New Raleigh Police traffic unit responds to 358 crashes in its first few weeks

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- If you get into a car crash in Raleigh, and nobody is injured, a police officer may not respond to your emergency call.

Instead, a new group called the Civilian Traffic Investigator Unit might be assigned to take the case.

That's a unit Raleigh Police Department launched in July. It includes three full-time and two part-time employees trained to respond to non-injury crashes.

In the month since the unit started, it has responded to 358 crashes.

During that time, I think we took about 1,200 wrecks as a department, so we took about a quarter of those calls. So that's a lot to free up officers to go do other things to respond to more higher priority calls. Why is that important? It helps reduce violent crime, helps reduce response time to anything else," Sgt Edward Reeves said.

Devin Schindler is one of the members of the Civilian Traffic Investigator Unit. He retired from the Navy and was looking for something new to do that would allow him to still give back to his community.

"When this came up, I was like, 'Oh, this would be a great time to see -- to get into it and see if it's something I really wanted to do.' And I turned out I loved it. I love everything about it," he said.

Chandler and the other members of the team completed six weeks of training before hitting the streets on their own. The first week was a state mandated course. The second week was driver's training and other things like that. The next four weeks were field training.

So if you got into an accident where the Civilian Traffic Investigator Unit responded, what can you expect?

"I have to make sure everyone's OK. So I ask everybody if they need an ambulance or anything like that. Most times it's just not the case. They're OK. They're just kind of shaken up. And then I have to make sure they're out of the roadway. I don't want anybody to get hit by a car or whatever," Schindler said. "After that, I just I get both stories from both parties. And then I look at the evidence on the ground and the vehicles make my own investigation go. And that's pretty much it."