A group of civilian employees officially began investigating routine vehicular crashes for the Greenville Police Department on Wednesday, which the department said would free officers to enforce the law.
Three civilian crash investigators have completed more than 200 combined hours of classroom and field training and now can respond to wrecks involving property damage where motorists are unharmed. Maj. David Anderson, special operations commander the department, said the investigators were hired under legislation signed by Gov. Roy Cooper last year.
“We first started having conversations about this shortly after COVID when we saw our number of vacancies increase,” Anderson said. “That was kind of a nationwide thing and we were impacted by that as well here at Greenville PD.
“It helps tremendously with freeing up the officers’ time. One, we want the officers to be free for more significant public safety issues — personal crime vs. property crime. We kind of put the personal crime up a little higher on the seriousness scale. Obviously, property crime is serious as well.”
The department is in the process of filling a fourth position, Anderson said. Documents show that the positions cost $235,200. The roles were converted from four other full-time vacant positions within the department’s budget allocation. The investigators’ pickup trucks were repurposed from the existing fleet of department vehicles.
The funding document said the positions were intended to assist parking enforcement staff, but parking is no longer under the purview of the police department.
The vehicles themselves have amber lights, not blue ones, and are emblazoned with a green logo that announces their role. Anderson said the intention was to ensure the investigators are not mistaken for police officers.
The investigators do not have any enforcement authority and do not carry firearms. In the event that they respond to a wreck where someone is injured, they are required to call law enforcement to the scene. Anderson said that the police department responds to about 300-400 crashes a month.
Anderson hopes the new hires will provide quickened response times to wrecks, too. The team has also been trained to direct traffic during wrecks, power outages or special events. Anderson said that further frees up sworn officers to handle enforcement.
“That is a huge help because sometimes we will have officers on post for two, three hours or more,” Anderson said. “I would say about a third of our crashes are property damage so they can take a hunk out of that, free the officers up and give them more noncommitted time, which hopefully we can have them out there enforcing traffic laws, slowing folks down a little bit.”
Among the new hires is Kenny Byrd, who said that he spent 10 years in parking and IT in Pennsylvania. Byrd said that other investigators come from a law enforcement background, which Anderson believes is an asset in speaking with people having a rough day after a wreck. Classroom and field training also addressed that customer service approach and at some point Anderson said the investigators will undergo crisis intervention training.
“Obviously some people are significantly upset when they have an accident,” Anderson said. “It’s the most important thing in the world for them at that point in time, so it’s important they know how to deal with people in that moment.”
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