Kessler Park crash raises questions over nearly 3-hour Dallas police response
A Dallas resident said a suspected drunk driver crashed into a Kessler Park property early Saturday morning, damaging multiple vehicles and nearly hitting a home. He said that after repeated calls for help, it took Dallas police nearly three hours to arrive at the scene.
"At around 12:40 in the morning on this past Saturday, I heard a loud bang in the neighborhood and came to look out," he said.
The man does not want to share his identity because he fears for his safety.
"A car that had basically entered into this home over here, knocked over what looks like a Suburban and what looks like another truck," he said.
He said he noticed a woman behind the wheel who appeared to be in pain and called 911.
"I heard them say, 'I have chest pain...' that was conveyed to police," he said. "The lady fell asleep for a while."
He said the woman eventually woke up and called someone. By the time Dallas police arrived, he said, the driver was gone.
"There were 10 total calls to a police officer and three hours later is when they arrived," he said. "All the neighbors, we just stood here in shock at how long it was taking."
Dallas police confirm the initial call came in around 12:45 a.m. and said a unit arrived just before 3:30 a.m.
They said that at the time, Southwest Patrol was responding to several emergency and high-priority calls, with multiple calls holding for an extended period.
In a statement to CBS News Texas, DPD said:
"It does not diminish our concern about the response time in this case. The department is reviewing the call, including its priority classification, the information received while the call was pending, and officer availability during that period."
During a city council briefing last month, Dallas police reported that response times have improved across every priority level compared with last year. However, they also said they have a very long way to go on response times.
Numbers show average response times are almost nine minutes for Priority 1, just over an hour for Priority 2, nearly two hours for Priority 3 and just over two hours for Priority 4.
