EIZER times
$1.00/ ISSUE
Vol. 43 • No. 23
MARCH 25, 2022
Coburn hangs up the axe
Keizer Fire
District
By LYNDON ZAITZ
Of the Keizertimes
Tim Coburn, one of the most recog-
nizable faces of the Keizer Fire District is
retiring after a 35-year career in firefight-
ing. His last day is March 30.
A Keizer native and a 1984 graduate
of McNary High School, Tim began his
career as a volunteer with the district in
August 1987. Within 12 years he was a
paid professional firefighter. It was the
result of his quick action when he saw
dark smoke one day while eating lunch
at home. He peeked around and found
some arborvitae ablaze.
There was nobody around. No one
answered when he banged on the door
of the house. He grabbed a water hose
at the home and starting spraying the
arborvitae.
“I heard a siren go off, saying to
myself, ‘Come on, come on,’ Coburn
remembered. Seconds later he heard the
fire trucks heading his way, to his relief.
Sam Orcutt, one of the responding
firefighters, later suggested that Coburn
should sign up to be a volunteer fire-
fighter. He did. He signed the necessary
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paperwork and soon was in training.
A life saving incident that happened
when he was 20 years old also figured
into his later career. While living at
home, getting ready to leave, he heard
his mother yelling at his father, Marvin.
Tim went to the living room to see
what was happening. His mother said
he couldn’t wake his father, who was
sitting on a couch.
Tim checked for a pulse, found none
and discovered he was not breathing.
He pulled his dad from the couch, laid
him on the floor and began CPR. He
instructed his mother to call 9-1-1. Tim
continued CPR until the medical unit
arrived. Marvin was rushed to the hospi-
tal. He survived.
Later, Dan Woolley of the fire district
asked Tim to come down to the fire sta-
tion. When he arrived he was presented
with a plaque honoring him for saving
his father’s life.
Over more than three decades with
the Keizer Fire District, Tim Coburn has
seen the best and the worst of life, inter-
acting with people in the community.
“In the old days, there were two or three
calls a day,” he remembers, “Today, we
have up to 20 calls a day.”
Ninety percent of calls
today are medical
related.
When
asked
about memorable
calls he’s been part
of, Tim is quick
to name two. The
first was an OB
***********(obstet-
ric) call. A woman
was 37-weeks preg-
nant and ready to
give birth. Tim and
others were
in
the
back of the ambulance when the baby
arrived. “It was a proud day,” Tim
said.
The second memorable call was
less joyful. He and other firefight-
ers responded to a house fire. Tim
was on the second crew to enter
the house. Looking about, the
crew observed lots of jars. “Uh
oh,” he said to himself, “We
should get out.” It was a meth
lab, within blocks of the Keizer
fire station. Tim and the others had
to return to the station to shower to
remove any meth on themselves.
See COBURN, page A2
KPD polices problems, not people
PHOTO/Courtesy of Keizer Fire District
BY CHARLES GLENN
Of the Keizertimes
The Keizer Police Department
has one of the lowest offi-
cer-to-resident ratio of any
city in the state of Oregon,
and Chief John Teague
says that’s largely due
to a philosophy called
Problem-Oriented
Policing (POP) – a com-
plex, holistic policing
philosophy designed to
improve efficiency and
reduce crime.
“You’ve
probably
heard the term commu-
nity policing, but that’s
just one aspect of POP,”
said Teague.
“It became kind of a
theme in the industry, and
we leaned into it heavily
here in Keizer,” he said.
Community policing is a
pro-active, as opposed to reac-
tive idea, designed to address
criminal problems at their source,
sending officers out into the com-
munity in order to understand it, get to
know the people individually, and form
casual, as well as, official partnerships.
Teague said in the past, police
departments would pull out the com-
munity policing tactics from the larger
problem-oriented model and make that
the central effort of the department, but
he said there is far more to POP than
just community policing.
“We know from the research that
community policing, by itself, doesn’t
contribute to a reduction in crime,” he
said. “It just develops good relation-
ships and makes that process more for-
mal. By itself, it just doesn’t work.”
What does work, said Teague, is a
more fully-realized POP program, which
for Keizer, includes a four-officer team
called the Community Response Unit
(CRU) and a full time crime analyst,
working together with the four shifts of
patrol officers to identify, track and pre-
vent crime.
The CRU team doesn’t regularly
patrol with the other officers, and they
don’t always get dispatched in a detec-
tive role, but they can join patrol offi-
cers or assist in gathering evidence.
Their key role, as is every role in POP, is
communication.
See KPD, page A3