Lieutenant King retires after 29 years with Blaine Police Department

After 29 years of service protecting the city of Blaine, lieutenant Ryan King will be missed.

“Twenty-nine years of faithful employment at one agency is rare and I truly appreciate his dedication to the city of Blaine,” Chief Donnell Tanksley said about King. “That amount of institutional knowledge is hard to replace and will be missed. I wish him and his family the best in retirement and hope every day is a Saturday for him.” 

With the first homicide investigation in Blaine in nearly 40 years ongoing, King sat at the Blaine police department conference table, sipping a cup of hot cocoa, struggling to recount the almost three decades spent with the department he chose at random.

On April 7, King, assisting the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office, responded to a report of an apparent dead body with multiple gunshot wounds in Semiahmoo Park that was later identified as 67-year-old Thomas Flood. Only a day later, he said it would be difficult for it not to overshadow his career. “It just seems kind of ironic that that’s the last thing you’re going to be doing before you actually retire,” he said.

But since King joined the department in 1992, he’s done a lot. He’s been a detective for the past Whatcom Inter-Agency Narcotics Team, acting chief, training instructor and made the first DUI arrest while on bicycle patrol in Whatcom County in the late 1990s.

Originally from Port Angeles, King started his law enforcement career with the Makah tribal police, assigned to the Clallam County Drug Task Force for four of his five years there. After “putting some pretty bad folks” into prison, he decided it was time to move on.

King picked up a law enforcement digest with a listing of police departments that were hiring at the time, closed his eyes and pointed to three. He called them all looking to apply, Blaine being the third.

The lines for the first two were busy, he said.

King said he’s always been drawn to smaller towns because it’s easy to get to know the community. He said he prefers it to a larger agency, where officers can get stuck responding to multiple calls in a row and have less time to connect with the community they serve. “And it’s kind of a sea port, which reminds me of my hometown of Port Angeles,” he said about Blaine.

King said in his early years as an officer, traffic enforcement was his favorite part of the job. He also said he enjoys the freedom officers have in the department. “We’re not so rigid that you’re directed to do this, this and this,” he said. “There’s control of the officers but they’re allowed to go out and do their job.”

Now, as a lieutenant, King said he’s on patrol far less. Most of his time is taken up by paperwork and representing the department in meetings. “Once in a while I can sneak out,” he said.

But King said he likes the current administrative role that he’s in now, too. “You need challenges,” he said. “It makes you a better person.”

Once in a while, King said he returns to Neah Bay to work patrol for the Makah tribal police.

King said the Covid-19 pandemic had nothing to do with his decision to retire. “I’ve been doing this for 34 years and there comes a point in time when you have to say enough is enough,” he said.

King said recent changes in case law and court decisions, naming the legalization of marijuana as one, played a role in his decision. He said officers feel really restricted right now. “But there’s a way to do business,” he said. “It makes everybody better.”

King said Blaine, as a community, has always been very supportive of its police department. “We don’t get thanked often but when we do it’s very appreciated,” he said.

King retires Friday, April 16, and said he will be staying in Blaine for the foreseeable future as his wife, Raylene King, will continue working as court administrator for the Blaine Municipal Court. And he said he thinks she’ll be keeping him busy.

“I think my wife has a long list of things for me to do,” he said. “But I think I’m going to have to take some sick leave and remind her that I’m retired.”