Midtown NYPD Precincts Have Slowest Dispatch Times In Manhattan

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — If you call for help in Midtown Manhattan, don't expect the quickest response. The two NYPD precincts in Midtown have the slowest dispatch times in Manhattan, according to a new report from the city's Independent Budget Office.

The analysis revealed that it takes police dispatchers five minutes to assign cops to a possible crime in progress in the Midtown South precinct and nearly seven minutes to assign cops in the Midtown North precinct. No other precinct in Manhattan had dispatch times longer than four minutes, according to the Independent Budget Office's study.

Midtown precincts are also slow compared to the city as a whole. The average dispatch time among the NYPD's 77 city precincts was 3.8 minutes in 2018 for roughly 450,000 possible crime-in-progress incidents. There are only nine precincts with dispatch times longer than five minutes, two are in Midtown, one is in Brooklyn and six are in the Bronx.

Cutting down response times to 911 calls is an NYPD priority, said Sgt. Jessica McRorie, a department spokeswoman. The Police Department's response to "crimes in progress and critical crimes in progress" has dropped year over year since 2014, she said.

"Safety is a shared responsibility and we encourage individuals to call 911 when there is an emergency," McRorie said in a statement. "The NYPD will continue to work closely with members of the community to in order to make every New York City neighborhood safe."

The Midtown South precinct is bounded by West 29th Street to the south, West 45th Street to the north, Ninth Avenue to the west and Lexington Avenue to the East. The Midtown North Precinct extends from 45th to 60th streets between the Hudson River and Lexington Avenue.

Check out the IBO's full report here.

Patch editor Noah Manskar contributed to this report.