New York: NYPD, the largest municipal police force in the US, took an average of 9.1 minutes in the 2012 fiscal year to respond to crimes in progress, its worst performance since 2002, a report has said.
Figures released yesterday as part of the semiannual Mayor`s Management Report showed New York City Police Department (NYPD) response times slowed by 42 seconds to 9.1 minutes in the 2012 fiscal year, which ended on June 30.
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, the New York Post reported.
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 non-critical 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.
PTI
