Caught in an injury-free fender bender? Don’t expect the police to show.
Effective this month, Long Beach police will no longer respond to many non-injury vehicle crashes in an effort to focus on high-priority calls amid a record shortage of cops.
In a statement released Wednesday, the department explained that LBPD officers will respond only in situations where the collision either involves a pedestrian, cyclist, impaired driver, city property or a public agency-owned vehicle.
Police declined to make someone available for an interview but said in an email that the change will “help alleviate the current workload in patrol” and let officers “prioritize responding to priority one emergency calls for service, which improves our overall response efficiency.”
For crashes that involve an unlicensed or uninsured driver, disabled vehicle on the road, or a disorderly or uncooperative party, the city can dispatch a civilian community service assistant in lieu of a police officer, officials said.