When campaigning, a neighbor brought up that she felt that police response times were too slow. She suggested that we get our own 911 dispatcher.
I started researching whether that was feasible. By the end, it seemed cost prohibitive. It both requires a lot of equipment and more staff than I expected.
So I started drafting an email to the Chief of Police asking what our current response times were and what inefficiencies he saw in the current county’s system dispatching our officers.
Coincidentally, I was able to talk to him before I finished drafting that email. We decided on a next step: including a block in the newsletter that:
– state’s the department’s goal to having every 911 call — emergency or not — result in a response by an officer
– provide language to use that will help expedite the process
– provide quarterly stats on response times and the percentage of calls that result in a Cheverly officer showing up
I will update this once we have the language set and it is published in the monthly newsletter.