Dallas no longer takes 911 calls for low-priority incidents
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Now for only emergency calls. Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios
Dallas police have rolled out a new requirement that mandates online reporting of certain types of non-emergencies to enable a quicker response for more important calls.
The big picture: Online reporting in Dallas was optional for around three years before becoming a requirement last week.
Context: The police department classifies calls in tiers to prioritize certain calls over others.
- Priority 1 calls include major crashes, shootings, robberies in progress and police chases. Priority 4 calls include loud music complaints, motor vehicle burglaries and criminal mischief.
State of play: Anyone reporting a lower-level issue in Dallas — such as a car crash that didn't require a police response, car burglary, graffiti, theft, credit card fraud and criminal mischief — now must do so online.
- Dallas police say the investigative process will be the same as if an officer had taken the report at the scene.
- The Dallas police headquarters and substations across the city also have kiosks where people can file their online reports.
Yes, but: People should still call 911 for crimes in progress, incidents with a known suspect or any other emergencies, including medical issues.
- "We know firsthand that in an emergency, seconds count. We want our officers to be available to respond quickly and efficiently to any high-priority calls," Dallas police chief Eddie Garcia says in a video introducing the new changes.
By the numbers: Dallas police response times have gone up significantly since last year, per a May 1 report. The volume of priority 1 and 2 calls increased slightly too.
- From Jan. 1–May 1, response times for top-priority calls were about 10.1 minutes. During the same period last year, response times were about 8.4 minutes.
- Response times for priority 4 calls almost doubled since last year. It took around 10 hours between January and May of this year for a police officer to arrive and take a report.
- Of note: Police haven't publicly updated their response time data since April because of a cyberattack that took down many of the city's webpages in early May.
Zoom out: Plano, Fort Worth and Arlington are among the local departments where reporting an incident online remains optional.