Durham’s Community Safety Department wants to hire civilian crash investigators

People reporting fender benders, fallen trees and other incidents without injuries in Durham could soon find themselves talking to civilian employees instead of police officers.

The Durham City Council and Community Safety department discussed having unarmed city workers assist police by responding to non-life threatening incidents, like impounding a vehicle, diverting traffic or note-taking at a crime scene.

“What we’re seeing in other cities here in North Carolina is that civilians can be trained to do this,” said Community Safety director Ryan Smith. “They can often get there faster because it’s their top priority, versus it may not be the top priority of law enforcement who have other types of urgent calls that they need to respond to.”

The cities of Fayetteville and Wilmington already use civilians for property damage and minor traffic incidents.

The Durham City Council will vote on the proposal during it next meeting April 18, before sending the request to the city’s state legislative delegation April 25.

According to Smith, property-damage-only accidents account for 9% of resident-initiated 911 calls, “a high volume of work.”

Durham hopes to hire five or six civilians to start, similar to Fayetteville and Wilmington, whose civilian employees each answer about a quarter of their calls.

Mayor Pro Tem Mark-Anthony Middleton and Council Member Jillian Johnson are strong proponents of the proposal.

“This is part of the work that we’re doing to relieve some of the work off of our sworn officers,” Johnson said at Thursday’s council work session.

“I’m looking forward to speaking with our delegation, and hopefully we will see a bill in the short session allowing us to do this. ... It could be a real game-changer for our community,” she added.

The safety department, which launched in July 2021, is planning four pilot programs to provide unarmed, skilled and crisis-care response as an alternative to traditional policing in certain types of situations.

This story was originally published April 12, 2022 at 5:55 AM.