The four new Kent Police officers sworn in this week include a Somali refugee, an ex-college football player, a former car mechanic and an ex-Honolulu Police Department member.
Mayor Suzette Cooke swore in the four officers at the Jan. 21 City Council meeting at City Hall.
Police Chief Ken Thomas gave a brief background report at the council meeting about each of the new officers.
• Kamal Sharif
Sharif moved to the United States from Somali at the age of 7. He moved to Kent for his new police job last summer from Erie, Pa., where he served on the Gannon University campus police force.
• Junior Coffin
Coffin played two years as a defensive lineman at the University of Washington in the early 2000s. He attended the UW on a football scholarship and graduated in 2005 with a degree in American ethnic studies. He was a star football player at Olympic High School (2000 graduate) in Bremerton. He worked nine years as a phlebotomist at the Puget Sound Blood Center before becoming a police officer.
• Andrew Richardson
Richardson grew up in Kent and graduated in 2005 from Kentlake High School. His father is a chaplain at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent. He worked six years as a Bowen Scarff Ford mechanic and two years as a fleet mechanic for American Medical Response.
• Brittany Rios
Rios lived in Hawaii for 10 years and worked the last six years with the Honolulu Police Department. She is a 2002 graduate of Spanaway Lake High School. Thomas said Rios moved back to the state because she decided paying $8 for gallon of milk was getting old and she wanted to be closer to family.
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