White Center Now: The blog about White Center

The King County Sheriff’s Office just announced it’s reassigning some deputies in other unincorporated areas – and while the reassignments aren’t happening here, this area will be part of a change in “response protocol”:

In response to current and potentially sustained budget constraints, the King County Sheriff’s Office has made the difficult yet necessary decision to reduce minimum staffing at our North and Southeast precincts effective immediately. This includes the affected communities of Redmond Ridge, Fairwood, Fall City and other areas in unincorporated King County. As this is simply a redeployment of resources, no King County deputies are losing their jobs. This change will not affect police services in contract cities served by the King County Sheriff’s Office.

With this modified staffing, King County deputies in all three unincorporated precincts will only be dispatched to alarms verified by alarm companies or video/audio evidence. Additionally, our 911-dispatchers will refer all non-injury and non-blocking collisions or those on private property to the Washington State Patrol website: wsp.wa.gov/driver/collision-records. Deputies will still respond to collision associated with crimes such as hit and runs or impaired driving.

Any non-emergency 911 calls regarding a behavioral health crisis will be referred to the Sheriff’s Office Therapeutic Response Unit.

Residents of King County can report crimes such as abandoned vehicles, mail theft, vandalism and lost property here.

We are taking these critical steps to ensure King County deputies are safe and available for life-safety emergencies, which will always remain our top priority.

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