Is 911 becoming a joke in Columbus?
Police must address slow response times to ensure safety of communities they serve
The iconic hip hop group Public Enemy put the issue of bad emergency response services in the national spotlight with its 1990 hit song “911 Is a Joke” from the album Fear of a Black
Planet. h Analysis of Columbus police data by Dispatch reporter Bethany Bruner shows why the song likely rings true for some awaiting police response in Columbus. h Police response is not a joke here, but there is much reason for alarm. h As it reshapes a police division to serve this growing and diverse community, Columbus police must take quick, corrective action to ensure officers arrive to calls swiftly.
Every minute matters
Bruner’s reporting shows that average Columbus police response times for all calls has increased by nearly three minutes in the last two years.
The average time through Sept. 30 of this year was 26 minutes and 28 seconds. In 2019, the average response time for all calls was 23 minutes and 36 seconds.
If seconds can feel like hours when police have been called, three minutes must feel like a lifetime.
Not all calls are the same
Even more concerning than the average for all calls, Bruner found that the citywide average response times for priority-one calls — life-threatening situations like shootings — was 8 minutes and 15 seconds through Sept. 30.
That’s more than 2 minutes slower than in 2019 when the citywide average for priority-one calls was 6 minutes and 3 seconds.
Sgt. Joseph Albert, a public information officer for the division, told Bruner that average times are not all together accurate representations of how quickly officers arrive at calls.
Officers in high-pressure situations might not immediately push a button on their in-cruiser computers to indicate when they have arrived at the scene of the call, he said.
We are not completely discounting Albert’s assertion,
See POLICE, Page 4F
Sgt. Joseph Albert, a public information officer for the division, told Bruner that average times are not all together accurate representations of how quickly officers arrive at calls. Officers in high-pressure situations might not immediately push a button on their in-cruiser computers to indicate
when they have arrived at the scene of the call, he said. We are not completely discounting Albert’s assertion, but there are holes in it.