Who calls 911 and why? Here are Olympia 911 calls by the numbers
Between April 1, 2020 and April 1, 2021, Thurston County’s 911 dispatchers received more than 51,000 calls originating from the Olympia area, according to data obtained via a public records request filed by The Olympian with TCOMM, Thurston County’s 911 dispatch agency.
During that time period, Olympia’s Crisis Response Unit (CRU), a two-year-old program that dispatches mental health workers instead of police, responded to 866 of those calls.
Because of differences in the way each entity collects data, it’s not possible to track exactly which types of calls placed to TCOMM were answered by CRU. But breaking down 911 calls by the type codes input by dispatchers shows call volume for the types of calls CRU typically responds to.
21% (11,104) of the 51,000 calls were what are called “community caretaking” calls, which include welfare checks (1,600), area checks (1,724), business checks (1,132), loitering (1,371), unwanted person (1,092), noise complaints (666), and drugs (295).
Public service — a catch-all term for requests that are vague or not typically something law enforcement would provide — accounted for 2,348 calls.
Mental — a type code used by dispatchers that specifically refers to someone with a history of mental illness, or with “obvious mental problems who either wants to report something that isn’t a crime, or is causing some sort of problem” — accounted for 876 calls.
Other types of calls that are associated with antisocial behavior that is not necessarily violent or criminal accounted for 14% of total calls (7,433). These include disorderly conduct (1,655), disturbance (1,113), suspicious person (1,945), suspicious circumstance (1,876), and malicious mischief (844).
The above categories add up to 18,537, about 36% of total 911 calls.
This story was originally published October 3, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
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