A routine server switch has resulted in a pause in crimes that are uploaded to the Federal Way Community Crime Map, according to the Federal Way Police Department.
The community crime map, operated by LexisNexis, is an online database showing the types and locations of crimes Federal Way Police respond to. The maps also shows the case report number, the date of the crime, and the time the incident occurred.
“We have control over what we want to upload,” said Michelle Roy, crime analyst and crime prevention program coordinator for Federal Way Police. Theft, robberies, burglaries, homicides and assaults are generally uploaded to the map.
Crimes involving involuntary committals, or other medical incidents, may not be uploaded because of possible HIPAA violations, Roy said. Suicides, sex offense crimes and crimes involving children are uploaded depending on circumstance.
Federal Way officers record about 18,000 case reports annually and respond to about 70,000 calls for services per year.
Data is automatically updated daily and contains the most recent six months of data online, according to the city website.
However, a routine update of the outdated server has resulted in broken processes and has changed the database structure, said Michelle Roy, crime analyst for Federal Way Police.
This disruption was not anticipated, she said, and now software engineers are working to translate the data and write code to reintroduce the server connections.
Due to the switch, crime data has not been uploaded and available for public viewing since June 21. Once back up and running, the community crime map will show all of the backlogged data from June through the present day, Roy said.
While there is no official timeline for the crime map to return, Roy said the hope is to have data uploading to the map again within the month.
Roy said she is the primary employee who maintains the data for the public’s viewing. Information comes from Federal Way’s records management system.
To view the Federal Way Community Crime Map and recorded incident prior to June 21, visit cityoffederalway.com/police/crimestats.
