“Help me! Please there is a man with a gun and he’s trying to break into my house.” a women screams hysterically into her phone. The 911 operator can hear the women struggling to hold a door closed in the background.
“Help is on the way and will be there shortly.” the 911 operator tells the women who is fighting for her life. What the operator does not tell the women on the phone is that that help will arrive in 10 minutes. As the operator tries to communicate to the women to see what is happening on the other end of the phone, the operator hears three loud bangs and a deathly screech from the women.
“Ma’am, ma’am, are you alright? Are you there?” as the line goes blank and the operator is in shock, the police …show more content…
Littleton, Colorado is a small little suburban community locked in by surrounding cities such as Lakewood, Morrison, and Englewood in the metropolitan area of Denver, Colorado. Although located right on the outskirts of Jefferson County, Littleton is considered District 4 of Denver County. This is where every single problem a resident of Littleton has stems from. Geographically, where Littleton is in comparison to the rest of Denver County and to Jefferson County, Littleton would identify as Jefferson County if Denver did not have its claim on Littleton already. The rest of Denver County literally sits about 20 minutes outside of Littleton whereas Jefferson County is literally on the other side of the street of where I live. This is where the issue of police response time arises. Due to the fact that Littleton is 20 minutes outside of Denver and is considered Denver County, the police jurisdiction is Denver County and not Lakewood Police Department or Jefferson County Sheriffs, which may I add are both less than 5 minutes away. In a performance audit conducted by the Denver Police Department, the audit concluded that as of 2013, the average police response time was 16.32 minutes to District 4 of Denver County or Littleton; my hometown. This time of 16.32 minutes was second to none and was almost a whole minute slower than that of the previous year. These slow police response times are the exact reason why situations escalate to such high levels in Littleton. Police response time is another reason why criminals flee the crime scenes without being