Will civilians, not Asheville police, be investigating car crashes? What we know

ASHEVILLE - City police are looking at ways to hire civilians to investigate minor car crashes, rather than taking officers away from emergency response by having them deal with fender benders.

APD hopes to have the civilian team respond to collisions by summer 2025, Deputy Chief Jackie Stepp told a City Council subcommittee July 23. In the meantime, city police are creating a proposal for what the program could do and what it would cost after studying similar programs in Charlotte-Mecklenburg and Greensboro.

An officer must respond to all reported crashes regardless of how much property or physical damage the wreck caused, according to state law. Asheville police respond to 8,400 collisions per year, 86% resulting in only property damage, Stepp said.

Each time, officers spend about 45 minutes on site, according to Stepp. From 2019 to 2023, only 891 collisions — 2% of the 42,100 crashes in the past five years — resulted in an arrest or citation.

“That’s 45 minutes that officers may be tied up and not be able to respond to a 911 call,” Stepp said. “That’s over 4,000 hours per year.”

Instead, APD is recommending the city hire non-sworn civilians to investigate car crashes with only property damage, assist with traffic control and help with special events like parades and road races. These investigators would undergo a required 40-hour state curriculum as well as in-house trainings on crisis intervention, de-escalation, CPR, interviewing and more.

But the scope of their work would be limited. Investigators would not respond to hit-and-runs, DWIs, accidents with injuries and accidents that occurred on the interstate system.

Stepp described this as one innovative way to continue “reimagining public safety” amid what she called a staffing “crisis” at the police department.

APD currently has 174 sworn officers, leaving the department down about 60 officers from full staffing at 238, according to spokesperson Samantha Booth. Although this makes APD down 26% in staffing, Booth noted that 12 out of 174 officers are in training and not available for solo patrol.

More from the safety committee: APD data: Violent crime increase in first half of 2024; 2 less homicides than all of 2023

Other North Carolina municipal police departments have enacted similar civilian investigator programs, including Wilmington, Greensboro, Charlotte-Mecklenburg and Greensboro. Raleigh launched one just last week.

“We’ve met with Charlotte-Mecklenburg and Greensboro Police Department, and both agencies indicated that they see a benefit in the program,” Stepp said.

Wilmington Police Department has struggled with staffing levels and started a civilian crash investigator program to make up for the shortages. The program has been around for more than a decade as a two-person team but expanded to six investigators in 2021, the StarNews reported.

"You never know what you're going to get into on a daily basis,” one of their investigators, Stanley Pollock, told StarNews. He said they respond to about five accidents a day in the coastal city.

“You go out there and you just give it your all, you do the best you can, you treat people with respect, and you gain the trust of the public.”

Main concerns: Safety and cost

In the Environment and Safety Committee meeting July 23, city leaders asked police administration about safety concerns and budgeting for the program, which has been discussed as a possibility over the last few years.

Committee Chair Maggie Ullman said she was “relieved” that the data shows a large number of these collisions only involve property damage.

“I have wondered: is it safe if we have civilian investigators involved? And this looks like there’s a pretty significant portion of these collisions where we wouldn’t have significant safety threats,” Ullman said.

Prior reporting: Asheville chief wants car crashes investigated by civilians, not police; but law stalled

More: Asheville policeman's traffic infraction that caused 2-car wreck dismissed

Vice Mayor Sandra Kilgore asked if the call center determines whether there has been injury or some escalating circumstances before they would send a civilian to an accident that may be dangerous.

“If it’s some type of civil disturbance at the accident, that’s not something that we’d want to send them to,” Stepp said, confirming dispatchers would gather information on the collision before someone responds to the scene.

Ullman noted that the city just increased property taxes and asked that APD’s proposal include a list of expenses for City Council to “juggle in the context of everything else.”

“We do not have any resources squared away in APD’s budget right now that we could reallocate,” City Manager Debra Campbell said. “Those resources do not exist and are not easily transferrable to a new program.”

Campbell said this is a “totally new” program and they’ll have to figure out how many new employees it would include and how the city would pay for training.

More: Asheville OKs $250M budget; higher pay for city employees, property taxes to increase

Charlotte, a notably larger city than Asheville, has 16 positions they pay from $46,000 to $52,000 a year, Stepp said. Greensboro PD has five positions but are asking their city government for five more and pay between $37,800 and $67,600.

Booth confirmed APD does not yet have an estimate for how much the program will cost, telling the Citizen Times that they are still in the “early phases of benchmarking.”

“As this progresses, we will develop a detailed proposal outlining the program's objectives, budgetary requirements, and expected outcomes that will be presented to the environment and public safety committee for review,” Booth said over email.

Ryley Ober is the Public Safety Reporter for Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email her at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @ryleyober

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Asheville police propose civilians investigate some car crashes