KING 5 TV tweeted this weekend that Seattle Police will investigate why police entirely failed to investigate multiple 911 calls about a crash at Lake City Way Northeast and Northeast 20th Street.
A car crash during an evening rush hour last month left two drivers angry and frustrated after Seattle Police failed to respond to their repeated calls to 911. Both drivers told dispatchers they thought the man who caused the accident was drunk and they feared he could hurt or even kill someone if he left the scene.
It’s certainly not the first time here.
The King 5 story is here. The incident occurred Jan. 14th.
Frustrated by the lack of response from the 911 center, Aspelund tracked down a phone number of the Seattle Police Department North Precinct, located about 2.5 miles from the crash site. She said the officer who answered was no help at all, telling her that unless there was a horrible accident police were unlikely to respond and recommending she take up her complaint with city leaders.
The reaction so far has not been supportive:
We had disappointing service from Seattle Police when my boys were mugged at knifepoint a couple years ago off Northgate Way. I will commend the initial response. It was fast and officers attended to my sons. However, the follow up was terrible and ultimately nothing ever happened. The perpetrators were a bunch of teen boys who were seen at QFC playing around with an iPhone they presumably stole from my son an hour earlier. They were never picked up. It was a month later we were contacted by a detective. After showing us line up photos of teens all wearing the same thing and looking very much alike, we were hard pressed to surely ID someone so far after the incident. They told us how hard it is for them (the cops) to stay on these cases and the process of actually picking a suspect up is very complicated.
We do not have enough cops for our area. And when we can get response, the laws protect the criminals.
Sadly, these things keep happening over and over again with the Seattle Police giving the same mea culpa response that “we’ll try harder.” There is clearly something wrong with Seattle Police leadership and management; yet there’s no fix or a prospect for a fix. The same old “we’ll try harder” and “we’ll look into it” and “we’ll talk with the officers involved” responses are getting old. I just roll my eyes and smirk as if I heard the same bad joke repeated over and over again.
I find it interesting that a North Precinct police officer told a citizen to direct her complaint to her local politician. If that happened in private business, i.e., I told a customer to direct her complaints to my boss, I’d be fired.
Since city council woman Debora Juarez is my local politician, I’m wondering if she takes any blame for the lack of Seattle Police 911 response and what she believes would be a “fix” for it.
I was hoping that SPD Chief O’Toole would be able to change the culture, attitude and management of the Seattle Police, but I don’t think she commands the respect of the rank-and-file. They’re not going to do anything for Chief O’Toole to make her look good. If she doesn’t start kicking some ass and replace some of those old-time officers who are poisoning the rank-and-file with their lackadaisical, “I don’t care”, “there’s no consequence for poor performance attitude,” these things will continue to happen.
Same thing about 2 years ago on 5th and 91st or so. Wrecked cars sat in the road for hours.
SPD don’t care. Just keep paying your taxes.