By Paul Kiefer

On Wednesday afternoon, Interim Police Chief Adrian Diaz and two high-ranking officers announced the formation of a new, 100-officer rapid-response unit: the Community Response Group, or CRG. According to Chief Diaz, the CRG is part of a broader effort to address what he calls SPD’s “core mission”— responding to emergency calls. Diaz linked the new unit directly to his earlier decision to move 100 officers from specialized units to patrol, though he said only a few of those 100 officers volunteered to join the CRG.

Diaz said that the CRG is intended to be “a team to address the needs that weren’t tied to the artificial bounds of a precinct,” providing support, for example, to precinct-based patrol officers by responding to the most urgent emergency calls.

The unit will also lead SPD’s protest response; according to Lieutenant John Brooks, one of the two lieutenants who will direct the CRG in the field, the unit has already assumed the role of primary protest responders in the past week. Brooks has frequently been tapped to serve as the incident commander for demonstrations over the past summer, guiding SPD’s strategy during the August 16th protest at the SPOG headquarters in SODO, among others. 

Both Diaz and CRG leader Captain Mike Edwards said the CRG will free up neighborhood patrol officers to do “community engagement” in neighborhoods, and that the team will continue to do “community roll calls” in neighborhoods, allowing them to talk to neighborhood residents and businesses about their concerns. How responsive the CRG will be to community input is unclear: Edwards said “community advisory groups” will be able to relay their concerns and needs to the CRG through local precinct commanders, but he didn’t mention any direct interface between the public and the team’s leadership.

According to Diaz, the CRG will exist at least into 2021. Because the unit is new, advocates for police accountability and abolition had not weighed in on the announcement as of Thursday.