parking enforcement will be another emphasis. “That’s in response to the community outcry for it. That’s what they want us to,” he said.

Port Orchard

The city’s crime rate dropped last year, Alan Iwashita, deputy chief of the Port Orchard Police Department, said.

“We’re very pleased that we saw the drop. We hope to be able to sustain that by working with the community,” Iwashita said.

Like many other police departments in the county, POPD saw fewer car thefts and less burglaries last year, Iwashita said. Car thefts dropped from 93 in 2023 to 54 last year. Break-ins came down from 98 to 81, over the same period, per the state report.

Iwashita believed that technology may have led to fewer burglaries. “There are more cameras around. People are a little bit more aware that a lot of residences do have surveillance cameras,” he noted.

Meanwhile, aggravated assaults, drug arrests and issuance of traffic tickets were all up.

“In 2024, we saw an increase in crimes against persons, primarily in the area of assault, both simple and aggravated assault,” he said. Aggravated assault numbers rose from 39 to 55 between 2023 and 2024, according to the state report. Drug offenses climbed by 117% over the same two years.

More speeding tickets were given in Port Orchard last year as cops stepped up enforcement of traffic laws, he said. “We have increased our issuance of citations. This resulted in a roughly 10% reduction in the number of collisions,” Iwashita said.

Those wishing to read the 601-page Crime in Washington 2024 report can go to WASPC.org.