Residents in Little Village and some other Chicago neighborhoods have been complaining to their aldermen that their emergency calls to 911 sometimes go unheeded for long periods of time. Officials at the city’s 911 emergency center say that when there is immediate danger, officers are sent to the scene within five minutes.
Something doesn’t add up, and the city ought to get a handle on it quickly. Lack of confidence in its 911 system–justified or not–could easily undermine all the good work taking place through community policing to involve residents in crime-fighting.
That’s why a hearing on the matter to be held Friday morning by the City Council’s Police and Fire Committee is important. Ald. William Beavers, who chairs the committee, scheduled the hearing in response to a resolution recently introduced by Ald. Ricardo Munoz.
Munoz has told several stories of people in his ward who said police showed up an hour or more after they placed 911 calls, even when lives were in jeopardy.
A 911 spokesman disputed some of the alleged incidents, saying there was no record of the calls. He noted that the system receives, on average, no more than one complaint a day from callers.
But that doesn’t mean more people aren’t experiencing problems. Many may not bother to protest, or they may not be aware of the phone number the center has set up for complaints (312-746-9824).
It also doesn’t mean 911 is necessarily to blame. The system is responsible for making sure a distress call gets to a police officer. After that, it is the police department’s responsibility to see that a cop shows up quickly at the scene.
In some cases, say when gunshots are fired, police may go straight to the crime scene and never interact with the person who phoned for help. The caller could be left not knowing help ever arrived.
A hearing on the issue may not produce a definitive answer as to why some people are dissatisfied with the system, but it will at least explore the reasons. And if it appears there really are shortcomings, the public exposure should prompt city officials to move swiftly to correct them.
