I am concerned about the way the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Department now handles calls. Because they are so short-handed, we are often unable to get a deputy to even check out a complaint unless there is an incident in progress. The dispatchers won’t even take a report, they simply tell us to call back – if trouble continues.
Normally, we call the sheriff’s department, because we have been told it’s better to let the professionals handle things, rather than put the ordinary citizen’s lives in any jeopardy. If I felt comfortable handling things, I wouldn’t have bothered calling in the first place. But I would rather not put myself in the middle of a family dispute or loud, underage drinking parties.
There is no backup between agencies either. Because I live in the Lake Stevens area, we are only serviced by the sheriff’s department. The city of Lake Stevens won’t even come out and I have yet to be told the Washington State Patrol will answer calls. The only way to get an officer out is to have an emergency in progress and then the wait can be up to 30 minutes.
This is no way to operate the emergency services of this county. With the inception of the grandiose Snopac plan costing $30.3 million, please tell me how the sheriff’s department will handle the increased dispatch traffic if they still have no one to answer the calls?
Lake Stevens
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