Edmonton police losing ground on response-time targets

The Edmonton police department is hittingresponse-time targets for non-urgent calls less often than it ever has before, according to anewreport prepared for the Edmonton Police Commission.

The department failed to meet its targets nearly one-third of the time during the first half of this year.That was adramatic drop from the 85 per cent success-rate recorded in 2011.

Police chief Rod Knecht said that likely doesn't mean residents will be left waiting longer than seven minutes if a call is atrue emergency, and lives are in danger.

There has been a slight improvement in response times to those emergency calls, with officers reaching the scene within the seven-minute window 71 per cent of the time.

Supt.Chad Tawfik,with the department's office of strategy management,said the reality is big citieswith big city types of crime need to prioritize their responses to calls.

"Anything where people are at risk, lives are at risk, property is at risk in the now, we are going to be taking those as a higher priority and that's reflected in our response times," he said.

But only about two per cent of calls to police are considered priority one.

"If it's a 911 call,we'll be there ASAP," Knecht said. "Non-emergent calls, we're really dropping.We're taking longer and longer to get there, and that's unfortunate."

Police take up to three days to respond to low-priority calls

At the police commission meeting Thursday, Knecht admitted someresidents who call about break-ins at their homescould have to wait days for police to respond.

Knecht said he doesn't think that'sa reasonable response.The target is three hours, but even with that window, police only meetthe target 60 per centof the time.

Tawfik saidfront-line officers are often on the receiving end when they deal with frustrated crime victims.

"You do hear frustrations from the public about the response,"he said. "We can just try to explain to them and educate them on what we're dealing with.But if it's a person who's been a victim of a crime more than once, definitely their patience would take a toll."

The chief appeared frustrated when he talked aboutresponse times.

"We don't have enough people to be everywhere all the time," he said. "So we prioritize. And we try to sensitize people to the fact that if it's a non-emergent crime, if it's a non-violent crime, it's going to take us a little while longer to get there."

Asked if he plans to ask for more money or more officers to address the issue, Knecht said that will ultimately be up to taxpayers.

"It's a democracy," he said. "And if the public wants more police, the public are going to make that known."

Tawfiksaid there's also a plan to expand the types of crimes that can be reported online, but he's not sure if that will make a significant impact.

Volume of calls has increased

In the first half of 2016, therewere 81,918callsthatrequired officers to be dispatched. That works out to an average of 452 calls each day.

Knecht admitted officers are being run off their feet.

"We are going from call to call to call, all shift long," he said.