Monday, June 05, 2017

When Seconds Count, The Police Are Only An Hour And Six Minutes Away

A house in Washtenaw County is listed as requiring a priority response due to known and serious violent threats against the homeowner and her children - the homeowner called the police due to a likely intruder in her shed near her house.

The priority response time?

One Hour and Six Minutes.

The Detroit Free Press: Nowhere to run: Survivor of brutal abuse faces death threats, ex's parole

Beverly has a safety plan set up with law enforcement officials in Washtenaw County. Her house is flagged as one that should get priority attention if there’s a 911 call. And yet it took more than an hour for Washtenaw County Sheriff’s deputies to arrive that night.

“It made me feel like I’m very vulnerable,” she said. “If it takes the police an hour and six minutes to respond to my address, I would be dead if someone was trying to kill me at that moment. They would have been in my house or I would have had to shoot them in self-defense.”

Now this isn't your average homeowner - this is someone known to be in rather critical danger from a known violent felon and his friends and she got a blistering hour and six minute response time.

What response time does the average person get there, I wonder?

Police and Sheriff departments do what they can and while they often do their best, they can't be everywhere and simply don't have neither the staffing nor speed to respond to all emergency calls in a timely fashion.

An hour and six minutes is an awful long time for someone to be on their own defenseless and waiting for help to arrive.

Note that this story is from the Detroit Free Press, the same paper of record absolutely in favor of gun control that assures its readers that they don't need guns and the police are there and sufficient to protect them.

4 comments:

MrGarabaldi said...

Hey Aaron;

If I recall there was a supreme court case where the police are NOT obligated to protect you. They do what they can, but leaving your safety in the hands of others are dicey at best.

Aaron said...

You're absolutely right. There's multiple case stating that police have no duty to protect an individual from harm, with one of the latest Supreme Court cases, Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005) stating police have no duty to protect even if you have a PPO, and they have no obligation to even enforce a restraining order.

drjim said...

And the police will be the first to tell you "When seconds count, were only (maybe!) minutes away"!

Old NFO said...

8 minutes in London, 7 dead...