WILMINGTON — The Wilmington Police Department has created four new positions for its Civilian Crash Investigation unit.
The move will allow non-sworn civilians to pick up more traffic work that doesn’t involve injuries, which is usually overseen by sworn officers.
Related: Two local organizations revitalize Creekwood South basketball courts
In 2008, the N.C. General Assembly gave the City of Wilmington special permission to allow civilian investigators to manage property damage crashes. To date, WPD remains one of the few departments statewide that utilizes non-sworn officers for this purpose.
The city’s two civilian crash investigators help offload the demand of sworn officers. Last year, WPD officers responded to 7,387 traffic crash reports. About 80% of these crashes did not result in serious injuries, but with just two civilian investigators available, the bulk of these incidents were handled by sworn officers, according to WPD.
The four new positions will be a tremendous help for the department, Chief Donny Williams said last month.
Each civilian investigator handles about seven accidents per day. A majority of the accidents require citations, which non-sworn officers cannot issue themselves. When this happens, they must call in a sworn officer to issue the citation.
Williams said WPD is lobbying the state so civilian investigators can issue citations for certain low-level issues in order to free up even more time from sworn officers.
When not investigating crashes, the civilian units help clear roadways of broken down vehicles and perform traffic control when needed.
“This is a tumultuous time for American law enforcement and it’s been difficult to find qualified candidates with an interest in becoming a sworn police officer,” Williams said in a WPD release Wednesday. “In this case, we can get the same job done with a civilian as we could with an officer, and that allows us to utilize our sworn personnel more efficiently.”
WPD plans to hire and train the four new officers so they are on the field by March 2021. Civilian investigators don’t carry weapons or have arresting power. WPD will post the open positions in the coming weeks.
Send tips and comments to info@portcitydaily.com
"four" - Google News
November 25, 2020 at 11:45PM
https://ift.tt/3l5Jfkz
WPD creates four new civilian crash unit positions, will relieve sworn officers - Port City Daily
"four" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2ZSDCx7
https://ift.tt/3fdGID3
No comments:
Post a Comment