Hot News!
• Proportional Representation: Christopher Smitherman v. Jeff Berding
• Portune’s Deal, Unopposed Republican Judges, and the Case for Proportional Representation
Contact Us
v mail, fax: (214) 481-6464
e mail: click here
Events
 |
|
|
Monday, May 05, 2008
Calling the Police: How long should it take to respond?
Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
Photo courtesy of here.
Back in January, my home was burglarized and I encountered government bureaucracy via the City’s False Alarm Reduction Unit. Back then, I was never able to determine concretely how long it took police to respond to the call. This past week, I had another incident with my alarm. The response time was so slow, I wonder the point in even owning an alarm.
In January, when an actual burglar broke into my home, Cincinnati Bell’s Complete Protection department called and asked if I wanted police dispatched. I was a bit thrown off by the question, so after contacting my wife, I called them back within a minute and said that I would like to have police dispatched.
Here is what happened to me last Thursday:
1. My teenaged sister-in-law arranged with my wife to stop by our house after her track practice.
2. My wife promptly forgot about these plans, and we went out to dinner.
3. My sister-in-law came in the house, and didn’t know the alarm code.
4. Cincinnati Bell called my home, and spoke with my sister-in-law. She told them what had happened, and that she did not know the code.
5. Cincinnati Bell called my cell phone, and informed me that they were dispatching police.
6. My mother-in-law called, to tell me about the alarm situation with her daughter.
At this point, I decided there was no reason to abandon my dinner to meet police. I figured there was no way a skinny 16 year old girl would be going to jail for breaking and entering, and that we could resolve everything over the phone. So we told my sister-in-law to call us as soon as she saw the police driving up the street.
Fifteen minutes later, we called her, asking if the police had arrived. My wife stayed on the line, and it took another five minutes or so until a cruiser pulled in front of our house. The situation with my sister-in-law was easily resolved, and we went back to eating our dinner.
I could walk to the local police station in under twenty minutes.
• Share This Article!
Listen to this article
|  |
Register
Anonymous comments are allowed, but you can create an account above to stamp your name and to avoid typing the anti-spam code.
If you are not familiar with our rules for leaving comments, click here! The Cincinnati Beacon is not responsible for the contents of any comments. Comments do not represent the views of the moderators of The Cincinnati Beacon.
05 May 2008 at 06:30 am | #
.
Nothing like informing the intruder that the Police are on the way !
“Yes dispatch, I’m the cousin and I’m suppose to meet them here. They forgot to turn off the alarm and I don’t know the code. I’ll call them right now. Can I have your number, Ms. alarm code monitor, so I can call you right back ?”
.
05 May 2008 at 04:32 pm | #
Hell, what’s it matter if the thief knows cops are coming. Twenty minutes is plenty of time to grab the valuables and then slowly walk away.
05 May 2008 at 05:17 pm | #
I suspect that the number of false alarms might have something to do with the slow response rate.
05 May 2008 at 08:08 pm | #
What do you mean? Are you suggesting that ALL of the area police were responding to false alarms?
Or are you talking about how this is the second time my alarm went off - the first being when someone shattered my back window, stole thousands of dollars worth of stuff, and then I got a letter from FARU…
05 May 2008 at 08:33 pm | #
Dean,
Im not sure if you saw the news 5 report on 911 a few weeks ago it is off the hook. Embarasing as it is nothing came out of it. One solution would be to consolidate the county 911 center with the city. There would be BIG savings to the tax payers and it would go a long way to fixing a broken system. The county is in the process of doign this for several municipalities within the county, it is working well and saving $$. The word is that CPD is unwilling to give up the control and cronyism.
One thing to also consider is that CPD boasts about their response time stating national averages blah blah blah. What they dont tell you is how they measure it. They measure it from the time the dispatcher dispatches the call to the time the officer arrives. The response time is not customer driven. It should be fromt he time you dial until the time they arrive. With the current system the dispatcher can hold the call for days then release it and claim a 5 minute response time.
http://www.wlwt.com/news/15404246/detail.html
CINCINNATI—Cincinnati Special Police Capt. Joe Euton tried to call for help from a bar fight.
Bonnie Martin tried to call for help when her bar’s doorman was shot.
Tina Curtis tried to call for help when three women broke into her apartment
All three said they have one thing in common: When they called Cincinnati 911, they were put on hold.
“It said ‘911 dispatcher, please hold’ and no one ever answered,” Curtis said.
“I immediately got a recording saying all our lines are busy,” Martin said.
“I went ahead and called 911 myself. And I was put on hold,” Euton said.
In Martin’s case, she and others calling 911 gave up.
“One of my doormen went to the fire station and got help,” she said.
In Curtis’ case, her daughter was seriously hurt before police could arrive.
“My daughter, she’s 6 years old, she lost her right eye because of this incident,” Curtis said.
But Capt. Michael Neville, the man responsible for Cincinnati’s 911 system, said the system does work.
“It’s better than just leaving it ring until we grab it. So what that message means is that we are getting to you,” he said.
Neville said the problem isn’t staffing—at any given moment, there are at least six to eight dispatchers on duty. Neville said that the problem is technology.
Neville said the the proliferation of cell phones means that when something happens in public view, dozens of people may get on their cell phones to call 911, swamping the dispatchers.
Neville said it doesn’t help that some people still call 911 for non-emergencies, sometimes just to ask for directions.
“There’s a process for these calls to make sure (information) we do have is accurate. Because if I take your call, and if all I do is hurry up with you to get to the next one, my information on the first one is very paramount,” he said.
Neville said that he would prefer that no one get the recording, but that with an average call volume of 48,000 calls a month, it’s going to happen.
So what should you do if you get the recording? Neville said it’s key that you don’t hang up. If you hang up and call back, hoping to get a dispatcher, you’ll be at the end of the queue
05 May 2008 at 10:02 pm | #
Dean,
If you were satisfied it was your sister-in-law you should have told CBT to call off the police ... don’t be surprised if you get another letter from FARU ...
05 May 2008 at 11:30 pm | #
“What do you mean? Are you suggesting that ALL of the area police were responding to false alarms?” -Dean
No. I am suggesting that if 99 times out of a hundred, police are responding to false house alarms, they may not be as gun-ho about barging into the scene. Especially if they might be running into situations where it is just some innocent 16 year old who has done nothing wrong.
I’d bet if half the house alarms called in were really bad guys, the cops would be climbing over themselves to do a bust on house thefts.
06 May 2008 at 04:57 am | #
Remember, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away…
06 May 2008 at 05:23 am | #
They didn’t tell me it was her. I found out AFTER they told me police had already been dispatched.
Well, that’s bullshit, and not what I pay them for. Last time, when my wife got on the scene, they said they thought it a false alarm, totally oblivious to the shattered back window. This time, over twenty minutes to respond.
06 May 2008 at 07:14 am | #
Given your location up there by the mayor, it was probably one of those poor, misunnerstood, yoots. They’re lashing out at the oppression you represent.
06 May 2008 at 08:43 am | #
Dean,
This is from first hand experience ... even after they security company has called the police ... you have the option to tell them to call off the response if the police have not arrived on the scene ...
06 May 2008 at 09:21 am | #
This is classic…
A few days ago, you accuse the police of being racist with regards to marijuana arrests, and post some lyrics from “Fuck The Police”. (including the title, which I’m sure was innocent)
Maybe their response was “Fuck you”....
Oops !! I just created another “spiracy” for you to pursue.
06 May 2008 at 12:35 pm | #
[quoteDean,
This is from first hand experience ... even after they security company has called the police ... you have the option to tell them to call off the response if the police have not arrived on the scene ...
]
Exactly !! While it took the police longer that I would have liked when we phoned in a break-in, it was legit.
You should have called them off. Instead, you saw an opportuinty for possible conflict, then bitch about it when it happened.
06 May 2008 at 03:35 pm | #
“Well, that’s bullshit, and not what I pay them for. Last time, when my wife got on the scene, they said they thought it a false alarm, totally oblivious to the shattered back window. This time, over twenty minutes to respond.” -Dean
I agree the results are not what either you or I would want. So what level of response time do you think we should have? Does the CPD have the resources to provide that level of service? If not, how much are you willing to pay in order to obtain that level of service?
06 May 2008 at 03:56 pm | #
funnelcake, if City Council didn’t have our police wasting time arresting black people with small amounts of marijuana there would probably be faster response times.
06 May 2008 at 07:39 pm | #
you are joking right? i mean no one would look at the math that says over 3 months there have been 922 arrest in 3 months and then consider that there are 1057 police officers and come to the conclusion that the marijuana ordinance is what is causing the trouble here. That is less than one arrest per officer every three months.
You can disagree with the ordinance if you please but you cannot make an argument with a straight face that says it is a significant drain on manpower
07 May 2008 at 07:57 am | #
“if City Council didn’t have our police wasting time arresting black people with small amounts of marijuana there would probably be faster response times.” -Justin Jeffre
I agree with you 100%. I wonder if a citizen initiated ballot to repeal the city ordinance criminalizing possession would pass.
07 May 2008 at 08:01 am | #
they72, funnelcake is right, the sad truth is that CPD spends large amounts of time arresting black people for often small quantities of weed. You talk about less than one arrest per officer per three months but heres what I want you to do: take a black kid and give him weed then send him outside. immediately phone the police saying that some harassing black kid has weed. 50 to 1 says that 3 or more cruisers with 5 or more officers will show up within five minutes and proceed to beat this poor black man you just set up. The point is not the number of calls but rather the number of responders. I recently got a speeding ticket and was pulled over by 3 cruisers with one man in each car....this crap is just stupid.
07 May 2008 at 10:36 am | #
they72, ordinances like this waste precious police time. This isn’t the only stupid and wasteful ordinance but is a great example of dumb laws that make us less safe. If you were to add up the lost hours it is a big number of wasted man hours. How long does an arrest take including paper work?
As Jason Brown pointed out there is often more than one officer during these arrests.
07 May 2008 at 10:44 am | #
funnelcake, I think it would. It might be a challenge because it would probably take a charter amendment to change it and people are often reluctant to change the city’s charter.
I thought when we beat the jail tax and the County started charging the city that council would have to get rid of this draconian drug law because it wastes too much money. It’s too bad the We Demand a Vote Coalition wasn’t around when the council imposed this.
07 May 2008 at 12:40 pm | #
They72
That is simple math ...
Now subtract from the 1057, the number of police that are supervisory/non stree units/non uniformed assignments. The fact that there are 5 districts with three to five shifts per day ... officers out on sick, vacation, training assignments… etc etc and you will quickly see that an incident of any significance can easily overwhelm the police dept. on any given day ...
Now back to the point of the thread ...
In the course of an incident it is the citizen’s responsiblity to ensure that a call to the police department is called off when it is determined that the situaiton does not warrant a police response ... I do this all the time when I call the police (drug dealing/public indecency) and the police are not able to respond prior to the suspects leaving the scene ... That is the purpose of the FARU IMO ... if you choose not to notify the police when you know the reason they are being summoned is false you will eventually pay a fine if you don’t change your behavior ...
Nothing wrong with having an alarm system ... you will be notified of a possible break in quickly what you choose to do if/when you determine the alarm is false may have financial consequences ...
07 May 2008 at 01:38 pm | #
So your problem is with CPD procedure that allow 5 cruisers to come by for anything that is called it. That is vastly different than saying the ordinance is the problem.
I will agree with you that it is stupid to have 3 cars to pull someone over for speeding or 5 cars for someone with pot. The CPD needs to be reformed no doubt about it. Unfortunately the only unions republicans love is the police union even though it provides cover for their policemen to be lazy just like all unions do.
Say each arrest should take 2 hours including paperwork (a very generous estimate). That would be only 1854 man hours spent on the pot arrest. If you are figuring the numbers based of of FTEs that would be less than 2.5 full time employee hours devoted to this ordinance. Finishing the math off police are spending (2.5/1057=) .0023 of their total time on this issue.
Would you still like to argue that how police spend .0023 of the time is what is making police slow to respond to house calls or should we perhaps spend time looking at bigger issues with regards to the police? I see that much time wasted with police cars 69’ing in parking lots.
07 May 2008 at 03:41 pm | #
We know at the very least 6,000 people were arrested. That’s 6,000 wasted hours, at least. These numbers are very conservative of course, but my point is that stupid ordinances waste our police officers time and our tax money. That might be OK with you, but some of us have a problem with this and yes these things do slow down other more important work. There are only 24 hours a day and any time that is wasted reduces the quality of services we should be getting.
07 May 2008 at 06:02 pm | #
Maybe if they didn’t have 8- yes- 8 cars sitting down on Westfork Road handing out tickets to people turning eastbound onto the closed lane that is actually a one lane with a stop and then switch for on coming traffic (which was working VERY WELL without their HELP!!!) instead of patrolling Westwood- that might be a better idea! Does it really take 8 double staffed cars to do this? Eight? Come on-What a waste of manpower!
What would have been pretty damn funny is if someone would have robbed two banks at the same time, the guy with his horses at the top of the hill in the middle of the road- the cops couldn’t have gotten up the hill past the horses, or past the trees they are clearing out of the old Large Marge Schott house- and then it would have looked like something out of the Keystone Cops-trying to get past the traffic- worse than they already do!!!!
07 May 2008 at 11:02 pm | #
I have to say this: I work in hyde park and the other day I witnessed a hit and run which swiped some poor old crones jaguar. I think it is important that the cop showed up in about 3 minutes and I know this because I had just finished eating my bread at Indigo. It seems to me that the police have a majority of these response problems happen in black communities.