Houston Police Department Response Times

[Skiprr]

The Houston NBC affiliate, KPRC, aired a news story tonight about police response times. The report wasn’t as scathing as it tried to pretend to be, but still it was interesting.

For folks in other areas of Texas, note that the Houston Police Department (HPD) does not patrol the unincorporated areas of Harris County or surrounding counties. The area generally known as “Greater Houston” is really, officially, 10 counties comprising the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), as defined by the Census Bureau. “Greater Houston” has a population of 6.1 million (per the 2010 census estimate; the 5th largest MSA in the country), while Houston proper—the purview of the HPD—has a population of 2.3 million.

So 62.3% of “Greater Houston” is really not Houston at all...though we all assume it is because we drive through it every day.

In light of that, the HPD receives about 38,000 calls per year that are deemed to be of an emergency, life-or-death status. According to the KPRC report, the service level objective for those calls is a five minute response time.

My assumption is that the clock starts ticking after the 911 operator actually dispatches a patrol unit. So we have to add minutes to the total ticker: it takes time for the operator to speak to the caller, evaluate the situation, and dispatch.

Even so, the HPD’s scorecard was pretty good. Only in isolated pockets—and some of those may have been statistical anomalies—did the response times exceed five minutes. When the times weren’t met, they were between one and two minutes late. Only the most extreme cases went to eight minutes.

Police departments in Texas are under budget pressure. The recession affected everyone. HPD is one of those facing a possible reduction of force, both in officers and administrative staff.

That a five-minute response time has been generally maintained in a city of 2.3 million with 5,000 officers is, I think, a great achievement.

But a sobering thought: That’s the best we can hope for when we dial 911 for life-or-death assistance.

Five minutes is a very short time when you’re sitting in a theater enjoying a movie. It’s an eternity when you’ve dialed 911 because someone is kicking in your door.

There’s your benchmark. If you are in dire need of help from the police, they are, at best, only five minutes away.

You need to have a plan to survive for five to 10 minutes, or a plan to fight back.

To those members who live places where a five-minute response time would cause them to laugh, you probably have your defensive strategy in place.

We urbanites, well, we need reminding.

[gigag04]

HPD is chronically understaffed and with Mayor idiot running the city and killing retirements,it will get worse before it gets better. Same with HFD. I'd expect insurance to rise as layer off fire boys increase response times. It's sad to see civil service protected jobs getting cut.

HPD is the lowest paying major PD in Texas. San Antonio, ATX, and DFW have better etirements, benefits, and salaries. And HPD has the violent crime base to deal with.

[WildBill]

HPD is chronically understaffed and with Mayor idiot running the city and killing retirements,it will get worse before it gets better. Same with HFD. I'd expect insurance to rise as layer off fire boys increase response times. It's sad to see civil service protected jobs getting cut.

HPD is the lowest paying major PD in Texas. San Antonio, ATX, and DFW have better etirements, benefits, and salaries. And HPD has the violent crime base to deal with.

I keep reading stories in the news about laying off people in HPD. This story says that the latest proposal is 181 officers and 445 civilians including jailers.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 32483.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[skub]

I have a good friend who is a Lt. with HPD. He tells me that, because of hiring freezes several years ago, there was a significant gap where HPD wasn't adding new officers. Over the years, that gap has progressed through the aging/experience cycle of the police force, so that now, approximately 40% of the force is eligible for retirement. I confirmed this with another officer that I have gotten to know recently.

Impact -
~ Those officers qualifying for retirement are also the highest paid, so getting them off the payroll will provide the greatest relief for the budget problems.
~ But those highest paid officers are the most experienced. Loosing them means loosing their experience, and with the gap mentioned, that can have a significant impact. in fact, the officer I was talking to recently, a sergeant, told me that he knew of at least one class at the academy that was being taught by an officer with only two years of street experience.

All this to say, we shouldn't expect things to get better. Overall, they seem to be responding pretty well, given the challenges they face. But the challenges continue.

[Jumping Frog]

There’s your benchmark. If you are in dire need of help from the police, they are, at best, only five minutes away.

You need to have a plan to survive for five to 10 minutes, or a plan to fight back.

When I am asked why I carry, I have two favorites as answers. One is a little tongue-in-cheek, but the second is dead serious:

• I can't fit a cop in my holster.
• When seconds matter, the police are only minutes away.