By TANYA EISERER
The Dallas Morning News
Dallas police are tossing around the idea that responding to minor calls
such as a bicycle stolen off a sidewalk may need to become a thing of the past.
The Police Department is struggling with limited manpower, high crime
and slow response times to calls for help. Police officials hope that by not sending officers to investigate some noncritical
thefts and lost-property reports they canlower response times for more life-threatening calls, such as murders and rapes.
"We're always exploring ways to reduce response times and to be able
to better respond to more important calls," said Sam Johnson, Police Chief David Kunkle's chief of staff.
Chief Kunkle formed a committee several months ago to study the issue.
No final decisions have been made, but the report is expected to go to the chief soon.
Noncritical calls accounted for about 12 percent of the department's
total calls last year, or about 104,500 of the nearly 645,000 calls.
Last year, the department's average response time to life-threatening
emergency calls – such as violent crime – was close to its goal of eight minutes. But the second most important
category of calls – such as major accidents, fights or domestic violence calls – was more than 16 minutes, well
above the department's goal of 10 minutes.
If police no longer responded to some noncritical theft and lost-property
calls, people would report such incidents at the police station, by phone or, in the future, via the Internet. Last year,
it took patrol officers an average of 55 minutes to respond to such calls.
