LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) - A call came over the police radio to a hit-and-run accident along Col. Glenn Rd. in Little Rock. At the same time in the city, police responded to a serious motorcycle crash, a handful of disturbance calls and other 9-1-1 runs. Thanks to a revived Traffic Safety Officer program, patrol officers could focus on those serious problems while dedicated officers handled the fender-benders.
“Everything was chaotic just a few moments ago before I got there,” said Officer Clint Dalton, clad in a gray police uniform with a silver badge and “TSO” insignia on his collar. “Now it's time to calm down, let's talk about it and figure out what happened.”
The crash he responded to came at the intersection of Arch & Roosevelt and involved a minivan and a city-owned truck pulling a trailer. It required an ambulance and a fire truck because some involved complained of high blood pressure. But a standard “cop on the beat” did not have to respond, thanks to the TSO.
“Their duties are to work traffic accidents,” said Sgt. Zac Farley, the supervisor of the three TSOs with 17 years of experience on the force. “They handle mostly minor traffic accidents. The daily fender benders.”
The city hired three TSOs. They are civilians in uniform with specially marked cars. They don’t carry weapons and they can’t make arrests, but they are authorized to issue citations related to the crash.
Their presence relieves stress in two ways.
“People were having to wait, and it was a significant wait, because of the other call load,” said Sgt. Farley. “The higher priority calls, criminal calls that officers would have to respond to first.”
“It's just about alleviating the stress of sworn officers so that they can focus on other things other than just the accidents in Little Rock,” said Officer Dalton.
Farley says a crash usually takes about 90 minutes to clear. That’s an hour-and-a-half that a patrol officer would be focused on organizing paperwork, directing traffic, writing a citation and sending the parties on their way. Any number of criminal matters can crop up in that time. And that’s not counting filing all the paperwork back at the police station.
“We don't spend as many man-hours working accidents when they could be doing criminal patrols,” Sgt. Farley said.
And having an officer dedicated to handling traffic crashes means he or she is focused on fixing that problem, and not worried about the next criminal call.
“Showing up, making sure everybody's okay, and then just listening to their story,” Officer Dalton explained as the key part of his job. “Making sure that I understand that they know that someone is there to help them with their situation.”
The unit has been busy, with each officer handling, on average, about three to five crashes a day. They cover the whole city, though they tend to be busiest downtown and during lunch and rush hours. The program had been on hiatus for several years, but since it returned in March, the TSOs have handled more than 600 calls.