In An Emergency Situation At Home, Can Police Protect Us?
The number of sworn Richmond officers has dropped by more than 150 in recent years, and police response times have increased from just 4 minutes to over 8 minutes.
This means that if you are a victim of a home invasion, there’s an fair chance that the bad guys will come and go, long before police arrive. Intuitively we know this means that home alarm systems offer less real protection than in the past.
Were you aware of the long response times? Does this mean we are somewhat unprotected in our homes? Should emergency measures be taken? How does this compare to the counties? What can be done?
As if ridiculous amounts of theft in the fire department aren’t enough, I read yesterday that the city is again asleep at the switch and has paid out retirement of $500,000 to DEAD FORMER EMPLOYEES.
This has gotten serious. Noone is apparently watching or auditing. Noone seems to care. And Avula has now been in office for 11 months. An excuse that he’s too new, no longer applies.
I have deep concerns about police response times, especially if it’s true that many bad guys are aware of late or non responses.
This places every citizen at risk and something needs to be done.
Someone needs to ask the City Public Safety committee and the Chief about this. It’s serious.
Seems to me that there ought to be public hearings on this to see what can be done. Is not policing supposed to be done based on the needs and the will of citizens?
If police officers are freed up by all the new speed csmeras, I wonder why response times wouldn’t decrease.
As vital as fast emergency response is, mundane police activities also help a neighborhood on a day to day basis.
There are ongoing traffic and parking violations in my district, one of which is a safety issue. After three face to face conversations during the past 6 months with upper rank staff at my precinct, there’s been neither change nor increase in police presence even though the precinct has recent academy graduates which has eased its staffing issues.
My ‘hood is full of intersections with 4-way stops that many of drivers and bicyclists totally ignore…without even slowing down. Not even GRTC buses stop, tho to their credit, many do slow down a bit.
Gonna be a mess to clean up when the inevitable happens….
Look. There are three things we most rely on this beleaguered city to provide and they’re trash pickup, water, and police protection. Among those our personal security is paramount.
If the city can’t provide a prompt and reliable response to a citizen or family in distress, then they are failing or partly failing at THE core mission. Now the question is what are we doing about this newly revealed problem? Time for our elected officials to provide answers.
If taxpayers are paying $100 million each year for police, why does it take 8 minutes for a police car to arrive in an emergency in the middle of the day?
Absolutely unacceptable.