By Darren DaRonco
Tucson's police chief says his department's slow response to a fight at a midtown library last month is the result of years of budget cuts and being understaffed by about 150 officers.
As a result, Chief Roberto Villaseñor said, officers are forced to decide what calls to respond to first and which calls can wait.
"It's a daily, if not hourly, occurrence," Villaseñor said. "And I would say more hourly."
Workers at the Martha Cooper Library called 911 numerous times on Nov. 28 about a fight between four boys that was getting out of hand. It took police 2 1/2 hours to respond.
Villaseñor said officers were dispatched to the call twice, with the first officers being sent within 20 minutes. But both times officers were diverted to higher-priority calls.
People are also reading…
"The first one, they were pre-empted for a burglary in progress, and the second one, they were pre-empted for a family fight situation," he said, adding that the second time, TPD was already aware that the suspects were outside the library and the library was on lockdown.
In response to budget and staffing issues, TPD developed a 911 response protocol that classifies calls into levels to provide officers with a way to prioritize them.
Villaseñor said the library call was deemed a lower priority because staff indicated neither they nor library patrons were being threatened.
"I wish we could have been there in five minutes," he said. "But the reality is we have to look at available resources, and we have to adjust and deploy in a way that we think is the best way possible we can get to the most higher-level calls."
officers limited
Villaseñor said he empathizes with victims of lower-priority crimes, but there are constraints on what officers can do.
"A person who gets home and finds their house broken into, and if no one's there and there's no danger to them, they're scared," Villaseñor said. "They want us there right then. We understand that. But ... we don't have the kind of staffing to provide that type of response. And that type of immediate response for every event would drive the city bankrupt."
He said prioritizing calls has given some people a negative view of the department.
"Oftentimes (this) affects the majority of our lower-priority calls we get, which are still significant events for the people that were affected, but in the scheme of what we face with violence and ongoing crime, are going to fall a little bit farther down," Villaseñor said.
"But then that's how people make their opinion of us, and it's really detrimental, and it's something that we're trying to work with and try different types of approaches" to fix, he said.
Although staffing challenges affect response times, Villaseñor emphasized that officers respond as quickly as they can and often get to a scene quickly.
Changes coming
In the past year, TPD's 911 system received 294 calls from the county's 27 libraries. Many of them involved people who were homeless with mental illness who were out of control and needed help, and about 60 were for medical reasons. Only a few involved violent crimes.
About 10 calls had response times of 60 minutes or more.
Villaseñor said his department is going to make some changes based on this event.
This first change will be to how TPD prioritizes lockdown calls.
"We are going to adjust and make sure our policies say if a lockdown situation occurs, that's a more elevated call," Villaseñor said.
Another important change is opening up the lines of communication between library staff and police.
"I have directed each patrol division commander ... to touch base with the libraries so they know response issues for us, and we know concerns from them," Villaseñor said. "If we can improve the relationship with the library staff, it helps."
More than a police issue
TPD's issues weren't the only problem that day. A malfunctioning county phone line further complicated the response.
Although county records show library workers gave the Martha Cooper address when calling 911, dispatchers' screens still displayed the address of the main library, resulting in some officers being dispatched downtown.
Deputy County Administrator Hank Atha said that problem has been corrected, and library staff have been instructed to check each day to ensure the line is working properly.
Atha also said staffers will receive training on what information they should give 911 dispatchers to ensure police can properly prioritize each call.
Pima County Library Executive Director Melinda Cervantes said one of the main reasons police were called was that about half of the approximately 75 people in the library were children. But that was never conveyed to police.
"We sort of equate this to what would have happened if this was a school site. And I'm not sure we clarified that to them," Cervantes said. "We've all learned a lot from this."
City Liability
Slow response times do not open the city to liability unless negligence or another issue is involved, City Attorney Mike Rankin said.
State law provides immunity to cities whose budget constraints force them to make choices in the services they provide to residents.
"Every city has to make choices based on a budget," Rankin said. "State law recognizes that."
On StarNet: If you want to know more about crime in Tucson, check out the StarNet Police Beat blog at azstarnet.com/policebeat
Contact reporter Darren DaRonco at 573-4243 or ddaronco@azstarnet.com
