About the City of Bellevue Crime Crime Data

Is this public information?
What is the purpose of this Crime Map?
What does the location of the markers signify?
How exact is the location of the markers?
Where does this data come from?
How often are the maps updated?
The police showed up in my neighborhood two days ago. How come it’s not on the map?
How accurate is the information?
Why can't I get today's crime information?
Why do the daily reports only go back 14 days?
Why do the Monthly & Weekly maps only show one category at a time?
Do these maps show all police activity?
What calls are not mapped or listed?
How come the map does not show registered sex offenders?

1. Is this public information?
Yes. The Bellevue Police Department is a government agency that serves the public. With that spirit in mind, the Bellevue Police Department strives to be completely transparent and accountable to the people that we serve. The information contained in these maps is public information.

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2. What is the purpose of this Crime Map?
The Bellevue Police Crime Map is designed to inform the public of what their law enforcement agency is doing. People who would be interested in this information might include: commercial and residential property owners; community, neighborhood & school associations; organized residential Block Watches or Business Watch programs; and prospective home buyers & real-estate professionals.

3. What does the location of the markers signify?
The marker locations indicate the general vicinity where police were dispatched to. The actual crime or police matter may have occurred elsewhere (i.e. victim of ID theft reports a crime that occurred in another state; witness reports from work a Domestic Violence incident that was observed last night at different location).

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4. How exact is the location of the markers?
They are accurate to within a block or two.

5. Where does this data come from?
The information contained in these maps is public information that is compiled and maintained by the Bellevue Police Department’s Eastside Communications Center that handles all 911 calls for police service in Bellevue.

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6. How often are the maps updated?
The daily maps are updated every morning at 6 am with the previous 24 hours data.

7. The police showed up in my neighborhood two days ago. How come it’s not on the map?
Not all police responses are mapped. Only responses that culminate in a police report being written are mapped. Also, some police reports may not be included in the map for sensitivity or legal reasons.

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8. How accurate is the information?
The type of police incident noted in the map is the same as when it was actually dispatched to the police officer. 911 dispatchers who answer the emergency calls catagorize the nature of the call with the information they have at the moment. Sometimes the true nature of the police incident is much different than what was explained to the dispatcher at the time of the 911 call. A "Domestic Violence " may actually turn out to be a simple Noise Disturbance incident; a "Shoplift" may turn out to be a Shoplift and Assault or a "Questionable Action" call may actually be an Attempted Burglary. Generally, the nature of the call noted in this map is relatively accurate though some variance can be expected.

9. Why can't I get today's crime information?
Building a real-time crime information tool was not the Police Department’s goal. Doing so would require on-demand accessing of the police dispatch system. This might impact the service quality of the police dispatch system. We felt that displaying crime information from a data warehouse every 24 hours would achieve the goal of this site while eliminating any potential impact on Police service. This type of daily police map is nearly unheard of. The vast majority of police agencies with internet websites do not have any maps available to the public. Of the crime maps that are available to the public, most are static PDF documents that are updated either annually, semi-annually or quarterly. There are only a handful of police agencies (e.g. Los Angeles PD, Boston PD) nationwide that have daily crime maps.

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10. Why do the daily reports only go back 14 days?
This map was designed to replace the police department's labor intensive "Daily Recap" which used to be published daily and posted to the police website three times per day. This site, showing the last 14 days greatly improves on the old document by adding maps and interactivity and 14 days, several weeks and months worth of data. The site is not designed to be an archive of all crimes in Bellevue.

11. Why do the Monthly & Weekly maps only show one category at a time?
Because of the size of the crime location markers and the way the Google map handles the markers, a monthly map containing all police activity would be confusing and less clear. Crime markers may overlap and hide other markers. By separating the police activity to separate maps there is less of a chance that information may be hidden.

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12. Do these maps show all police activity?
No. The maps only show police activity that results in an official police case report being written. Police activity that is not included in the map includes:

False alarms,
traffic violations and traffic collisions,
calls where police action is not possible or necessary,
calls resulting in warnings,
calls where the caller or person of interest is not located,
suicide or suicide attempts and
incidents where the caller is referred to another police agency.

13. What calls are not mapped or listed?
Only calls that generate a written police report are mapped. Some types of calls rarely result in a police report. These may include: false residential and commercial alarms, wildlife sightings, fire work incidents, traffic tickets among others. For sensitivity and public safety reasons some types of calls that result in a police report are not mapped. These may include calls that involve bomb threats and suspiscious packages, suicides, natural deaths, welfare checks and other police matters.

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14. How come the map does not show registered sex offenders?
Being a Registered sex offenders is not a crime and is merely a court imposed status. To view registered sex offender information for the City of Bellevue please visit: