Restler questions Tisch on 911 response time deterioration

I timed that well.

Thank you very much to the chairs.

Thank you again, Commissioner.

So the last time I raised this with you, I appreciated that unlike your predecessors, you acknowledged that response times are not where you'd like them to be and are a serious issue and you're working to improve them.

And we continue to see

I think in the most recent MMR, end-to-end response times were 14 minutes and 6 seconds, up from 10 minutes prior to the pandemic.

And most importantly to me, the critical crimes in progress, end-to-end, we're looking at 9 minutes and 10 seconds prior to the pandemic, 6 minutes and 44 seconds.

And the times prior to the pandemic had been very consistently in that 6-minute-plus range.

We're now looking at something that's much higher.

There has been some improvement, but we still have a ways to go.

Commissioner, what's the plan to address this?

I think it's hiring up to headcount.

We need to get the number of people.

For too many years, the department had authorized headcount and then did nothing with it, meaning didn't hire people to fill those vacancies.

And those same people say that.

It's terrible that we haven't hired 5,000 additional officers.

Okay.

Separately, I think we are, I am confident that we are going to see the fruits of our hiring of these 4,000.

And additional officers come to bear starting next fiscal year when they will be in precincts responding to 911 calls for service.

Right now, all of these new rookie officers are doing their first year, 18 months of training on foot posts, but they are not in precincts responding to 911 calls for service.

And starting in June, we are going to be moving the first tranche of them into those assignments.

So I hope to start to see 911 response time come down as a result.

I appreciate that.

And I, you know, you've expressed this to me before that you think that will make a difference.

We saw the end-to-end response times increase by 40 plus percent from pre-pandemic to now.

They're slightly down from the worst points in the Adams administration, but still not in a good place.

We didn't see a 40% modification in headcount.

We saw a single digit percentage modification in headcount.

So could you just help me understand why have things

change so dramatically?

Chief, you want to jump in here?

Yes.

So unfortunately, you know, the commissioner hit it when she said lowest level of shootings, murders.

But unfortunately, crime is still up 25% from pre-pandemic, which means we're responding to a lot more violent crime than we had in the past.

Meaning those complainants, you know, the reports that the officers take, they take a lot of time.

They take a lot, you know, it all starts with a field investigation.

And we want good customer service.

I want the best of the best customer service.

That's what I demand.

That's what the police commissioner demands.

So a 25% increase in...

Crime from pre-pandemic means that we are responding to a lot more serious crime, which takes more time to deal with that complaint.

I would love to dig in with this with you further to better understand those trends and what you're seeing and how that is impacting response times.

If I could just make one real example.

Please, I have 25 seconds.

Let's take one last one.

Up 175% from pre-pandemic.

That takes a lot of time.

Alarm on a car.

You know, a lot of paperwork.

No, no, no.

I understand what you're saying.

I get it.

I would love to dig in with you, though, and understand where those trends are happening, what types of issues, and what we can do to mitigate them.

The last thing I just want to ask, and this is a...