New Yorkers are waiting the longest they have in decades for cops to respond to crimes as the NYPD grapples with dwindling ranks.
It took officers an average of 15 minutes and 23 seconds to respond to 911 calls about a crime in progress in fiscal year 2024, or between July 1, 2023, and this past June 30, according to the annual Mayor’s Management Report released by the city Monday.
That average is nearly a minute longer than in FY 2023, almost 5 minutes more than four years ago — and the longest since at least the 1990s, records show.
Average response times were better in the past fiscal year for 911 calls reporting “critical” crimes — such as shootings, robberies or burglaries, the report said. Cops responded in 9 minutes and 24 seconds on average in those cases.
Deputy Public Safety Commissioner Phil Banks, a frequent press-conference attendee on such issues, was conspicuously absent from Monday’s media scrum about the mayor’s report. Banks, his brother Terence and a third sibling, city schools chief David Banks, are targets in a wide federal probe into potential City Hall corruption. None of the three has been arrested.
Assistant Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Chauncey Parker, who was at Monday’s briefing on the mayor’s report, said the NYPD is “focusing relentlessly on how to better protect and serve people” when it comes to response times but did not give specifics.
Parker also did not say what is causing the troubling delays.
“Relentlessly following up and using creative, imaginative, evidence-based strategies, they’re going to drive that number down,” he said of officials.
Long NYPD response times come as the department has its fewest number of members since 1990, according to its police union.
Officials also have said traffic congestion and an overall increase in emergency calls have helped delay response times.
“Major felony crimes in New York City are up by over 30% since before COVID and under Mayor Adams’ tenure — our City is not getting safer,” council member Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn) said in a statement.
“The turnover and turmoil at the NYPD has undermined our public safety.”
Overtime being paid to the struggling NYPD work force soared past a record-breaking $1 billion in FY 2024.
City Hall did not respond to a Post request for comment Monday.