As Seattle Police struggles to hire more cops, 911 response times across Capitol Hill and the Central District hold steady

(Image: CHS)

While the Seattle Police Department grapples with a stalled effort to hire more officers, its latest performance metrics show 911 response times are holding steady with 70 patrol officers in the East Precinct covering Capitol Hill and the Central District.

According to the department’s 2026 Q1 Sworn Staffing and Performance Metrics Report, the East Precinct is outpacing citywide averages after year-over-year regressions elsewhere in the city.

For Priority 1 calls — the most urgent emergencies — the East Precinct maintained a median response time of 5.6 minutes during the first quarter of 2026, a mark matching the first quarter of 2025 and beating the department’s citywide median of 7.0 minutes. You can see the trend in the first chart’s red line above.

When evaluating year-over-year changes across the city, officer counts do not necessarily translate to improved dispatch speeds as call volumes and the geographic footprints of the precincts disrupt direct correlations. But a look at the year-over-year change within each precinct shows the East appears to be outperforming other sectors that are sliding under the citywide staffing constraints.

While the East, West, and North Precincts successfully cut down mid-tier Priority 2 median response times compared to last year, the South and Southwest sectors experienced year-over-year slowdowns across both high and medium urgency calls.

(Image: CHS)

The fluctuations come as the city continues to struggle with growing its police force while also facing a potential $175 million budget deficit.

CHS reported in June on the latest kink in the effort to hire more cops as officials say SPD is experiencing a slowdown in officer separations, realizing 13 fewer separations and five fewer hires than planned over the last two quarters. This retention is straining the budget. A report says SPD is projected to reach 1,192 full time employees by year-end 2026 against a funded limit of 1,184. Because retaining higher-salaried officers is more expensive than hiring recruits, these “excess FTEs” could create $1.7 million in unfunded salary costs, potentially forcing SPD to further slow hiring.

The revelations follow tepid optimism in recent months that the tide was turning in SPD’s efforts to meet the calls of many at City Hall. As the city’s overall crime totals are dropping, SPD Chief Shon Barnes has been championing new “neighborhood-oriented policing” and a test of dedicated officers on a beat patrolling Magnusson Park. SPD has also introduced changes like a program that allows the department’s newest recruits to hit the streets earlier, adding extra cops to the city’s nightlife areas on weekends

Barnes, hired under the previous administration but retained by Mayor Katie Wilson, has overseen progress in what officials say is a reversal of SPD’s hiring challenges and a department being pushed to grow its ranks from just under 1,000 officers on patrol in 2022 to nearly 1,500 by 2027.

The starting salary for a SPD officer is now $103,000 for entry level recruits and $116,000 for lateral officers. Generous hiring bonuses have also helped. Efforts to improve facilities and boost morale are also, apparently, creating a more positive environment.

To start 2026, frontline patrol staffing across the city has remained fundamentally stagnant, hovering around 490 deployable officers since 2023. As of the end of March, the East Precinct commands roughly 16.2% of that total pool, fielding 70 frontline 911 response officers and 9 sergeants to handle the precinct’s heavy call volume.

While the East Precinct’s year-over-year totals seem to highlight an efficient utilization of existing resources, Chief Barnes says that sustainable, across-the-board reductions in response times will remain out of reach without reinforcing core patrol ranks citywide.  For now, the precinct by precinct numbers show a mixed trajectory as different neighborhoods cope with the staffing crunch.

Meanwhile, there are still plenty of response time issues to solve. While some of the key emergency times have held steady or improved, you will still have to wait more than an hour for a response to the East Precinct’s lowest priority 911 calls.

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