NYPD Response Time Slows to 9 Minutes

Crime may be at near record-low levels, but it took cops an average of 9.1 minutes last year to respond to crimes in progress — the NYPD’s worst performance since Mayor Bloomberg took office in 2002.

Figures released yesterday as part of the semiannual Mayor’s Management Report showed police response times slowed by 42 seconds to 9.1 minutes in the 2012 fiscal year, which ended on June 30.

For most of the mayor’s tenure, cops were able to reach crime scenes in less than 8 minutes. In 2007, they made it in just 6.9 minutes.

That changed in 2011, when the average response time zoomed to 8.4 minutes.

Paul Browne, the NYPD’s chief spokesman, attributed the latest increase to a spike in non-critical calls that drove up the overall average.

Response times to critical calls, such as a robbery in progress or a man with a gun, remained flat at 4.6 minutes.

“We don’t respond to them as quickly,” Browne said of the noncritical calls, which he identified as complaints where there’s no immediate threat of injury such as trespassing or graffiti.

Records showed that non-critical response times averaged 13.3 minutes, up from 12.9 minutes in 2011.

City Councilman Peter Vallone (D-Queens), chairman of the Public Safety Committee, said the wait times for non-emergencies may be even longer than what’s on the record.

“I don’t think those numbers reflect the delays that occur,” said Vallone.

He recalled that two of his chiefs-of-staff got into separate car accidents and each had to wait hours for cops to show up.

“These numbers show the increased strain on the police force we have, which is trying to respond to more calls for help,” said Vallone, an advocate for increasing the size of the NYPD.

Bloomberg is resisting adding more cops to the 35,000-person force, arguing that crime is being contained and the city can’t afford to go on a hiring spree.

Major felony crimes edged up last year, from 105,496 to 109,299.

More cops don’t always translate into faster response times.

In 2001, the last year of the Giuliani administration, cops got to crime scenes in an average of 10.1 minutes at a time when the force had 4,000 more officers.