Report: Nearly half of 911 calls to Seattle police don’t need officer response – By Alec Regimbal (Seattle P-I) / July 29 2021
Nearly half of the 911 calls Seattle police receive could be responded to without sworn police officers present, according to new findings by a nonprofit that worked with the city to analyze three years-worth of dispatch data.
A report detailing the findings, published earlier this week, is one result of Mayor Jenny Durkan’s plan to “reimagine” policing and safety in Seattle, which she launched via executive order last September following a tumultuous summer of protests following the murder of George Floyd.
The National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, which analyzed the city’s dispatch data, said that 49% of 911 calls police receive could, “at some point in the future, be responded to via an alternative non-sworn response,” without involvement from the Seattle Police Department. That figure is based on the institute’s review of the 1.2 million calls Seattle police responded to between 2017 and 2019
The institute also found that 80% of the calls Seattle police responded to during that time were logged as non-criminal events, though it pointed out that calls not officially logged as criminal incidents could still have involved some criminal behavior.
