RENTON, Wash. — King County’s first year banning fireworks in unincorporated areas ended with more than 300 people making reports.
A total of 336 calls were made. The King County Sheriff’s Office says some are duplicates, with deputies making contact with 110 people for the calls. Of those contacted, nine people were given warnings and citations.
KIRO7 reached out to other jurisdictions for their numbers.
While Seattle police didn’t respond, Renton police reported 150 calls and one citation. Bellevue said it was a “calmer” Fourth of July, with 128 calls and no citations.
Renton police officer Michael Thompson says education is the priority when they respond to fireworks calls.
“We always like to start with education. Education goes a long way,” Thompson said, “It could have solved the entire problem for now and the future if you just go ‘hey, these are illegal. Please don’t do them here.’ [and] the risks involved in doing.”
Thompson says officers have discretion on tickets for education and weighing whether the violation of firework ordinances posed a substantial risk to community safety.
He leads RPD’s drone program and was on shift responding to calls through the aerial machines. RPD reports four fires sparked by fireworks. One of the suspects was cited. In other situations, suspects left before first responders arrived.
“We were unable to locate the people that started the brush fires, but that would have been a good example of, ‘okay, this would be a citation contact versus a dad with his kids lighting some sparklers and maybe a fountain,’” Thompson said.
Renton has had drones helping respond to calls for three years. It’s helped provide descriptions of possible suspects and led firefighters to the exact area where fires are burning.
“Once we’re up in the air, we can point the drone towards where the complaints are coming from. A lot of the time that night, we could see the fireworks going off, which gave us a better location to start looking. And then once the drone’s on scene, it can actually [show] this is the person doing it,” Thompson said.
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