Police response times jump — and citizens take notice

Demand for services has increased, but resources have lagged, deputy chief says

Edmonton city police are getting to their calls on time more often than not, but overall response times are creeping upward and citizens appear to be noticing.

Officers responded to 166,000 urgent calls for service in 2017, according to a semi-annual report to the Edmonton Police Commission Thursday.

Police rank calls based on their urgency, with targets ranging between seven minutes or fewer to 180 minutes between dispatch and arrival on scene.

“We are struggling,” Deputy Chief Kevin Brezinski said at Thursday ’s meeting. “Calls for service have increased year by year, but our resourcing hasn’t necessarily increased year by year. So that is an issue.”

When someone in Edmonton calls 911, the call is evaluated and assigned a priority code on a scale of zero to seven.

Priority zero calls indicate an officer in distress and needs an almost immediate response.

Next are person-at-risk calls — priority ones — such as assaults with weapons in progress. In those calls, officers aim to get there in seven minutes or less.

The least urgent calls cover events that are not currently happening, such as a report of vandalism at a business the night before. An officer on one of those calls — dubbed priority five calls — tries to get there in under 180 minutes. Sometimes, though, those nonurgent calls are put on hold and picked up the following day.

Police met or beat their targets for time-sensitive calls in 64.4 per cent of cases during the first half of this year, down from 69 per cent the year before.

Overall response times have been declining since 2011, which the report chalks up to the number of officers, urban sprawl, traffic congestion and construction.

IS ANYONE NOTICING?

Commissioners also reviewed three new citizen surveys which found a growing number of people think police are taking too long to come when they call.

“Though respondents were generally satisfied with their police interactions, a higher proportion reported higher response times than expected (when compared to 2016 results),” the report stated.

Part of the challenge, the report noted, is that police funding is based on population and cost growth and not increases in “citizen expectations.”

Brezinski said police are working on ways to improve.

“We’re trying our best,” he said. “We have to look for efficient ways of doing business (in) our patrol model — and we are doing that. But we’ve seen an increase in our response times.”