The city of Kent and Kent Police Department recently honored Corrections Officer Jill Kinsella who retired last week after 36 years on the job.
The city hired Kinsella in 1989 and she held many assignments during her tenure at the city jail, according to a March 3 Kent Police Facebook post. The jail is at 1230 Central Ave. S., and opened in 1986.
“In my mind’s eye, Jill has always been a senior employee,” Kent Police Chief Rafael Padilla said at her retirement ceremony. “She was here several years before me, so I have always viewed her as a seasoned veteran. When I think about Jill’s attributes, both what I have observed and what people have said about her, the following things come to mind:
“She is the same person day in and day out. She rolls with change, challenges, and obstacles. She is reliable, consistent, positive and no drama. She values the role of our corrections officers in public safety and takes pride in doing things right. She has dutifully served the City of Kent and the Kent Police department, and we are a better department because of her presence.”
The city jail is officially called the City of Kent Corrections Facility. It houses misdemeanor offenders arrested by police as well as those sentenced to less than one year in Kent Municipal Court. The crimes include drunk driving, domestic violence, minor assaults and petty theft. Felony cases are handled by King County’s Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent or the downtown Seattle county jail.
Kinsella is known at the jail for being reliable, competent and having a positive attitude regardless of the circumstances.
Kinsella said her two favorite assignments were field training officer and being on the team that worked for a year to advance the jail’s record system to electronic reports from paper. She said helping to equip new officers to do their job was rewarding.
She added that she will miss the people she worked with and enjoyed getting to know others, hear what they had to say and doing what she could to help, including her co-workers and the people incarcerated in the jail.
Talk to us
Please share your story tips by emailing editor@kentreporter.com.
To share your opinion for publication, submit a letter through our website https://www.kentreporter.com/submit-letter/. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. (We’ll only publish your name and hometown.) Please keep letters to 300 words or less.
Jill Kinsella, front row, second from the left in uniform, and other members of the Kent Police Department. COURTESY PHOTO, Kent Police
