SEATTLE — The Everett Police Department will soon be switching to a new 911 system, a change that may be badly needed after KIRO 7 found some home break-in victims waiting three hours for a police response.
Jody Salter found the screen window of her Everett home popped out and her jewelry box emptied by thieves on March 21.
“I feel so violated,” she said. “This is my property. This is my house. This is my belongings.”
Salter said the thieves took jewelry, but also other items with much more significance: her late husband’s wallet, watch, glasses, and his passport, which had the one good photo she kept of him.
“Being that his things got taken, it just, it hit really hard,” she said.
According to Everett police records, Salter called police at 7:41 p.m. and police arrived just after 10:30 p.m.
“What are you thinking in those three hours?” KIRO 7 asked.
"I'm saying, you know, why … am I just a nobody?" she asked.
For March, Everett police reported an average response time to home break-ins like Salter’s of 49 minutes.
But the longest response time was three and a half hours — even longer than Salter's wait.
“Is a three-hour wait time for police acceptable?” KIRO 7 asked Everett police spokesperson Aaron Snell.
“A three-hour wait time is not acceptable,” Snell said. “We need to be able to provide service to our citizens quicker.”
Snell said one of the challenges is staffing. The department is looking to fill 15 new positions.
After KIRO 7 requested an interview, Everett police calculated average response times for unoccupied home break-ins for March. But the department isn't regularly monitoring them because its technology is so outdated.
“It's very time intensive,” Snell said. “We actually have to almost go through form by form.”
The department is switching to a new emergency dispatch system called New World in June. The upgrade should allow police to track their performance better and dispatch patrol cars more efficiently.
“We need to address our citizens and help them in a timely fashion,” Snell said.
KIRO 7 researched how quickly other cities are responding to the same kind of property crime.
Reviewing Tacoma police's 911 calls in March, KIRO 7 found it took them an average of 32 minutes to arrive at a lower-priority break-in.
Bellevue Police took an average of 33 minutes for the same kind of crime.
In February, KIRO 7 reported the Seattle Police Department was regularly failing to meet its 40 minute response time goal for unoccupied home break-ins.
“We have to address the problem and we're trying a variety of different ways to do it,” Chief Operating Officer Mike Wagers said.
A recent outside review of SPD's 911 center identified the biggest problems, including staffing issues, software freezing up, and old technology that has some callers getting busy signals.
Home burglary victims like Salter know the crime isn't an emergency but said nobody should have to wait hours for help.
“I realize it was nothing life and death, but even still, it was very frustrating,” Salter said.
This year, Everett will pay $2.8 million as an annual fee to SNOPAC, the regional public safety communications center making the switch to New World. In 2014, the city paid about $2.7 million for the current 911 services. Most of that money comes from the city’s general fund; the rest, from an emergency medical services levy.
Everett police said it will also have a consulting firm review the department for possible improvements.
More than 50 other agencies in Snohomish County are upgrading to the New World system, including law enforcement agencies, fire departments, and jails.
The hope is the entire county will be able to work more effectively.
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