‘Stay on the line’: Philadelphia Police Commissioner responds to concern of long 911 wait times
PHILADELPHIA - Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said residents should stay on the line when calling 911, even if the wait time gets lengthy.
Outlaw addressed the issue of 911 wait times on Wednesday during a bi-monthly gun violence response briefing.
FOX 29 obtained data that shows about 2.3 million 911 calls were made in 2020. More than 11,000 of those calls had a wait time anywhere from one-and-a-half to more than two minutes for a dispatcher to answer the phone.
In 2021, of the more than 2.4 million calls, more than 24,000 waited about the same length of time.
"I want to be clear when people say their reason for calling the police is important to them, it’s important to us as well," Outlaw said. "It’s very very important to us and it’s important that people stay on the line if they believe nobody is actually going to get to them. Someone will get to them."
RELATED: Commissioner Outlaw addresses rising number of homicides across Philadelphia
Police said with an additional 50 dispatchers hired since December, they are seeing close to 90% of calls answered within 10 seconds.
Additionally, police said they have taken some officers off the street to help with the call center. While they said it is not ideal, they hope to move away from it with a new class of at least 25 dispatchers starting in a few days.
The gun violence briefing came one day after a 12-year-old girl was shot in a drive-by shooting while walking home from school in North Philadelphia.
RELATED: 12-year-old girl shot in North Philadelphia drive-by, police say
The girl’s stepfather told FOX 29 she is okay and police are still searching for a red car seen in surveillance.
In the meeting, police outlined safety changes being made where the incident occurred, including adding a patrol officer to the area of D Street and Wyoming Avenue.
"Frankly we believe there was an individual that was targeted and bullets have no names," said Benjamin Naish, the Deputy Commissioner for Investigations for the Philadelphia Police Department, said.
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