Stepped-up efforts to fight street crime have helped Des Moines police shave seconds from the time it takes to answer the most serious calls for help.

Dispatch delays that had increased more than 60 percent in three years dropped last year to pre-1999 levels, new data show.

Officials say any improvement is an accomplishment in an era of staff shortages caused by terrorism duty, military call-ups, retirements and a lack of suitable recruits.

Between October and December, for example, it took dispatchers about 90 seconds to summon a patrol officer for so-called "priority one" calls, which include robberies, assaults and other serious crimes. Over the same time period in 2001, the wait was closer to 102 seconds.

Police mark response times from the moment a dispatcher takes the call to when the information is relayed to an available patrol officer. But some warn that quicker response times cannot hide underlying manpower problems.

"We don't track how long it takes the officer to get to your door," said Stewart Barnes, president of the police union. "We may be dispatching trips in under two minutes, but you may have to add another 10 minutes to that if that's how long it takes the officers to drive there."

Patrol units sometimes hit the streets with fewer than the minimum number of officers, Barnes said, and officers routinely answer calls without a partner.

The department is authorized to have 371 officers. Only 358 are on the payroll.

City administrators could not find enough qualified applicants to fill a recruiting class last year. Meanwhile, 24 officers were assigned to the airport, and about 25 are vulnerable to a military call-up.

The reduction in dispatch delays was accomplished by putting more of those officers on the street, even when the result was fewer detectives, police officials said. A special squad was created to work high-volume crime periods, and retired officers were hired back to take reports over the telephone. Both moves gave street officers more time to handle immediate problems.

Union officials complain that thinning ranks would undo any improvement in response times, yet crime victims are sometimes startled at how quickly officers show up.

"Very quick. The police were here in about three minutes," said Ramon Martinez, an employee of Tienda Mexicana, an east-side food store that reported an attempted break-in and a parking lot burglary last week.

Vivette Perry, who reported a crime on the north side last week, said officers arrived "instantaneously."

"A neighbor saw a guy breaking into my Jeep in the parking lot about 4:30 a.m.," she said. "Police got here so fast they actually caught the guy."

Still, there are complaints.

"Sometimes even the police can't get the police. We know what it feels like," said Sgt. Richard Hildreth. "I covered an accident on the freeway and I needed help. I called for another car, and they didn't have anyone to send."

The average delay to dispatch an emergency call jumped to 5 minutes in December 1999. From April through June 2000 the average emergency call took 3.3 minutes to dispatch.

Police Chief William Moulder says those averages are so bad he suspects a computer glitch.

"There were a lot of things going on to prevent a Y2K problem, and I have to think something else was going on there," Moulder said.

By July 2000, emergency response times were down to about 1 minute and 40 seconds. Times got better in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when administrators took some officers out of the station and put them on the street.

Even with more officer power, response to so-called "priority three" trips - barking dogs, vandalism and the like - slowed.

Police said a low-priority call from a citizen about an abandoned car on East 36th Court came in at 5:08 p.m. last Tuesday. It was dispatched to an officer at 6:02 p.m., which satisfied the one-hour time limit.

Assistant Chief William McCarthy said the department made a lot of changes over the last two years to speed up officers' arrival at crime scenes.

A "power squad," was established in July 2000 with seven officers to work the busiest time of the day and night.

About the same time, police administrators shifted several officers from other assignments to patrol duty, and dispatchers learned to collect basic information more quickly, Capt. James O'Donnell said.

"We found that dispatchers were trying to anticipate what the officers were going to ask them, and they were trying to get that information so they would be prepared," he said. It was taking too long.

"Now they find out the location, what the offense is and whether there is a weapon involved. They get the officer headed in that direction," O'Donnell said.

To further streamline service, police last summer set up a special room and staffed it with retired sergeants, lieutenants and detectives who take reports over the telephone.

Last month, the retired officers took 784 reports, more than 20 percent the department total. Each phone report likely saved an officer a half hour or more, Lt. William Jones said.

DeMoines Register

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2003