For the first time in more than a decade, San Diego police response times inched downward last fiscal year, but officers are still taking too long — sometimes hours — to get to calls.
Although police have long gotten to emergencies like deadly shootings in minutes, response times to all other call types have surpassed the department's benchmarks for many years. That decade-old trend reversed course in fiscal 2023, according to city budget documents released last month.
The news may not be as good as it seems, according to the San Diego police union president.
While officials attributed the decline, in part, to fewer officers leaving the department — a welcome change during one of the worst staffing shortages in the agency's history — the number of calls officers responded to also fell by about 30,000.
That could partly reflect the small drop in crime the city saw last year. But it could also signal that persistently long wait times have led to a decrease in people calling police at all, San Diego Police Officers Association President Jared Wilson said.
"Have they gone down because crime is down? Or have people just realized that they're ultimately not going to get a police officer response in a timely fashion, and they know that, and they've given up," Wilson said.
In fiscal 2023, it took police, on average, 33 minutes to respond to Priority 1 calls, a grouping that includes serious crimes such as domestic violence and child abuse. That's several minutes faster than the year before, but it's more than double the department's target arrival time of 14 minutes. And it's nearly triple the time it took police to respond to those call types a decade ago.
The department cut its response time to Priority 2 calls, which include less serious crimes like trespassing and prostitution, by 25 minutes last fiscal year. But it still took officers more than an hour and a half to get to those types of situations. The department's goal is to arrive in 27 minutes, according to city budget documents.
Officers also got to Priority 3 calls — minor crimes or requests for service that aren't urgent, such as loud parties — faster last year, with an average arrival in about an hour and 40 minutes. That's nearly 50 minutes faster than the year before, but officers are aiming to respond in less than an hour and 20 minutes.
Only response times to Priority 4 calls, dispatched when no higher priority calls remain, climbed in 2023 — from about 94 to 96 minutes, just over the department's goal of 90 minutes. The last year the department met all its response-time benchmarks was 2013, data show.
Police officials have long linked response times with staffing totals. So it makes sense, they said, that last year's times improved alongside fewer officers leaving the department. Although the agency is still working to fill more than 180 vacancies, the department's attrition fell 15 percent, from the staggering total of 241 in fiscal 2022 to 176 in 2023.
Lateral hires also increased slightly last year, from 10 to 12. It's a small bump, but officers from other agencies already have experience under their belts, making them especially valuable additions.
"This means they are fully functioning as a resource to the department much faster than that of a recruit hired with no experience," said police spokesperson Lt. Dan Meyer.
Lengthy response times can impact public safety and relationships between officers and community members, police and community leaders said.
Officers who don't arrive soon enough may miss an opportunity to stop a crime or catch a suspect. And long waits can jeopardize evidence collection, making it harder to solve cases. If police are slow to come when the community calls, that could also make residents feel unsafe and distrustful.
"It says on those ( San Diego) patrol cars 'To Protect and Serve,' but the police aren't serving if they aren't being intentional about response times," said Francine Maxwell, a longtime southeastern San Diego resident and former president of the NAACP San Diego Branch.
Maxwell noted that some people may already hesitate to call the police over some crimes — such as domestic violence. If the department's arrival times don't continue to improve, it will make it even harder to build a trusting relationship between community members and officers, she said.
Wilson agreed.
"It really erodes public trust of not just police, not just law enforcement, but in the criminal justice system as a whole when we can't get to these high-priority calls in a timely fashion," he said.
The department has instituted a number of strategies over the years to address long response times.
Overtime, like at agencies across the nation, has long been used to supplement staffing. A recent city audit found San Diego spends roughly $50 million per year on police overtime.
Some calls for service are now being handled online, so officers don't have to respond at all. For example, some crashes that don't result in injuries and reports of identity theft are being funneled to the department's online reporting system so officers can focus on responding to other calls.
The department has also hired civilian staff members to take on some duties investigating non-violent crimes for which officers are currently responsible and is looking to bring on more.
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