HD perspective... What's your realistic police response time?

[Ronin2]

We all talk about the HD situation and all the combinations and permutations of weapons / ammo /gear for that hopefully never occurring home defense emergency.

I was thinking about it as I was reading one of the usual HD gun/ammo threads and I'm curious...what is your realistic police response time where you live and the responding agency?

My police department; Newport Beach PD and 5 min or less.

[TeddyBallgame]

i'll willing to bet that my local PD could have a unit at my door within 3-5 minutes after dispatched, IF, in a HD situation, calling for help was even possible

that being said, while i don't believe that is bad response time, its still not the kind of time that I would want my life hanging in the balance with...furthermore, calling 911 in a HD situation may not always be prudent...securing mine and my families safety would be first and foremost on my agenda...getting on the phone to discuss the type of help i need may not be available to me at that given moment

this is something many people don't factor in when thinking LE can help them...first off, you have to be in a position to facilitate that call for help...that may not always be possible

so, for me, its not just about response time, that's meaningless if you aren't in a position to make that call...just saying

[meaty-btz]

Wow, that is seriously fast.


15 min to half an hour here. County Sheriffs. If they happen to be near? Can be pretty fast. But since they are covering the entire county it is a crap shoot if you are going to have one nearby or not.

My favorite was Chico PDs response time for a car theft in progress... 15 minutes to go 30 yards up a street. Guy got away of course.

[jaymz]

San Bernardino PD. 5-10 minute response time the few times I've called, but that may have something to do with the fact that the lieutenant in charge of my area is my neighbor.

[RedFord150]

Glendora PD. Could be 2 minutes or 2 hours, just depends.
We had a serious neighbor problem a bunch of years ago. Never figured out if the guy was trafficking drugs or girls, maybe both.
We have a fight break out one night/early morning, just outside of our bedroom window. This is like 4AM to 5AM. I got my wife and daughter both screaming. 3 guys involved. One guy gets thrown into the side of my house. I got my handy HD weapon in my right hand, dialed 911 in the other. I tell them fight in progress, on my property. No, I am not aware of any weapons. PD has no officers available. They all caught up in a burglary/pursuit. Dispatcher is talking me out of needing urgent assistance. While I am on the phone, a car peels out and takes off. Fight is over. Dispatcher tells me they will follow-up when they can. I got dressed and went to work around 7AM. Neighbors tell me 2 units showed up around 8:30AM and questioned all occupants.
When seconds count, police can be hours away. I have experienced that firsthand.

[Untamed1972]

I live in a rural area.....prolly 30min at best. At night could be even more.

The other thing to remember when considering response times is.....your best response time is always predicated on there being a unit available.

If you're unlucky enough to have an emergency while several of the patrol units in your area are already tied up with other calls, the response times can go up exponentially.

[TeddyBallgame]

Glendora PD. Could be 2 minutes or 2 hours, just depends.
We had a serious neighbor problem a bunch of years ago. Never figured out if the guy was trafficking drugs or girls, maybe both.
We have a fight break out one night/early morning, just outside of our bedroom window. This is like 4AM to 5AM. I got my wife and daughter both screaming. 3 guys involved. One guy gets thrown into the side of my house. I got my handy HD weapon in my right hand, dialed 911 in the other. I tell them fight in progress, on my property. No, I am not aware of any weapons. PD has no officers available. They all caught up in a burglary/pursuit. Dispatcher is talking me out of needing urgent assistance. While I am on the phone, a car peels out and takes off. Fight is over. Dispatcher tells me they will follow-up when they can. I got dressed and went to work around 7AM. Neighbors tell me 2 units showed up around 8:30AM and questioned all occupants.
When seconds count, police can be hours away. I have experienced that firsthand.

good point...regardless of how efficient you feel your local PD may be, you're still depending on many factors when it comes to needing prompt assistance...past performance can't guarantee they'll be at your door come the moment your life may depend on it

[gogohopper]

3 - 5 minutes

[mr2ndamendment]

I don't care how quick LE response is, it'll never be quicker than your ability to defend yourself in the home.

A dude can break into your home with intent to harm you and your family with a cop car parked on the street in front of your home, that is still not as fast or effective as you in the home with a gun.

[Cnynrat]

We live in a semi-rural town in LA county that is served by LASD. We have one car on patrol during the day/evening. Probably takes 10-15 minutes to drive from one end of town to the other, so that's probably a close to worst case scenario when they are on patrol (worst case would be the one car on patrol is already responding to another call).

Late at night when they aren't patrolling our city they would need to scramble someone from a nearby town, and I think that could take 20 minutes or more.

It was this thought process, and the realization of just how long it could take, that lead me to buy my first gun years ago.

[Untamed1972]

Glendora PD. Could be 2 minutes or 2 hours, just depends.
We had a serious neighbor problem a bunch of years ago. Never figured out if the guy was trafficking drugs or girls, maybe both.
We have a fight break out one night/early morning, just outside of our bedroom window. This is like 4AM to 5AM. I got my wife and daughter both screaming. 3 guys involved. One guy gets thrown into the side of my house. I got my handy HD weapon in my right hand, dialed 911 in the other. I tell them fight in progress, on my property. No, I am not aware of any weapons. PD has no officers available. They all caught up in a burglary/pursuit. Dispatcher is talking me out of needing urgent assistance. While I am on the phone, a car peels out and takes off. Fight is over. Dispatcher tells me they will follow-up when they can. I got dressed and went to work around 7AM. Neighbors tell me 2 units showed up around 8:30AM and questioned all occupants.
When seconds count, police can be hours away. I have experienced that firsthand.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. I did a bunch of ride-alongs years ago and a couple of times an incident would go down that would have 1/2 the available units for a given area tied up on that one incident. Maybe a couple other units are processing an arrest and carting someone to jail, etc, etc.

So if you make your 911 call while that is still going down guess what....if a unit is available at all he may be coming from WAY across town. If you're in an urban area maybe the can get a mutual aid unit from a neighboring city, or CHP or something, but all that is gonna take time to get rolling. So that units response time MIGHT be 5mins from when he actually gets the call.....but it could take 5-10min+ to get that unit rolling to your location.

So remember....if you're thinking the "response time" starts as soon as the dispatcher picks up the phone....you're sorely mistaken. will take the dispatcher a couple of minutes to get your info and what's going on to decide how to even route the call.

[CK_32]

Couldn't really give you a number. Working for EMS for the little time I did it depends where the closest patrol car/unit is.

Luckily for me MOST of the time LEO's are regulars to the Starbucks a light down from my house.

But my mindset is I am the LEO on my property until they show up. So I will be armed until they respond. So gun out, dial 911 and do what ever needs to be done until "back up" arrives.

Sad part is the fact I will be armed makes me the initial suspect. So either way my situation ends in LEO drawn weapons at my self and me being detained/arrested from ignorance before they figure out what's going on.

Just the way our society plays out. I can't trust my life to be saved in my estimated time window. All it takes is one time for that window to be too long and you no longer have a window of rescue but a for ever wooden bed 6ft under.

[Anthracis]

***

[POLICESTATE]

Even if one is out in front of my community it's going to take a few minutes for them to locate my unit, there's a big map in the central area, which they would have to get out of the car for and then get back in, find their way around...

2 minutes minimum IF they are on front of the community.

IN 2 minutes a bad guy could be killing my family and me.

Most of the time though the nearest patrol car will be at least 2-3 minutes away if not more. So realistically speaking likely 4-8 minutes.

Oh I forgot to factor in dialing 911, explaining the situation, them dispatching... add at least another minute.

[Noonanda]

Out here in the high desert you have the sheriffs office and CHP who kinda work together. But there still are not that many officers do I would estimate 10-15 minutes unless one happened to be in the area