When Seconds Count, Police Are Hours Away

Or minutes away. Either way, they will not be there instantly. The 911 system certainly isn't working the way people expect it to in many places, including Salt Lake City. ‘Why aren’t you here?’: Reality of 911 responses don’t always meet expectations in Salt Lake City

A drunk driver, in a park hit at least one vehicle and was driving toward people. Response time 14 minutes.

A woman was attacked near her car, managed to escape and call 911. Response time 3 hours and 23 minutes.

There are explanations of how 911 works, how many calls per month, high-priority versus non-emergency calls. There is also a note that the PD is about down 5% from the number of officers they are authorized to have.

Statements from the powers that be. Plans to hire, and plans to use non-police officers for some calls. But it all comes down to a system struggling.

It should be noted that the 14 minute response time is better than average for police response to a 911 call in that city. A lot of bad things can happen in 14 minutes, even if you can call 911 before the bad things start happening.

While there are some statistics, on non-emergency calls that still require a police response, there are not many statistics on the call center. Do they have trouble with calls that shouldn't go to 911? Are they short of staff?

I read a lot of stories about 911 response times, and 911 call centers. The one overriding public response is that it doesn't work the way people think it does. Your call may not be answered immediately. The police will not be there immediately.

Even ambulance response is a problem today, because the pay doesn't make sense for EMTs in the light of job stress. The perennial problem is that government and insurance don't pay enough for covered ambulance rides, so there are never enough ambulances, and EMTs quit the job a lot - see the comment on pay + stress above. Then there is the fact that ambulances spend a lot of time waiting at hospitals. (They can't respond to your call, if the patient from the last call is still in the ambulance waiting for hospital staff.)

I don't know if the 911 system is broken or braking, but I think a large part of the problem is unrealistic expectations on the part of the public. Utah is a Constitutional Carry state, having joined that club in 2021. Before that they had (still have) a system of concealed carry permits for both residents of the state, and people traveling to that state. But the gun-hating part of the Left says, you don't need a gun, just call 911. They don't talk so much about the 14 minute wait for help.

Calling 911 is a fine thing to do, but you might want to check on how long, on average, you might expect to wait in your area for the Police/Fire/EMS to respond. And then you should remember that is the average response.