The Los Angeles City Council could move to address delays in 911 emergency wait times, after Councilmember Tim McOsker introduced a motion on Friday, March 3, while a separate motion he and a colleague submitted asks for a report on hiring and training practices for “unarmed crisis response-related” service calls.
McOsker, whose 15th District runs from Watts to San Pedro, said there are growing concerns about wait times for calls made to 911.
“From vetting to diverting to other dispatch systems,” a news release from his office said, “callers can experience a delay of 20 to 30 seconds in response time.”
“Twenty seconds doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but when you’re experiencing a crisis, every second counts,” McOsker said in a written comment. “In the middle of a life-or-death situation, being on hold is the last thing that should happen.”
While there is a worker shortage throughout Los Angeles, McOsker said, hiring new 911 workers should have priority.
Currently, 911 calls are routed through the Los Angeles Police Department Dispatch System, which then vets the calls and, if needed, redirects them to the Los Angeles Fire Department Dispatch System. That results in a delay of 20-30 seconds, McOsker’s news release said.
LAPD has implemented a guideline to answer 95% of radio calls for service within 15 seconds of the call coming in, the release added.
Last year, the department averaged 17 seconds. But with the staffing shortages, that has gone up to an average of 20 seconds, according to information provided by McOsker’s office.
Dispatchers for 911 are civilian employees and there are currently 131 vacancies that have impacted response times, McOsker’s office reported.
McOsker also co-introduced a motion on Friday with Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez of the city’s First District — representing core areas of northeast and northwest Los Angeles, near downtown — that requests a report on the hiring, as well as training…
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