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Dallas PD 87 minute home invasion response timeImagine waiting 87 minutes for a police response after calling 9-1-1 to report a home invasion in progress. It happened in Dallas in recent days. Thankfully, the homeowner escaped the invasion with his life (if not his property). The robbers had plenty of time to grab some loot and scamper far, far away before 5-0 arrived. For those who think police will rescue them from criminal attack in the sprawling Dallas metroplex, this alarming incident has proven itself a big wake-up call.

Let’s face it, the only thing that stops bad people with evil in their heart is a good guy with a gun. A person can take proactive control of their own safety by being armed. Or, alternatively, the imprudent hopeful among us may eschew gun ownership and rely on the local constabulary. For those ill-prepared, they may actually welcome the words, “We’re from the government and we’re here to help.”

WFAA has the story:

Jamie was lying in his bed when he heard the footsteps. The robbers entered through the back door, just after his wife left for the airport.

“He pointed the gun at me and he said, ‘Don’t you say a thing. Don’t you dare move,’” says the 65-year-old M Streets homeowner. “He had the gun to my head and he made me turn over on my stomach.”

…“I still feel the gun on the back of my head,” he recalls. “He kept saying, ‘Where is the safe?’ and I would say, ‘I don’t have the safe’ and he would press [the gun] into my head.”Jamie waited for an hour and 27 minutes for Dallas police officers to arrive. They just didn’t have enough officers to respond sooner to the home invasion robbery.

Situations like Jamie’s are happening more, and more officers are leaving the department.

Dallas PD so far is meeting its eight-minute goal of responding to Priority 1 calls. Those include things like murders and robberies in progress.

But for Priority 2 calls – calls like Jamie’s — the department has fallen behind. The department has a 12-minute goal for those calls. These are things like disturbances and robberies that have already occurred.

 

How is the response time where you live?

…They ransacked the room. They took his phone, car keys, house keys, wallet, and other electronics. As they were leaving, the man told him to count to 100.

“I had gotten to seven or eight and it was almost like he had lost interest,” Jamie says. “He said, ‘Don’t you get up until I’m gone.’”

The men left.

 

At least the 9-1-1 operator was honest.

They repeatedly called 911 to find out what was taking so long.

“They would say, ‘Well, are they still in the house?’” he says. “I said, ‘No but the guy put a gun to my head. What if he’s still around here somewhere?’ Every time we were told, ‘Well, we don’t have anyone to send out. We’re shorthanded.’”

What are the odds that he’ll be visiting his local gun store in the near future?

 

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68 COMMENTS

  1. sooooooo, it wasn’t in progress, it was already over, the bad guys were gone, no one was injured. The home owner wanted the police there to take a report, not to save him

      • Police report and investigate crimes, they prevent absolutely effen nothing when one drills down on it.

        Berkely, Boston, Ferguson, Watts, Detroit, I could do this all day long. They arrest almost nobody (or nobody at all), there’s millions/tens of millions in damage, the law-abiding decent citizenry is left to fend for itself.

        I have no issue with decent cops, but they prevent nothing at all. Stopping any crime, of any consequence. is a black swan event for the vast majority of LE.

        • Criminality exists because it’s damned profitable. People with modest job skills or no job skills at all can make good money from robbing and stealing and selling drugs. Occasionally, someone gets caught but that is a rare enough event that criminals quickly learn that the likelihood of being caught is actually quite low. Someone with determination and reasonable intelligence can do well enough to make crime a profitable career.

          As an aside, one thing I find truly laughable are the security companies’ ads which show the police arresting someone because an alarm went off. That ain’t gonna happen. Even worse is the incredibly stupid ad showing a woman in a deserted parking log who calls her security company because she alone and scared. The implication is that, making that call will provide safety. Gun sales continue to surge as more and more people realize that their safety depends on their own initiative and not on a out-manned and out-gunned police force.

          This is not an anti-cop rant. I actually like and respect good cops. But selling the public on the idea that making a phone call will protect them from harm is a fairy tale that does a serious injustice to those same good cops.

      • “The police prevent crime. They cannot prevent crimes.”

        More accurately, the police deter crime; they cannot prevent crimes.

    • Well, I guess if you want to play childhood games, if you don’t get caught you’re all-in-free, eh?! Geez! The police are to arrive at the scene to protect from further harm, gather info to search for the criminals while the trail is still “hot” and hopefully catch them before the next victim becomes a victim. Why is that so hard to figure out!? When response times are lengthened, crooks get away; its as simple as that. When they do they strike again, especially if the taking wasn’t so good in the first crime. And, when they get away with it, they become emboldened and usually more violent (ever tried to correct a bratty child who has been tolerated too long?). Cities all over the Country have been trying to keep Officers from leaving their profession, while instituting liberal and progressive policies that are anathema to proper enforcement of law and good order. Get back to the basics – Hire enough cops to get the job done! Pay them enough to keep them on the job and away from temptations of corruption. And back them when they do good work!

      • Cops only want to gather evidence, so they might ID the perp and arrest him before he does it again. The stuff he took from you is gone, he sold it to a fence or traded it for drugs. He is getting high, maybe paying for a room and sharing his high with his main squeeze.
        If you want to protect your stuff or life of family, you need a gun that is accessible and the ability to use it.

    • I was burglarized In upstate ny. I went inside not knowing it. When I realized it, no the house wasn’t tossed they shut every drawer and cabinet they opened, I called the police. First car showed up about 4 mins after the call. Never got my guns money or platinum ring back. Cops were basically worthless. Insurance only covered a sliver. GET A RYDER on your policy so you are covered. It can happen to you as well unfortunately. Can’t defend what you don’t know is in jeopardy.

      • Get a RIDER to insure against loss due to the crooks hauling your stuff off in their RYDER truck.

    • Crimes such as this which involve a gun and where a citizen is threatened with loss of life are always a Code 1 response. What if this was just the first in a series of crimes the perpetrator planned for the day? Any intel should have been immediately collected and broadcast. This displays a shocking lack of any sense of urgency on the responding agency’s part.
      Put it this way, how high a priority would this call have received had the mayor’s father been the victim?

  2. DPD is hemorrahing officers and it’s going to get worse. The pay scale hasn’t kept pace and the unresolved ongoing problems with the retirement fund arent helping matters. Finally the 9-1-1 system has interface problems with telecomunication providers that also contribute to delayed response times.

    • It’s not Dallas’ fault that Fort Worth is so much better in every way…or is it? Maybe another race-hustler commissioner indicted for fraud or two, or several more racist marches slinging mud & bullets at officers will finally close that gap.

    • The department’s a mess and the problem wasn’t made quickly. It won’t be unmade quickly, unfortunately.

      • Yep. Changing organization is an incredibly difficult job. This is why most managers leave for another job rather than even attempting it. So, the rot just goes on and on.

  3. his mistake was saying they we’re gone. If he had said they’re still in the house he would have had a swat team through his front door.

  4. I don’t worry about slow response times from my security patrol, let alone the PD, because I have a Taser.

  5. 12 minutes is the goal, huh? What happens then, the 11-minute burgle-larcen-arsony rape & murder goes down differently?

  6. We want really fast – instant preferably – response times. But we don’t want to pay taxes for more cops’ salaries, more 911 operators, and better coms infrastructure.

    We want cops to be nice, respectful, forthright, honorable, perfect shots, perfect judgment in 20/20 hindsight, never collar the wrong person, always catch the bad guy, and oh by the way here’s your lost cat, ma’am.

    So we want an Insta-Cop (just add water), for free, with the personality of Jesus, the deductive powers of Sherlock Holmes, and the gun skills of Jerry Miculek. For free.

    Sorry, not in this universe. You sow what you reap in terms of how you treat your civic employees, and if you’re lucky you get what you pay for. Never anything more.

  7. You sow what you reap, and if you’re lucky you get what you pay for.

    Treat cops poorly, you’ll only keep the ones who can’t get a better position elsewhere.

    I’m sorry the guy had this happen to him, but if the city isn’t providing the resources needed to get the job done, the fault isn’t with the people who are trying to do that job.

  8. 9-1-1 is for fires, crimes in progress, and medical emergencies.

    This was none of the above when he made the call. He should have called the non-emergency number.

    Less than two hours is not bad for the job of filling out a report for the insurance company.

    • This was not a ‘priority’ call like an in-progress assault but it was certainly worth a 9-11 call. You have violent felons who just finished a home invasion and presumably are still in the area.

  9. Be careful what you wish for cop haters. The police have cross word puzzles to work, before they get to the next call. I actually heard a cop say that, when he realized people hated him.

  10. This is the way it should be. Just some property stolen and even had the homeowner been beaten or killed, at least there would be only one death and not multiple deaths or injuries due to gun violence. Even if the other deaths were the home invaders that would be a travesty because no one deserves to be shot. No one should be the victim of gun violence. /sarc.

  11. Lazy cops.

    If he called the second they left, chances are better than zero they might have apprehended the perps if they had responded immediately.

    Not that the criminal would have been hanging out on his front stoop, but like in Ferguson, the criminal knows what he is guilty of, so yes they do get paranoid and act accordingly when they see a cop coming their way. Alas…

    • I love people who have no idea what they’re talking about AND don’t bother finding out before commenting.

      (the reason response time is long is because the cops in question are all tied up on other emergency calls, which you could have read in the article. Dallas PD is dangerously understaffed)

    • “Lazy cops”, adub? You might want to think about that for just a bit. Cops go where they’re dispatched. If the dispatcher has no one to send, then nobody gets sent until there IS someone to send. I was a cop in a busy jurisdiction and more than once I heard the dispatcher say,, “Any car for a (some sort of emergency)?” because every cop on the shift was already tied up on a call. Usually, somebody dropped what he was doing and responded to the emergency – but not always. It’s not that the cops are lazy. Obviously, Dallas doesn’t have enough of them.

  12. My only response to this is case law: Gonzales vs Castle Rock. Go read it, and then think about your gun rights of self defense.

  13. Not the 1st time I have heard of hour or so responses in TX, even after a fatal shooting where the victim put down one of the perps. Have heard of 911 operators in OR to tell people ‘deal with it the best they can’ because there is no one coming. Where I live the police would rather you do what you have to do and put the perp down.

  14. Nice. If you’re a Dallas criminal, you now know you have a full eight minutes (well, maybe six or seven, to allow time to start your getaway) to rob any location (other than maybe a bank.)

    Still, probably best to assume you only have 4 minutes (standard for bank robberies.) The news article – or the cops – might have lied. 🙂

  15. Response time is great where I live. Only called the cops once (non emergency) and had three officers there in less than 5 minutes. I’ll admit though, it could have been special treatment, as I did make it clear that I’m also in Law Enforcement during the call (it was pertinent to the reason I called).

  16. To be fair, the breathless lead of the article aside, seconds didn’t count here. The guy didn’t call the police to report someone breaking in- he called to report that it had already happened and was over. But it is a good idea to have some idea of how fast the police can respond in your area because it varies wildly.

    But in this case even a 30 second response time would have meant nothing, because the guy got woken up with a gun in his face. A gun might have helped, probably not. A dog? Now we’re getting somewhere. Better security and locks? Yep.

  17. Black home invasions are a suppressed genocide against the most vulnerable white citizens, the elderly, young women, and wives. The media is all too happy to suppress and cry foul at the ‘brutality’ the perps get from cops in the few instances they are brought to justice. While Travyon “skittles” martin is getting a honorary college degree, the toll rises across suburbs in America. I actually fear for the black population when the rotting carcass of liberal police work finally falls to the ground

    6% of the population is responsible for 32% of all rape. Think about that.

  18. Memorize:
    * Police have no legal duty to protect individuals.
    * Police have no legal liability when they fail to protect individuals.
    * Police not assigned as bodyguards have virtually no physical ability to protect individuals.

    Police don’t protect individuals. They draw chalk outlines around individuals unwilling or unable to protect themselves.

    If you’re not willing and able to defend YOURSELF, you’re just not going to get protected AT ALL.

    Anybody who tells you different is a LIAR.

    • Cops give tickets to revenue for the city, parish and state
      And
      Cops write reports so you can file your insurance claim.

      Most of the people in jail, close to 85%, are there for victimless crimes.

  19. Stories like this is why I’ll never support a “lifetime ban” for gun ownership. Its too easy, as we create more and more felonies, to be guilty of one and lose your right to not die forever. Hell in some states, just getting a Mdomr is good enough to put you on the “just die and rid ourselves of your presense” list.

  20. This is why I would not live in large city. I live in town less than 20K population, the cops don’t have much to do so they are always quick. Seen someone getting into neighbors car rummaging through it for whatever they could get. Called the cops and a car was there in less than a minute and caught the guy in the act. For that reason crime rate is pretty low, that and lot of gun owners being a thief is risky business here.

  21. Another snowflake who received a dose of reality, and survived! may he learn about his mortality from this and what could be done to hinder this type of behavior!

  22. The police are reactive, not proactive. They can only respond to calls, that obviously can’t somehow know a crime is happening unless they happen upon it by pure chance.
    This is something most people don’t realize. What you see on some shows that show cops busting people with outstanding warrants, that’s nice, but it makes the news precisely because it doesn’t happen often; it’s news for just that reason.
    In this case, a person’s life was threatened; you would think the cops would want to collect any evidence they could, but with the current situation of taxes going everywhere but where they are going, it’s really no wonder response times are so long. There are only so many cops to go around.
    It’s not like some above say; we don’t mind paying for police and fire protection, but when our taxes are going for socialist purposes that have little to no benefit for the actual taxpayers, it’s hard to say, “Yes, please tax me more so the basic protections we are already paying for can actually be had.”
    Oh, and this too: “Please let our poor, downtrodden brethren riot, er, ‘Blow off steam,’ then prosecute the police who actually do their jobs and try to stop it. This really makes other LEOs really want to do their jobs, too.”

    • “The police are reactive, not proactive.” I guarantee there was at least one (many more probably) Dallas cops assigned to speeding ticket duty that day instead of patrolling high crime areas where they could have responded sooner. Every time I see a beat cop sitting in a cruiser on the side of the road just the other side of a curve or tucked in a turn off, I think I wonder how many crimes he could be stopping or preventing if he was patrolling a bad part of town. And I see this every day in a little burg on the way to and from one of the ranges I belong to. And this little burg has a inner city high crime area and very few cops. But someone thinks it’s more important to squander their LEO resources on writing speeding tickets. They are really taking a bite out of crime.

  23. As has been written many times before; police are not 1st responders – they are the 2nd responders. They show up after the fact and take statements. We civilians are our own 1st responders, as the police are under no mandate to protect us. As a civilian potential 1st responder, I take my own safety and protection seriously. It is my own responsibility; and I am prepared and able to defend my and my family’s lives.

  24. I finished up a divorce case for a dead lawyer this week. The client was an older cop from the city next to mine. They have so few officers that they basically have no investigators. Everyone who was investigating is now on patrol and pulling overtime.

    They can’t find anyone who is certified who is acceptable. They have opened positions up to people who they will send to the academy. I’ve never heard of a law enforcement agency around here doing that.

  25. First, arm yourself.

    Secondly, where are all our tax dollars going???? How about more cops and less bullshit.

  26. “The robbers had plenty of time to grab some loot and scamper far, far away before 5-0 arrived.”

    I guess the THETRUTHABOUTGUNS.COM style manual demands writers and editors channel their inner wigger.

  27. Reminds me of an old joke… sad, but unfortunately true:

    A man called 911 to report that two men had invaded his home and were robbing it at that very second. The 911 operator said, “I’m sorry, but we don’t have anyone available to respond. It will be a while before we can send an officer”. The man hung up, and a few seconds later, he called 911 again… “911, what is your emergency?” The man replied, “I just called a moment ago about two burglars in my home. You can disregard the call– I just shot them.” Within minutes, 6 cop cars showed up at the man’s house and arrested the two burglars. The sergeant said, “I thought you had shot those guys!” The man replied, “I thought y’all didn’t have anyone available to respond.”

  28. Now… seriously: I have called Dallas 911 for serious crime and once I called for a drunk driver who went off the road into the front of someone’s house and was unconscious– needed CPR, which some neighbors were doing, and gotten no response. Yet a couple of years ago, someone called 911 because they saw me stop at a home to grab a real estate flyer from a yard box at 7:30 pm (in December, so after sunset), and the police had me pulled over in less than 5 minutes. Go figure!

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