What I found when we looked closer
New Bern is the county seat of Craven County and the second-oldest European-settled colonial town in North Carolina. It sits where the Neuse and Trent rivers meet, which shapes both daily policing and emergency response. In September 2018, Hurricane Florence brought a storm surge of up to 13.5 feet and days of heavy rain that severely flooded parts of the city.
For a department this size, that means the same officers handle routine patrol, county-seat court traffic, and, when storms hit, a surge of incident documentation all at once.
Following one report through the building
The first thing we do with a new department is trace where a report goes after the officer hits submit. Here, it passes through 4 hands:
- 1Patrol officer
- 2Sergeant review
- 3Investigations
- 4Craven County court
Every one of those readers needs the same facts from the first draft. That is what shaped what we built.
What we built for them
What we're watching
These are the signals that will tell us whether it's working here:
- Reports finished inside the shift
- Backlog after a high-volume event
- Supervisor returns per report
Figures on this page come from the department's own published materials. We only publish Code Four results after the department reviews them.
