SEATTLE — In Seattle, the city says it receives about 900,000 emergency 911 calls a year. The high call volume combined with a lack of officers right now has the city looking at alternatives.
The city wants to see if community service officers, crisis response experts, and behavioral health providers could be dispatched to certain calls. But exactly which calls and how the process would work are still being figured out.
On Tuesday, response times for 911 calls once again received attention at Seattle City Hall during the Public Safety and Human Services committee meeting.
"We are sort of building an airplane as we fly it, right. Crime, disorder, public health issues don't wait for us to finish our process,” said Andrew Lewis, the committee’s vice chair.
Seattle City Councilmembers say there is an urgent need, with the data showing that in nearly every police precinct response times have increased. Interim Police Chief Adrian Diaz has said a key factor is staffing shortages. More than 400 deployable officers have left the force over the last four years.
"There is a customer service issue going on with the system right now with no communication and that is why people are getting upset,” said Councilmember Sara Nelson.
During the meeting, Senior Deputy Mayor Monisha Harrell explained 911 call categories.
"Priority one calls are life-threatening events,” said Harrell who went on to add that priority two calls would be threats of violence or a disturbance using weapons, and priority three and four calls are more minor incidents where the response time is not as crucial.
There is also a new approach called the "Z Protocol."
"A supervisor or sergeant is doing the triage at a later point and dispatching to those high priority calls but not getting back to the people, to all callers,” said Nelson regarding Z protocol.
To be more responsive, the city is looking at what other municipalities have been able to do, like Albuquerque, New Mexico, where they have created an additional layer of public safety with behavioral health responders dispatched to some calls. The City of Seattle wants to know if that is something that could happen here.