Officers have been responding to 911 calls more quickly this year, according to new figures released Thursday by the Chicago Police Department.
Department officials hail the faster response times as proof their strategy to put more cops in patrol cars is working. But the Fraternal Order of Police counters that a rise in murders and shootings shows the patrol officers aren’t doing enough to prevent violent crime.
The average response for a “priority-one” call was 4 minutes in January and February 2011 compared to 3.46 minutes for the same period this year — about 13 percent faster.
Officers are responding more quickly to lower priority calls, too. The average response for a priority-two call fell from 4.94 minutes to 4.21 minutes and 5.63 minutes to 5.4 for a priority-three call, the department said.
A “burglary in progress” is one example of a priority-one call. A report of a burglar alarm going off would be a priority-two call and a burglary that already occurred would be a priority-three call.
No questions, no tracking data, no word on the constant backlogs. Not even a hint on how priority one jobs can be held for 10 minutes before being dispatched to an available unit and that's still considered "acceptable." Or how a priority three job can be held for 60 minutes before it's considered "over the limit." Or dope calls being stacked 4 deep on tact teams just to "clear the board" and OEMC looks good.
That would take actual reporting skills from the Sun Times, and that just isn't going to be happening.