On June 28, the Seattle Police Department launched an online Police Reports Map, which it sees as an enhancement to the online reports the department launched earlier this month.

The Police Reports Map will show mapped crime icons based on initial police reports taken by officers when responding to incidents around the city. After the information enters the Police Department’s Records Management System, it populates this map.

According to the Police Department, it has been working closely with the city’s Department of Information Technology to provide enhanced information on crime to the public.

The new application will go a long way to providing easy access to information that community members have been asking for while also increasing department transparency, according to a Police Department press release.

This new information is part of the My Neighborhood Maps already available online at www.seattle.gov.

Links directly to the related police reports from the map icons will also become available, according to the department press release. Care is taken to redact victim and other sensitive information from what is available online, according to the press release.

The crime reporting map is a short-term view of crime; it provides a good sense of what is reported to be going on in a certain neighborhood or the city at large at any time, according to the press release.

The Police Reports Map will not link to a redacted narrative of a police report on every crime. But, every icon on the map will have a related General Offense number, which can be used to request a copy of any unavailable report.