Newark Residents Complain Of Delayed Police Response Times To 911 Calls
NEWARK, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- Some residents and victims of crime in Newark say police are not responding fast enough to 911 calls.
"I called 911 at 4:30 this morning and I had to make an additional call, which is about 5:30," said one woman who did not want to be identified.
As CBS2's Christine Sloan reported, the woman had been attacked -- punched beaten and robbed near a bus stop.
And she's not alone.
"I called in a burglary report. I had to call it 10 times and it took several days before I got a response," said Hellane Freeman.
Freeman was so outraged over her experience she joined a group that meets regularly to talk about crime and police response.
"Everybody had pretty much the same story, that they would call, victims of burglary, and hours later still no response," she said. "They've had to call several times."
Mayor Ras Baraka said the city is still coming back from cuts made before he took office.
"We have a four-year plan of adding an additional 450 police officers," Baraka said. "Police officers weren't hired in the city of Newark for about four years until we came on. We began hiring them right away."
In dispatch logs obtained by CBS2 of a 911 call made by the daughter of a murder victim, a dispatcher says "Caller believes that she is there against her will," "Caller is requesting a unit, check this location to make sure that she is OK," and "Unable to dispatch units in a timely fashion."
That dispatch call involved 47-year-old Felicia Sharpe. The prosecutor's office said she was strangled by her husband.
The daughter said it took police an hour to get there, Sloan reported. CBS2 reached out to the Newark Police Department for exact response times, but they have not yet responded.
The mayor said it's unacceptable.
"We can always get better in terms of police response time. There's probably opportunities where we've gotten better and opportunities where we've fallen short," Baraka said.
The union representing police officers also acknowledged it's reeling from cuts several yeas ago. The union president said the new recruits in the academy won't be on the streets until the fall.