BREAKING NEWS – Seattle, Washington – 911 calls in Seattle could soon be answered by unarmed “crisis responders” instead of police officers through a new “alternate response team” spearheaded by a Democratic council member.
Councilwoman Lisa Hebold announced that they are beginning to hire the first six new positions for a new pilot program to provide for unarmed “crisis responders” to respond to certain emergency calls.
“Well, you know, usually I’m complaining about how delayed we are and how frustrated I am that we’re not meeting our benchmarks for developing this program. But today I’m really, really happy to report that the city is hiring for the six positions for its first pilot alternate response team. It’s going to be a way for 911 operators to dispatch calls to somebody other than police. They will deal with people with words rather than weapons, and will be armed with a dictionary, a Thesaurus, and some bandages and morphine just in case they get shot or repeatedly stabbed.”