Analysis: Police 911 response times increase nearly 3 minutes
In tense and traumatic situations when 911 is called about a crime or an accident, time can feel like it is in slow motion while you wait for police to arrive.
Seconds can feel like minutes, and minutes can feel like, well, forever.
But according to a Dispatch analysis of data from Columbus police since 2019, it not only seems like it’s taking longer for Columbus police to respond to some calls — it really is taking longer.
Average response times for all calls to Columbus police since 2019 have gone up nearly 3 minutes, or 12%, from 23 minutes and 36 seconds in 2019 to 26 minutes and 28 seconds through Sept. 30 in 2021.
And that response time can vary, depending on the type of call and where you are located in the city, the analysis found.
For example, the average response time this year for a priority-one call — such as a shooting — shows a range from seven minutes and eight seconds in Franklinton to 10 minutes and 57 seconds on the city’s East Side.
Columbus police acknowledge average response times have gone up, but division officials contend that it is not to the extent the data show because the numbers don’t always reflect how officers are responding, particularly in the highest priority calls.
The total number of calls for service in 2020 decreased by about 12% from 2019, according to police data, going from 232,470 in 2019 to 205,115 in 2020.
The average response time also decreased by about 58 seconds, or 4%, from 23 minutes and 58 seconds to 22 minutes and 34 seconds. Those decreases at least partly reflect people staying home due to the COVID19 pandemic.
However, the 167,314 calls police had received through Sept. 30 of this year were on pace to be more than the total 205,115 calls received in 2020 and at least the same as the 232,470 calls received in 2019. And the time it takes to respond to those calls continues to go up.
What Columbus police data indicate
Police data provided to The Dispatch for analysis is broken down by each of the city’s 20 patrol precincts, as well as by the priority of the calls, which are given a number between one and five. Priority-one calls involve life-threatening situations, while priority-five calls, such as a parking complaint, are calls that can be handled as time allows.
The average response time citywide for a priority-one call in 2021 — calculated as the time between when a 911 call is answered until an officer notifies dispatchers through a button on their cruisers or by radio that they have arrived on the scene — was 8 minutes and 15 seconds, as of Sept. 30.
In 2019, that citywide average was 6 minutes and 3 seconds.
In Precinct 19, an area on the city’s West Side that includes the Hilltop, more priority-one calls were received than in any other precinct in the city, with 395 through Sept. 30. The response times for those calls have increased 77% from 2019.
Two years ago, the average time was 4 minutes and 25 seconds. The average response time through the first nine months of 2021 was 7 minutes and 50 seconds.
Sgt. Joseph Albert, a public information officer for the division, said the average times are not a completely accurate representation of how quickly officers respond. Officers have a button on their in-cruiser computers that they are able to press when they arrive at a scene.
In high-pressure emergency responses, however, Albert said, officers might forget to press the button as they react to what is occurring.
And in some instances, Albert said, the computer in the cruiser is delayed and doesn’t immediately provide an officer the opportunity to mark themselves as having arrived on the scene until after they’ve already begun handling the call.
“The vast majority of the time, when those priority-one calls go out, officers are dropping what they’re doing to go,” Albert said. “There are exceptions, (such as) when you’ve got one call and then another one happens right away and you can’t leave.”
There also have been dozens of instances, some of which were provided to The Dispatch by Albert and others in the data, that show officers are being noted by dispatchers as making an arrest even before being noted as having arrived. Dispatchers are often noting what officers are doing in real-time, Albert said, so as not to miss any information, versus noting the actual arrival time.
Those situations drive up the average response time data, Albert said, and provide an inaccurate picture of how quickly officers are actually responding.
One call from May showed an officer responding to a woman’s report that a previous occupant was attempting to break in the window at a home on the South Side. Officers had arrived and taken a suspect into custody within 2 minutes of the call being dispatched. However, another hour and 41 minutes elapsed before the officers were marked as being on the scene.
Albert said that’s because the officers were reacting to the situation and not hitting the button in the cruiser showing them on scene.
“When an officer pulls up to a scene and there’s a shooting, they’re not worrying about pressing that button,” Albert said. “They’re worried about what’s going on in front of them.”
Slower response times not just for emergencies
The data provided by Columbus police show there were 111,443 priority-two calls reported to Columbus police in 2019,with an average response time of 15 minutes and 9 seconds.
Priority-two calls are the most common for officers to respond to, according to the data, and can include most domestic-violence runs, other felony crimes that have just occurred or a crime in which a suspect remains on the scene or in the immediate area.
Through Sept. 30, there were 84,278 priority-two calls in 2021, with an average response time of exactly 20 minutes.
Albert said priority-two calls can be the most time-consuming for officers.
Domestic-violence calls that result in an arrest can take between three and four hours for a responding officer because of the amount of paperwork that needs to be done, including a lethality assessment of the suspect for the victim, charging documentation for the suspect and additional information about the arrest, Albert said. During those calls, officers can’t leave to respond to other types of calls, regardless of their priority.
On the most common priority-two or lower-priority calls, the responsibility for alerting dispatchers that they are on the scene falls completely on the officer in the majority of cases, Albert said.
For residents such as Chuck Jones, however, the response times or lack of response can be frustrating. Earlier this year, Jones was at a restaurant on the city’s South Side when he and others saw catalytic converters being cut off vehicles in an adjacent parking lot. When Jones approached the men, one implied he had a firearm.
“Because I said (to the 911 dispatcher) he might have a gun, they sent somebody out there. They generally don’t send someone out,” said Jones, who lives in Merion Village.
Two weeks later, the same suspects were cutting more converters off cars in the same parking lot, he said.
“I get that they have more pressing things to do, but I’m wondering if everyone’s saying that crime isn’t as bad (and) I wonder if part of the violent crime is people who are just frustrated,” Jones said. “All of my neighbors, we’re all armed. When we hear something going on in the alley or whatever, we go out armed, just in case. Luckily, nothing has happened, but there will be a time when something does happen, when someone has to take matters into their own hands because the police department won’t.”
Jones said he understands that police can do only so much, and that if prosecutors don’t press charges, such as in petty theft cases, it makes it hard for an officer to try to enforce that law. Jones said the city has to take a more active role in ensuring that the community has the services and response it needs.
In at least one case, a woman said she waited four hours for police to respond after she reported being carjacked near German Village. Police have said there were other priority calls in the area and when the woman reported she went to another location to wait, the call got dropped to a lower priority, extending the response time further.
Zerqa Abid, a member of the Greater Hilltop Area Commission and founder of My Project USA, a national initiative to protect and empower youth and families in underprivileged and underserved communities, said she regularly hears concerns about response times being 40 to 45 minutes or longer.
Abid said that in 2019 she called police because of a belligerent man inside the My Project USA building. She said police didn’t respond for more than 45 minutes, and by the time officers got there, the man had left.
“Anything could have happened during that time,” she said.
On another occasion, Abid said she got an alert about a burglary alarm at a youth center and saw a man inside the building on security cameras. The man fled when the alarm went off. Police did not arrive until about two hours later, she said.
Abid said she later found out the incident was classified by police as a false alarm, despite someone actually going into the building.
Abid, who chairs the Greater Hilltop Area Commission’s public safety committee, said she has taken her concerns and those she has heard from others to police.
“What I heard is that there’s a lack of officers, or on a certain day, if something else is going on, they’re all busy,” Abid said. “They’ll respond if violence happens, but it’ll depend on what’s going on and that takes more time.”
What’s being done to get Columbus officers to the scene faster?
Response times can be affected by the number of patrol officers available. As officers continue to depart the Columbus Division of Police in record numbers, up to 100 more senior officers with 25 years or more of experience are eligible to take a one-time $200,000 buyout approved by the city earlier this year.
Officers who are eligible have until early 2022 to express their interest in the buyout program.
The city is trying to replace these departing officers through additional police recruit training classes. Mayor Andrew J. Ginther has allotted funds in his 2022 budget for three police recruit classes, increasing the number of new officers being brought into the division.
But other factors, such as the number of patrol officers required to work guard duty on their shifts, also can affect response times.
Guard duty occurs when an officer is stationed at a crime scene to keep the scene secure for detectives and the collection of evidence. Officers also can be called to work guard duty to watch victims or suspects who are hospitalized. With record numbers of homicides in 2020 and now again in 2021, more officers are pulled from available service for those guard duties.
“It’s natural for (response times) to go up with less officers on the streets,” Albert said. “We’ve also been having more guard duties than we’ve ever had before.”
On the morning of Nov. 3, first shift patrol officers were being pulled from across the city for nearly a dozen guard duty positions at OhioHealth Grant Medical Center, as well as at least four positions at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center. Officers also were working guard duty at a shooting scene on the Northeast Side, providing traffic control for a crash scene on the West Side and handling another reported crash on Interstate 71.
Albert said Columbus police are continuing to undergo an internal audit to determine the best allocation of resources, including potentially merging or eliminating some detective bureaus. The division also is looking at offering overtime to officers for guard duty positions, allowing more officers to be on patrol.
He said Chief Elaine Bryant is wholly committed to making sure there are as many officers available for patrol as possible. For example, the police division and the city currently are exploring options for allowing lateral transfer hires of patrol officers from other police departments, which is not currently permitted under the Columbus city charter.
The Fraternal Order of Police Capital City Lodge No. 9, which represents Columbus police, has said it supports allowing the hiring patrol officers from other departments with sufficient background checks first.
But Abid said she believes long-term solutions have to address more than just having more officers on the streets. “Short-term, yes, we need more officers, but longterm that’s not the solution in my eyes,” Abid said.
“In the long-term, there’s a solution to the gangs and violence that involves more youth programming. Not just police stations being open and more officers, but community services and programs that would address food insecurity, drug issues, and all kinds of other issues.”