NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) – The New Orleans Police Department says that in its policing, they are only as good as your last response.
The NOPD says its officers want to get to you as quickly, if not more quickly, than you expect them.
The department says that’s why Chief Michael Harrison has worked so hard to cut down on how long it takes for officers to get to emergency calls.
Officials say last November, the department kicked this effort into overdrive, and within four months, successfully cut emergency response times nearly in half.
The NOPD reports that the numbers dropped from an average of 20 minutes in October 2015 to an average of 11 minutes in February 2016.
Officials boast that what’s even more impressive is that the department has been able to sustain this level of success while calls for service have increased.
In fact, the number of calls for service was up by 19 percent in the first half of 2016, compared to the first half of 2015, according to NOPD.
During that same period, the NOPD says it has improved its response time for emergency calls to less than two minutes to dispatch, and less than six minutes from dispatch to arrival.
