Anyone else ever try to hunt down 911 times?

G

Grey_Lion

New member
I often ask anti-gun people what their law enforcement 911 response time is - did they know it. My point being, for those who rely upon law enforcement to protect them, how long will they be waiting on their porch before someone actually shows up...

So this morning, in a fit of curiosity, I go looking online myself - fully expecting to be dismayed...

The BEST I could scrounge up in my neck of the woods was an almost decade old news story about a city an hour away from me... and that average response time was 76 minutes...

I've sent my local PD and Sheriff offices the question online - but can't say I'm hopefully of hearing this closely guarded secret...

I'm not rural - I'm in the middle of a major city about a mile away from PD headquarters...

My city recently made the list of top 10 American cities for homicide...

While I get that law enforcement may not want to share current stats for safety reasons, you'd think they'd publish the stat into reports from 2 to 5 years ago - but I can't even come across that...

Thoughts?
 
As a cop, I can tell you that "average" response times can be misleading. Response times to a fender bender in a parking lot during the busy part of the day may be quite a while. Then there is the frivolous nature of many 911 calls for service these days. As an example, on the past few weeks I've had a nursing home call over the same patient probably a dozen times (he had unauthorized pills, he made "suicide threats," he talked ugly to his caretaker, etc.). The patient is paralyzed, so im not sure what they want me to do with him... its not like im going to take him to jail iver something petty, not that he commits any real crimes anyway.

I've also had a guy call because he wanted me to track down the title of a trailer he bought an estate sale 2 years ago (nope I'm not doing that), someone wanted to turn their dog into the pound on a Sunday afternoon (not doing that either), someone called about an injured vulture (what do you think I can do about that?), a Spark driver complained that other Spark drivers were using an app that gave them an "unfair" advantage in getting Walmart delivery orders (again, what do you think I can do about that?)... the list goes on, and on, and on.

Frivolous 911 calls infinitely increase the "average" response time because cop are starting to refuse to respond to frivolous non-police related matters. We're already dealing with a critical manpower shortage as it is. Non police matters get no response, and non urgent low priority calls may take quite some time depending on how busy things are.

But rest assured, if you call because someone is banging on your door trying to break in at 1am, we are going there as fast as we can. Not all cops are great at triaging calls and appropriately responding in thencorrect priority, but most are.


All this to say, agencies may not be so willing to publish average response times for a reason. The information I think you ultimately seek is "how long does it take for a cop to get to me, on average, during a genuine life threatening emergency." For a plethora of reasons, it's really a hard statistic to nail down. Mostly because of all the frivolous stupid stuff that people call 911 for these days, but there are other reasons.
 
I often ask anti-gun people what their law enforcement 911 response time is - did they know it. My point being, for those who rely upon law enforcement to protect them, how long will they be waiting on their porch before someone actually shows up...
Click to expand...

The variables involved are legion. Major ones involve the nature of your emergency, where the nearest officer physically is in relation to where you are, and how long it will take them to get there, assuming immediate response and the best possible speed.

After that, tons of smaller factors play a part.

I live out in the country in a fairly large county, the county is probably nearly the size of the state of Rhode Island...there are 6 to 8 deputies on duty at any given time. Met them all over about a month's time, as they responded to complaints over a foundered horse. Someone driving by saw a horse in a small pen, and didn't see any food in the pen and called the Sherriff believing we were abusing the animal. We weren't, we were following the vet's instructions (and the horse did recover), but every week for a while a deputy had to come to my place and find out that the truth was. Once they all knew, they stopped responding to that particular complaint.

Another time, someone pegged several shots through the front of a country store about midnight on a Saturday. Killed some canned goods on a couple shelves, and a Ms Pac Man game. Cops called. they asked "anyone shot?...No?.. ok, we'll have a deputy out there on Monday...."

I am also reminded of the old joke ...
Homeowner in upstairs bedroom looks out the window sees a couple guys trying to break into his garage. He calls the cops, and is told it wil be at least 20 minutes before the cops can respond. He says ok, and hangs up.

He waits 30 seconds, then calls the cops back, and says "its ok, take your time, I shot them."

Within two minutes six cop cars show up, and happen to catch the bad guys in the act. Head cop says to homeowner, "they told us you shot them!!"
Homeowner replies, "they told me you would take 20 minutes!"

i don't think there's any data base of "average" response times, Don't see how there could be. What, matters, where matters, and so does When.

May only take them 10 minutes in July, how long do you think it will take in January with a foot of snow on the roads the snowplows haven't gotten to yet??

We love statistics and numbers, but remember averages are the middle between the best and the worst.

Going by the law of averages, half the people you meet will be below average intelligence. You or I might even be one of them. :D
 
"Calls for service" data isn't widely available. Here are a few: https://www.policedatainitiative.org...s-for-service/
Click to expand...

There was data in there for Chandler, AZ which is near me. I downloaded their raw data (goes back to 2018) and did a quick-and-dirty average response time by "call priority" and got this:

Priority - Ave Time (min)
1 ______ 6.56
2 ______ 6.80
3 ______ 12.93
4 ______ 55.84
5 ______ 50.33

Total calls in data: 971,971

Chandler, AZ, is population 276K, 65.55 sq miles (source: Wikipedia) and CPD is 362 LEOs across 3 precincts (source: Chandler PD webpage)
 
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