No more armed cops responding to minor car crashes? Durham, Raleigh want new approach
If you get in a car crash in Durham in the future, there’s a chance the police won’t respond — and that instead, other investigators without a gun or a badge may be the ones coming to the scene.
Durham leaders are asking the N.C. General Assembly for permission to use civilian investigators for minor accidents where there’s only property damage, and no reported injuries. It passed unanimously in committee Tuesday, indicating that before long Durham will likely have permission to move forward.
In recent years there has been a push among progressive political leaders to lower the number of encounters people have with police, due in large part to increased attention on police shootings of Black people during traffic stops and other low-stakes interactions.
At the same time, police departments across the country also face staffing shortages and, in areas both urban and rural, an uptick in crime.
The News & Observer reported last month that shootings and murders are rising slightly in Durham compared to last year — and that the police have struggled to solve violent crimes, with no arrests made in 10 of the city’s 11 homicides from the first three months of this year.
Durham Democratic Rep. Marcia Morey, a former judge, said Tuesday the goal of the civilian traffic investigators is to let local cops spend more time focusing on more pressing matters.
“It’s to free up our officers to be on the streets,” she said.
Durham isn’t alone in looking into civilian traffic investigators. Other bills at the legislature would let Raleigh, Greensboro, Greenville, Asheville, WIlmington and Winston-Salem do the same.
Rep. John Ager, a Raleigh Democrat, asked Morey on Tuesday if the traffic investigators will have arresting powers. She told him no, they can’t even issue tickets. Their main goal will be to direct traffic and write a crash report that could then be used for potential insurance claims. If it turns out there’s a bigger issue when they get to the scene, Morey said, they would then call in backup from the police.
Some of the committee’s Republican members asked whether the investigators would be allowed to use flashing blue lights on their cars — they would not, avoiding a controversial issue at the legislature that led to squabbles between police and firefighters last year — as well as about what kind of training the investigators would receive.
Durham Police Chief Patrice Andrews said the investigators would go through the same training for reporting traffic accidents that police officers do, and that they would then spend four weeks riding with an officer to crash scenes, to make sure they get field training as well.
This story was originally published June 14, 2022 at 3:12 PM.
