Dallas police response times are lower than they were a year ago, but all calls except life-threatening emergencies still have response times of more than an hour.
Dallas Assistant Chief Richard Foy told city council members on Wednesday that the department had a "very long way to go" in its response times.
Here are the fiscal year 2026 response times:
- Priority 1: 8.62 minutes
- Priority 2: 66.02 minutes
- Priority 3: 110.16 minutes
- Priority 4: 126.34 minutes
Those numbers are a reduction from last year's times, but Council Member Adam Bazaldua said it was not something to be proud of.
"I don't think there should be any pride in the fact that there's only one category of calls to 911 who's getting a response in less than an hour from our police department," Bazaldua said. "That's a basic service that is expected from the residents that live [in Dallas]."
Police Chief Daniel Comeaux said it was not where the department wanted or needed to be.
"But we have to start somewhere," Comeaux said. "So I am extremely proud of the officers for getting [Priority 2] down 30%. But we're not done yet."
City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert previously told council members that the city has evaluated hiring based on response times. That's after an NBC5 investigation found that some urgent Priority 2 calls took up to an hour and a half for police to arrive and some Priority 1 responses averaged 15 minutes.
Comeaux was tasked with lowering police response times when he came to the role last year.
The proposed budget for the Dallas Police Department in fiscal year 2027 is more than $823 million. The city budgeted around $758 million for DPD in 2026 — however the city is forecast to spend about $6.6 million more than that this year.
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