By Sarah Calams
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Starting September 1, the Knoxville (Tenn.) Police Department will no longer respond to some non-injury crashes.
According to a city press release, officers will not respond to minor, non-injury crashes unless specific factors are involved such as a vehicle being disabled in the roadway or an incident that involves a tow truck’s response. According to recent crash data, KPD officers spend about 24 hours a day working minor, non-injury crashes.
“Minor, non-injury crashes occupy a lot of our officers’ time and minimize our ability to respond more quickly to higher priority calls or conduct proactive traffic enforcement initiatives to actually prevent serious crashes from happening,” Chief of Police Paul Noel said. “We want to recapture that time so that we can focus our efforts on being visible in city neighborhoods and addressing violent crime.”
Officers will continue to respond to “crashes that result in injury or death, crashes involving a suspected intoxicated driver, crashes involving an unlicensed or uninsured driver, crashes that result in a disabled vehicle in the road and crashes involving a disorderly or uncooperative party,” the press release said.
“This is really a minor change to our operations so that we can focus more narrowly on what is essential to our core mission as a department,” Noel said. “This is also just a small piece of a larger strategic vision. We are taking a close look at how, when and where officers are deployed so that we can more effectively address higher priority public safety issues and concerns.”