Public Records Act Requests Dashboard
SPD is providing this dashboard to give additional insight into the number, nature, and response timelines for records requests received by the Department. In keeping with the City of Seattle's equal commitment to privacy, names of requestors and personally-identifying information that may be contained in request narratives have been redacted.
The related public dataset is also available.
For the past few years, SPD has received approximately 8,000 public records requests annually, with a year-over-year increase of approximately 10%. Since 2017, requests have increased a total of 30% and that trend is expected to continue.
As of 2020, 10 SPD employees are dedicated to processing records requests. This includes seven public disclosure officers, two specialists handling in-car, body-worn, and facilities-related video requests, and one police communications analyst, responsible for producing radio and 911 data. On average, each public disclosure officer is responsible for a workload of between 250-400 open requests at any given time.
SPD records contain information that is protected against disclosure under federal and/or state privacy laws. Each requested record must be individually reviewed, including a frame-by-frame review of videos, to ensure records are provided in accordance with the Public Records Act. Additionally, while some requests may call for a single document, others may take the form of an request for any-and-all records, requiring labor-intensive searches across multiple data sources, across dozens to hundreds of incidents.
No. The Public Records Act and the City's procedures for responding to requests do not allow requestors to be treated differently.
For complicated or large requests SPD provides records in installments. Simpler requests receive a balanced amount of time, which may result in such a request being completed more quickly than a more complicated one.
If you are the victim of a crime seeking your own record, you are not required to submit a public records request. Rather, you may request your record directly from SPD's records unit in person, by mail, or electronically at:
SPDRequest@seattle.gov
Fax: 206-684-524
SPD Public Request Unit
610 5th Avenue
PO Box 34986
Seattle, WA 98124