In an emergency: Scottsdale PD average response time hovers at 5 minutes Scottsdale Independent
According to the article, “during an emergency, the Scottsdale Police Department had an average response time of just over five minutes last year, a recent records request shows.” That’s fine expect when take a closer look and see that the times are increasing. And this increase is for “Emergency” calls, which we refer to as “hot tone” calls. Image if the average increase in response times has increased by 10% over the past five year, what the response time is for non-emergency calls. I can tell you it’s a lot greater than 10%.
Worst part, it’s all a self-imposed problem. Due to total mismanagement of the organization over the past 7-10 years, the Department is understaffed to the point they had to pull Detectives from their Units to fill in the gaps in Patrol. Wonder why your case isn’t being investigated fast enough? It’s probably because most detective unit are running with about half the investigators they were supposed to have.
The problem got so bad in late-2018 that they “reorganized” the entire Patrol Division. Which means they cut entire Patrol Squad, putting less total cops on the roads, so on paper it looked like they were running at full staffing.
Its caused huge decreases in moral and, as you can read in the article, increased response times to “Emergency” calls of 10%. Those extra 30 seconds to a minute might be the difference when a child is drowning, when someone is having a heart attack or if, God forbid, there is ever an Active Shooter.