DALLAS – After recent complaints about long response times from Dallas police, it’s been revealed that, on average, DPD is missing its goal by a long shot.
This week, more than a dozen Dallas residents called on the city council to do more to improve public safety.
Dallas police response time 
According to the Dallas Police Department’s dashboard, its average response time for a “priority two” call, such as a major traffic crash with injuries, is 94 minutes; well above the 12-minute goal.
This week, fired-up Dallas residents said the city needs to get more police officers on the streets.
Fifteen speakers at Dallas City Hall Wednesday urged city council members to find room in the budget to make its police pay more competitive.
This debate comes as FOX 4 has reported on two significantly delayed responses to urgent 911 calls.
In the first instance, it took more than an hour for police to respond to a hit-and-run on Aug. 23 that seriously injured a motorcyclist, and another hour after that for officers to get to the scene.
Then, a similar issue happened just this week.
It took four hours for Dallas police to respond to Plano PD after suspects they were chasing crashed in Dallas.
In both cases, Dallas PD said the crashes were priority two calls, with a goal response time of 12 minutes.
More officers might help, but Dallas has faced competition from other cities offering better pay for some time.
The Dallas city manager’s proposed base pay of $81,232 is a significant increase from the current starting salary of $71,757.
What they’re saying:
“The city with the most crime to fight, spends the most training, city that should lead the region is ranked 12th in pay. Smaller suburbs like Richardson and Allen pay more,” said resident Barry Wernick.
Damien Leveck is the executive director of Dallas Hero, an organization that spearheaded a voter referendum to require 50 percent of the city’s new revenue go in part toward hiring 900 more officers.
“Passage of Prop U was a referendum on public safety, residents demanded police salaries be in the top 5 in the region, so why aren’t you taking them seriously?” Leveck asked the council.
DPD response time history
Dig deeper:
Dallas police response times have been a concern for a while.
According to the city’s dashboard, the average wait for a priority 2 call has not been less than an hour since 2021. Then, the average was 37 minutes.
The Source: Information in this report comes from a Dallas City County meeting and Dallas Police Department records.
Dallas Police DepartmentCrime and Public SafetyDallas