Tucson police are taking longer to respond to calls than they did five years ago, even though they are receiving fewer calls. The numbers seem to support the current campaign by the police union that there are not enough police officers on the street. Now, even the interim police chief agrees. Fox 11 News obtained the response times through a public records request to TPD.

TPD is taking, on average, seven minutes longer to respond to calls in the top four levels of priority than they did five years ago. In the most serious type of calls – life threatening situations – they only meet their own criteria for response 75% of the time.

Hanifi Kaya has more than one million dollars worth of merchandise in his rug store. He called the police when someone stole a rug worth $3,700 that he had hanging outside the store. He says the police didn’t show up for three days. “They said, oh this is not an emergency, we have a lot of other things to do,” he says.

That’s just one example of what the TPD faces today. Last year they received 16,000 fewer calls for top-level service than it did five years ago, but the overall average response time took nearly seven minutes longer last year. Deputy Police Chief Kermit Miller says there are two reasons why.

“Even though we have more officers now than we did in 2003, they’re spending more time on the calls that they’re taking,” says Miller. He says officers do that so they can play the role of problem solver.

But his other reason is a bit more controversial, at a time when the city faces a huge budget shortfall and refuses to hire more officers. “Do we need additional personnel? Absolutely,” he says, “and when I hear the officers on the street argue about needing additional officers, I understand exactly what they’re saying.”

The police union is waging a very public campaign against the city for more money and more staff to do their jobs properly. “Based on our patrol staffing and our level of the city that we are serving, our patrol staff should be closer to a thousand patrol officers,” says Tucson Police Officers Association President Larry Lopez. Right now they are working with about 60% of that number.

“That cannot be done overnight,” says Tucson City Manager Mike Hein. “That cannot be done when we lack any resources to invest toward that area.”

It’s a fact Miller understands as he prepares to become the interim police chief, and while response times may be down, he knows what the city faces. “We’re seeing progress and we want to maintain that progress, but the budget is what it is.”

Whether or not there will be more officers on the street to cut those response times next year will be determined in the final budget which is due in June.

Below is detail on all the response times data we received from TPD:

LEVEL 1              EMERGENCY RESPONSE – An incident posing an immediate threat to life where the threat is present and on-going; and/or an incident posing an immediate threat to life involving the actual use or threatened use of a weapon.  The mere presence of a weapon alone, however, without any indication of use or threat of use does not support or justify a Level 1 call.

LEVEL 2              CRITICAL RESPONSE – An incident involving a situation of imminent danger to life or a high potential for a threat to life to develop or escalate. This incident must be in progress or have occurred within the past five (5) minutes.

LEVEL 3         URGENT RESPONSE – Crimes against persons or significant                 property crimes where a rapid response is needed and the incident            is in progress, has occurred within the past five (5) minutes or is          about to escalate to a more serious situation.

LEVEL 4              GENERAL RESPONSE – Other crimes or matters requiring police response, generally occurring more than 10-minutes prior to dispatch and having a complainant.

LEVEL 5         INFORMATION RESPONSE – Call to relay information or notify                            officers about a situation.  Calls are sent to beat books/briefing and               are not dispatched by Communications.

LEVEL 6              BEAT CALL RESPONSE – Calls that require a police response but are not time critical and are most suitably handled by a beat officer.  Level 6 calls are not dispatched by Communications. Clearance may be satisfied with conversion to a Level 5 call.

LEVEL 7     GENERAL BROADCAST ONLY - For use with alarm reports to Communications that are not verified (see ALARMS C806.) and some 911 Hang Ups from pay phones (see 911 HANG UPS).