CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department is launching a program to have civilians respond to car crashes to ease the burden on police departments, especially departments that may be struggling to hire sworn officers.
The civilians are trained employees of the police department and will only respond to crashes that solely have property damage, according to CMPD. A sworn police officer would still respond to crashes involving medical injuries or criminal activity.
CMPD said that of the crash reports officers wrote last year, 71% were minor crashes with only property damage. The civilian investigators are expected to elevate some of those minor crash reports.
Earlier this year, the Charlotte City Council agreed to appropriate $1,271,000 to the program. The funds are coming from the Municipal Debt Service Fund and will be moved to the Capital Equipment Fund to purchase vehicles for the program. The program is expected to have a mix of hybrid and fully electric vehicles.
“This will help us respond faster in an efficient manner while delivering cost reduction to our officers and just reducing their workload," Dimple Ajmera, a member of Charlotte city council, said upon approving the funds earlier this year.
CMPD's civilian crash investigators will only respond to crashes between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. on weekdays.
It's a similar approach to programs in Gastonina and Matthews.
In Matthews, the department uses a citizen volunteer group. That group started in 2012 and they now have over a dozen people.
“They do clerical stuff for us, they do fleet management, help us move cars around," Tim Aycock, the public information officer for the Matthews Police Department, previously told WCNC Charlotte. "A lot of things that the officers usually have to do, or admin staff, they take on those responsibilities and it’s a tremendous help.”