SPOKANE, Wash. — Changes are coming to how 911 calls are handled and dispatched in Spokane.
And, depending on your emergency, the changes could impact how quickly police or firefighters respond to your call.
The Spokane Police Department announced that they are making changes to how they respond to 911 calls starting this Monday.
Starting on October 31st, Spokane Regional Emergency Communications (SREC) will still answer 911 calls, but only dispatch police and fire in urgent matters that impact people's safety.
If a crime is in progress or someone is having a medical emergency, first responders will deploy.
For calls that are not as urgent, the SREC dispatcher will stay on the line with the caller and forward their information to the correct department to check on later.
"For the emergency case, where it's in progress, and there is an imminent threat, there should be no change to the way that those calls are processed. Where were the public may notice a difference is going to be in the lower acuity calls, perhaps the aspect left something that did happen," said Justin Lundgren, the Spokane assistant chief of police.
Police hope this change allows them to prioritize high demand situations.
SPD says it is navigating staffing shortages.
When the vaccine mandate is lifted on Monday, five unvaccinated firefighters who were working as dispatchers can now go back out on the streets, which means SREC will take on additional work.
"We're not making this change, because we were unhappy with the way things were, but because of staffing constraints that both organizations are actually the city and county organizations collectively have," Lundgren said. "This is the realignment of duties."
With the change, SPD says that people with non-urgent calls will have to be on hold for 2 to 3 minutes. This varies based on the call volume.
SREC says that they sometimes receive up to 80 9-1-1 calls an hour and police and fire dispatchers don't have the capacity to field all the calls.
SREC encourages people to use the crime check number for crimes that aren't an emergency at (509) 456-2233.
SREC is at 75% staffed for their operations and are looking to hire 20 to 25 people at the agency.
If you are interested, you can visit their website.
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