San Antonio is exploring whether or not retired cops, civilian crash investigators or expanded on-line reporting may deal with low-priority calls similar to minor site visitors incidents — a transfer metropolis leaders say may release patrol officers for higher-priority emergencies.
The thought, first proposed in a February council consideration request from District 1 Councilmember Sukh Kaur, obtained its first detailed public briefing final week. Kate Kinnison, town’s chief innovation officer, outlined a number of approaches utilized by police departments for dealing with low precedence calls throughout the state and nation.
Kinnison introduced two examples of alternative-response fashions from Denver and New Orleans, the place civilians have both been employed as reporting technicians or contracted via non-public distributors. In Denver, 15 civilian technicians dealt with greater than 15,000 hours of its nonemergency name load final yr. Contracted crash brokers in New Orleans coated roughly 25,000 hours of low severity crash work in 2023…