what are the police response times in your area?

[sacp81170a]

My comment about traffic nazis was made because I also interact with them. I was a street cop and a deputy sheriff for 17 years,and am now a senior dispatcher. We have an organization that sets up road checks at the busiest possible times,tying up all officers ,and it's worse than pulling hens teeth to get them to leave a roadblock to respond to a domestic,or virtually any other call for service.

My department used to do the check point thing occasionally, until enough citizens actually came to a council meeting and complained. Then the mayor saw the light and quit insisting that the PD do them. We have been happier ever since.

 

[Roadwild17]

I would like to see a good solid survey done, though. It might convince more people to take responsibility for their own safety.

SACP, you are a cruel individual for making people responsible for yet another thing when they could just put it off (good job)

 

[halfacop]

I am a reserve officer in my county. I can tell you from experince that priority calls get the attention they deserve. What needs to be understood is the fact that in alot of counties such as mine - the sheriff dept. only fields 3 cars a shift covering 600 square miles. The state might only field 3 or 4 depending on scheduling. Keeping in mind that the state is going to be hanging out mostly on the highway not secondary roads and may be on calls themselves.

If a call comes in around the north part of the county there is a good chance that the closet car may be better than 40 miles away. Trust me, I have made many code runs clear across the county because the freak call comes out in an area that is not problem ridden. Our attention is focused many times on the areas with constant issues. We try our best to position our cars around the county to make sure the best coverage/response time is offered. However, its just not obtainable all the time.

I can guarantee you that alot of cops are adrenline junkies. If a call comes out for assistance and they are in the middle of a lower priority call, ticket etc. and they are the closer call, its not going to be, "well - as soon as I get done with this filling out this citation I will get to it". They are gonna be all over that call.

Life before property....................If the burglary is not in progress and there is no immediate danger to life than we are not "hauling ass" over there to give you the best response time : putting our lives at danger.

I would have to say that in most instances at most departments you are getting the very best service and response time to your emergency that they can provide with the limited coverage that they are dealing with. I am not speaking for every dept. just trying to offer my experince and 2 cents.

 

[The Deer Hunter]

My town has like 5-6 cruisers a truck 2 undercover cars and a but kicking boat. I accually dont know the exact number of cruisers but its not much. so not very fast although there isnt much crime in town.

 

[pdowg881]

It takes just short of ten minutes for police to respond, but the funny thing is the station is only a mile down the road. I could run there in ten minutes.

 

[Kenneth Lew]

.

 

[Stachie]

Arsenal

A long wait expectancy only reinforces one's need for personal defense weaponry.

 

[TallPine]

I would have to say that in most instances at most departments you are getting the very best service and response time to your emergency that they can provide with the limited coverage that they are dealing with.

I have no doubt about that, but still the facts are the facts. (basically, you are on your own)

Most of the time we have one deputy on duty to cover about 1500 square miles, and they are supposed to be providing 24/7 coverage to the county seat (there is no city police) so the rural areas get nothing. It's fine by me though - more cops ain't the answer

 

[Whitewolf 508]

Response time

My agency usually has a response time of 2 to 3 minutes but the jurisdiction is only 1 square mile. Out in the county, you are lucky to get a car in 1/2 an hour.

Depending on the time of day, you are lucky if there are 3 sherriff's cars and 3 State Police cars on during a shift. There are some smaller local agencies for the larger municipalities but they do not cover the eastern part of the county.

 

[kludge]

Story 1: One of my kids called 911 about 2 years ago. Either the 5yo or the 3yo (then), but both denied it. I only found out when the 911 dispatcher called back asking whether there were an emergency (No.), but insisted that since the call was placed that an officer would have to come by, so we (the two kids and I) went out in the front lawn to pull weeds and wait. I greeted the officer when he arrived and explained what must have happened. He reassured the kids that they were not in trouble, and if they have an emergency to please call 911.

Response time was probably <10 minutes. Police station is 1 mile away or so.

Story 2: Middle of summer, middle of night (1am?), cornfield, deer, slam, TREES! (whew!) mailbox, ditch. Where's the deer? Dang! Can't find it. Run home (~1/2 mile, college student, very good shape, 3 min. max). Need a gun. 30-06. Sister pulls in, "quick drive me down the road." Find the deer, dead? don't know. BLAM! Wow, that was loud. Drive back home (1/2 mile). Call Sheriff, crash/deer/gun, OK, I'll go meet the Deputy right now.

By the time I got back (1/2 mile) 4-5 neighbors from 100yards away or more were already there, along with the Sheriff's Deputy (!). Heard gunshot, called sheriff. There hadn't even been enough time for the dispatcher to get ahold of the Deputy to tell him what I told her.

Repsonse time <3 min.

 

[ZeSpectre]

Well my hat's off to the fine crew of Arlington, VA. About a year ago I witnessed a mugging in progress in the alley behind where I live and called it in. 2 cruisers (one a K-9 unit) arrived in about 40 seconds. Mr. Mugger stood no chance at all.

Kids spraypainting graffitti all along cars out on the street. Called it in, cops arrive in about 2 minutes.

Now any non-emergency calls tend to have a response time of "whenever" but not usually more than about an hour.

Pretty good service actually, but I'm still not about to hand in my CCW

 

[cassandrasdaddy]

different places different responses

dc bike stolen called it in response was "so?! did they hurt you taking it? what do you want us to do?" i hung up

fredericksburg (stafford county) call for sa cop to sign off on my homemade trailer so i can get it registered. 20 mins and it takes 10-12 to get from highway to my house on back road.
reported a stolen bike and they sent a cop to me to take report then recovered the bike.and called me to tell me

 

[MD_Willington]

Pretty fast, the Marshal lives 3 or 4 streets over, and is usually parked a few houses down doing speed patrol... I live on the HWY so he's out there, sometimes right across the street from our place.

 

[busy_squirrel]

If you call with a burglar in or near your home you will get the best response the cops can give you in my experience.

Unauthorized visitors, "too afraid to confront them" = 25 min. for the County Sheriff to respond.

DV call= 75 min. for response. They show up and shine flashlights in the windows for a few minutes before knocking on the door and using the doorbell. Then they wonder why people come out suspicious when they've been shining lights into a darkened house in the middle of the night.

Last time I told them I'm getting a gun and not waiting for them. Havn't needed to call them since.

FD call for "out of control fire" in a suburb= 20 min. That's 20 min. until they stopped 2 doors down to ask for directions.

 

[SuperNaut]

what are the police response times in your area?

About the same response time as a road repair crew.

Seriously, last time I called for a prowler it took 45 minutes and the local office is half a block away. They can literally look out their back window and see my backyard fence. Fortunately me and my neighbors run a pretty tight ship.

Comcast is faster.

 

[Troutman]

Calls dispatched.

Priority 1 calls: Immediately. Unit is their within, on more than 5 min.
Priority 2 calls: Up to 5 min. Unit is their within, no more than 10 min.
Priority 3 calls: Up to 15 min. Unit is their within 20 min.

Some samples on priority calls:

P1: Armed Robbery
P2: Accident (minor), Alarm (commercial)
P3: Disturbance (music/noise)


This is in a small town in Texas.
A low-crime rate area. How low? Two (2) Homicides in two (2) years........ And we're trying to lower this number.
Why is their a quick response time? Well Well, anything over 20 min. We be in the next county.

 

[Kali Endgame]

My experiences with the Emergency Response Services

#1 Tagging on our building said between 8 am to 6 pm showed up in 3.5 hrs
#2 Injury accident on Freeway. I was still telling the dispatcher the location when they arrrived > 1 minute
#3 Crushing injury outside a Napa store(guy crushed himself by engaging starter) arrived > 3 min
#4 The neighbor beating the $h17 out of his lady > 20 minutes
#5 My accident > 3 min

I have yet to need their services and hope I never will.

 

[JAMES77257]

I live in a town of about 10K people, the response here is about two minutes.

Sounds fast, huh. It's about 117.3 seconds after the average gun fight is over.

My point, police are here to take reports, not to trust our lives with.

 

[bogie]

And traffic tickets aren't revenue generators. Cops salary, gear, vehicles, etc alone cost far more than any cops ticket revenue. Then costs associated with court rooms, court personnels, defense attorneys (with some offenses) etc., then jail expenses etc.

Hate to present a concrete example, but the St. Louis metro area is rife with small municipalities - i.e., some with population of 100ish, and no, I did not forget a zero, who have police departments of 20 or more officers... The metro area is made up of these small towns, and they are VERY into traffic enforcement. I suspect, mile for mile, that St. Louis County has more speed traps than any other county in the country. Possibly by a pretty good multiplier. Typical is one burg that has a border on an interstate. The cop sits on his 100 yard stretch of highway, and when someone breezes past doing better than the posted 60 (and it don't have to be that much faster...), lights on, pulled over, ticket wrote. Those guys are FAST.

And don't even get into the response times when I lived in roughly the center of the metro area - the only time I called the cops and they showed in less than 20 minutes involved the magic words "naked coed" and resulted in the street looking like someone was passing out free circular pastries.

 

[rwc]

< 1 minute. During the windstorm I was on my way to work when I called 911 to report a tree I had watched hit & lean on powerlines. BIPD showed up before I could finish describing where I was.

 

[Ryder]

They generally travel the 25 miles to reach me in 15-20 minutes.

 

[rojoko]

Police respond

Depends on the specific area in SoCal... LAPD depending can take anywhere from 20 minutes to NEVER! (and yes there's a lot of NEVERs with LAPD! and perhaps they're not a great call since they realized that you have to put 7 to 15 rounds of 9 in someone to make sure that they're dealt with... not a good thing).

BHPD yes, that wonderful dept of Officer Follie (SP? yes there really was one!) very good, depending on the call.... that's Beverly Hills PD.. just had a friend of mind retire from there. His kid is still on the "force".

Culver City is also very good, because it like BH is a realtively small community with a good PD! Do not play with these folks.....

LA suffers from a mediocre PD, not including the sheriffs.. who well... hmmmmm... some... and I mean only some are ok... there's a lot officers in that dept that shouldn't be wearing the uniform, but that's mainly because they had their heads scrambled by the requirement that all newbies work in the jail before they go out on the streets.. in theory a good call, in reality.. not so good...

CHP welll used to be great.. now I do not to think so.. this group of individuals is like the pretorian guard... and they act and think like it... frankly they sometimes act like the SS.. they are an entity unto themselves, including having their own intellegence unit.. and it was at one time a world class organization... not anymore... :/

Used to have several friends on CHP.. including one of the funniest, most decent human beings I've ever known.. long since passed away from cancer.. Well I digress.. BUt there are areas that have to use CPD.. they used to be good! Now? Forget it... I would hesitate to call them...


etc etc etc..

 

[rchernandez]

"Reportedly" and average of 12 minutes. 9 minutes is the target. I'm on the edge of Memphis (city) and Shelby County...with annexation into the city comes a slightly slower response time.

 

[gezzer]

I live in a small rural town of about 1400. Police response time varies wether one of our 2 officers (Chief & Sergeant) are on duty. They can only work 40 hrs a week with NO overtime. (per cheap retired folks who are the selectmen) when they are on duty, usually within 15 minutes or so.

However at night when they are not on duty, there are no sheriffs on duty either and there may only be one State Trooper for our county who also is covering parts of our neighboring counties.

If the call is real serious they will get off duty to cover or with luck a town cop on duty in a near town. At best you are talking 1 to 1 1/2 hrs if your situation is the only one happening at the time.

So to summarize; you are on your own the police are history recorders most of the time for at least 12 hrs a day.

 

[JP1954]

I'm a little stunned

I've been around for a few solar orbits and I have seen the deterioration in police services here in the east bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. The police used to actually investigate home burglaries. They even took fingerprints. Not now. City police used to take accident reports. Not now. My son's car was stolen a couple months ago in front of our house. He discovered it gone at 4:45 am when he was headed to work. I called 911 and was told they would send a deputy out. They refused to put the word out on the airwaves until after a deputy met with me and took a report. They said that is their "policy." I had to wait 2 1/2 hours for a deputy. The thief got an additional 2 1/2 hours of carefree driving. Not long after that I noticed a half of an import pickup truck which had been dumped in the street next to the local high school. It was a dangerous traffic hazard even though it was close to the curb. I called the same Sheriff's Office and told a sergeant. He responded to me "what do you mean by half a pickup truck?" I said what I see consists of the engine compartment, the driver/psg floorboard and that's it. No windshield, no hood, no bumper. He said they would send someone out. 2 weeks later it finally was removed. Keep in mind that this same Sheriff's office has a deputy stationed at this high school every school day. The deputy must have driven by it daily. ( part 1 of 2 )