Data shows Co. Springs Police averaged over 23 minutes to respond to high-priority calls in 2024
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) - New data uncovered by KRDO13 Investigates shows that in the last three years, the time it's taken the Colorado Springs Police Department (CSPD) to respond to "Priority One" calls within the city, has grown by over ten minutes. City Council members say the issue is one they're always thinking about, as balancing money within the city budget remains a challenge.
CSPD explains that the lengthier response times are due to a much larger call volume, as well as an internal programming error that happened last year, which has since been fixed.
Priority one calls occur when someone is calling 911 and is considered to be in serious danger. The way in which response times are measured starts when the dispatcher picks up the call at the call center and ends when an officer arrives on scene.
Data shows that response times to Priority 1 calls in 2024, took an average of 23 minutes and 44 seconds. Here's how the data breaks down the last three years.
Average Response Time for Priority One Calls:
- 2022 = 13:34 sec
- 2023 = 16:24 sec
- 2024 = 23:44 sec
- The difference between 2022 & 2024 = 10:10 sec.
CSPD says that during 2024, they switched to a newer Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) system, which had an unexpected programming error, which resulted in more calls being categorized as Priority Ones, which not only led to over 17,000 Priority One calls coming through their call center but subsequently, added to the response time to those calls.
Police say that the system was updated again later in 2024 to fix the categorization issue.
Here's how Priority One calls stack up in recent years:
- 2022 = 10,432 calls
- 2023 = 11,589 calls
- 2024 = 17,185 calls
- Difference between 2022 & 2024 = 6,753 (60% increase)
What is also worth noting, is another metric for response times which is the Median response time, which takes outliers, or abnormally long calls, out of the equation.
That data for Median response times for Priority One calls over the last two years as:
- 2023 = 11:15 sec
- 2024 = 13:36 sec
- Difference = 2:31 sec
On Wednesday, City Councilman Dave Donelson stated the idea of call times being that was "unacceptable" and that more work needed to be done to invest in the CSPD Dispatch Center. Police say that currently the call center is staffed with 97 out of a possible 113 employees.
"I think you have to pay those people more to attract... more and keep them. It's a stressful job. it's a, it is a hard job." Donelson said. "How many of us have to deal with somebody screaming on the other end of a phone that like their baby's not breathing, or something like that?" he added.
Donelson also claimed that the city needs to slow down with its annexation and expansion of city limits, citing the Karman Line annexation that happened on Tuesday afternoon in the city council chambers as a prime example. The project consists of 2,000 acres in eastern El Paso County near Schreiver Space Force Base, which would eventually have 6,500 homes built within it.
The Rock Creek Mesa annexation was also approved on Tuesday, which is a much smaller property area, situated south of the city limits along Highway 115, just below Cheyenne Mountain State Park.
"We have a big road network [in the city], so we've got long areas to drive. We made that worse, I would say, yesterday when we passed these two annexations in the city," said Donelson, echoing the sentiments of police and fire who expressed concerns over the response times with larger service areas.
Council President Randy Helms, brought a very optimistic view to the future of police response in the city, despite the concerns from first responders about being able to adequately respond to expanded city limits.
In the case of the Karman Line annexation, the developer La Plata, has offered land to be used to build facilities for both the police and fire departments in Colorado Springs. For CSPD, that could be in the form of a police academy, which Helms says would be a great opportunity to add to the police force.
"It's not a substation that decreases the response times. It's the number of police officers on the street, in a car in that area. And yes, that is that is absolutely a concern of mine. But we have time." stated Helms on Wednesday from his city council office. "By the time houses are being built in the 2030 timeframe, we've increased the police force that will allow response times to be normal in that area." he later added.
Helms also acknowledged that the call center should be as much of a focus for funding efforts, as is adding police officers to CSPD.
"It's up to us as a city council to approve the budget that will give him the funds to increase those sworn police officers and in the call center."
When asked if he thinks that the city council did enough with what was possible for the 2025 budget, Helms said he believed so. He added, however, that it's a difficult task to allocate funding amongst the 11 departments and the airport within the Colorado Springs budget since it is a balanced budget, that doesn't make a profit or overshoot on its funding.
Helms says that as Council President he meets with the Mayor weekly, which is an opportunity that is also open to any council members. He says that periodically he will meet with CSPD Chief Adrian Vasquez, to discuss matters such as response times.
When those conversations do happen between city leadership, it has led to some budget changes, however, Donelson believes more can be done.
"The police Chief, you know, his answers to us [about needs from the department] has been personnel. Give us more personnel. So we authorized 20 more [officers] for this year." explained Donelson about the 2025 budget.
Helms stated that in 2026, they'll continue to look at funding options, as well as more avenues for the dispatch center, but he explains that the council is not the one who decides how much.
"Should the call center employees be compensated for what they're worth for the hard job that they do? Yes. What that level is, I allow the chief of police to determine what that is." said Helm.