After a long wait, Gig Harbor Police get 2 new officers, both with local ties

The Gig Harbor Police Department recently hired two new officers, filling out a force that has been understaffed for over two years.

Officers McKenzie Fosberg and Mark Burns were to be sworn in at a Dec. 14 City Council meeting. Both have local ties to Gig Harbor.

Fosberg grew up in Gig Harbor and graduated from Gig Harbor High School, where she was in the Police Explorer program. Burns lived in Gig Harbor while working for the Seattle Police Department.

The new hires bring the department to 20 officers, still one short of its budgeted compliment, said Chief Kelly Busey. Recruiting is underway for a third hire.

The City Council authorized the city administration to hire new officers as far back as 2017, but action was delayed by long contract negotiations in 2019, and again while the city hired a new administrator in 2020. Officers complained the department was stretched too thin and they were working too much overtime.

Both new officers come in with experience on other departments.

A graduate of Washington State University, Fosberg was an officer with the Moscow Police Department in Idaho. She started as an Police Explorer with the Gig Harbor Police Department while still in high school. In a department of 20 officers, she will be the only woman.

Fosberg told The Gateway she is glad to be back home.

“My whole family is still here,” she said. “I have a young son now and we wanted to be closer to family. I always planned to come back after college. I just accidentally stayed over there for a long time, much longer than we thought.”

Gig Harbor has changed a bit since she last lived here, she noted.

“I haven’t lived here in ten years, so a lot has changed in the city since I grew up here,” Fosberg said. “It’s definitely a learning curve.” She still said she is glad to return and encouraged community members to say hello.

“You’re welcome to say ‘Hi’; I’m happy to be back,” Fosberg said.

Burns grew up in Anacortes, though he had been living in Gig Harbor while working for the Seattle Police Department. Prior to that, he was a corpsman — a medic — in the U.S. Navy. He went to the University of Washington, where he studied public health.

. “With everything going on in Seattle, I really just wanted a change,” Burns told The Gateway. “I really like this community and you get a sense of fulfillment actually working where you live.”

That “everything going on” refers to a summer of protests in Seattle against, among many things, institutional racism and police brutality. A record number of police officers, over 110, left the department in 2020.

As an officer, Burns said that he felt he didn’t “have really any community support” during what he called “riots” and that he didn’t “get a chance to connect with the community.”

“I didn’t really interact with any of the protesters,” Burns said. “When you hear that stuff that they say, some of it can be pretty nasty; and a lot of times, engaging, you’re not going to prove your point then and there.”

“When it comes to protests and why people were protesting, I don’t feel like there are any officers that I know that would disagree with that, you know, the incident that kicked off this whole protest thing with George Floyd. I don’t think any officer I know thinks that was a good thing,” Burns said. “When I put my uniform on and go to work every day, I try to do the best I can and not be somebody like that.”

He said that now he will have a much shorter commute, down to only two minutes, now that he doesn’t have to travel from Gig Harbor to Seattle. Burns said he doesn’t consider his departure to be quitting and that he always was planning to leave, though the demonstrations expedited things.

“I never planned to do too many years in Seattle. I kind of started out there just to kind of get more experience. I had planned to, you know, transfer,” Burns said. “It gave me a little kick to look a little earlier.”

Burns said Gig Harbor was the first place he applied to, and he was happy to get his first choice as it was similar to Anacortes. .

“Gig Harbor is probably a little busier since we have the bridge right there and the highway,” Burns said. “Overall, you know the downtown feel of Gig Harbor is just very similar to Anacortes. It’s a small harbor town.”

Reach Chase Hutchison at chasehutchinson@thenewstribune.com

This story was originally published December 12, 2020 at 5:30 AM.