Police aim for faster 911 priority response
The time it took Windsor police officers to respond to highest-priority calls in 2023 averaged 11 minutes and 48 seconds — 85 seconds slower than the service's five-year average.
But officials say recent changes were made that are already showing positive results in response times to so-called Priority 1 calls.
“We have made some changes in the last — since the middle of February,” Deputy Chief Jason Crowley said following April's police board meeting at Windsor police headquarters.
“We're now seeing that number go down.”
The five-year average is 10 minutes, 23 seconds.
“It's under 11 minutes now,” Crowley said. “Our goal is even lower but right now we're quite happy where it's at. But we're watching it.”
The deputy chief said the department has made changes in deployment of officers and in some of the “administrative part of our priorities.”
“Our calls for service are up so that might be part of that,” he said. “We did have an administrative change in the way we report calls for service last year.”
For example, he said vehicle stops all create a case number now, which they never did before and that is part of the increasing calls for service numbers.
Crowley said the department will continue to keep an eye on response times.
“We're very concerned about how fast we're getting to 911 calls and that's a good indication of the first quarter of this year — that (response time) is going down,” he said.
Windsor police recorded 139,190 calls to 911 in 2023, an 18-per-cent uptick from 2022.
Calls to the downtown core rose as well, something Crowley attributed to increased police presence.
“Like any kind of initiative, when you start it you expect numbers to go up,” he said. “You're putting more police officers and more resources toward something. At some point, we hope — the intention is — that it starts to work.”
City police have partnered with other agencies, including Windsor Regional Hospital and Hotel-dieu Grace Healthcare, offering services and supports and expanding crisis response teams.
“These kinds of things are doing nothing but helping us,” Crowley said.