(Photo by Edgar Mendez)

As a resident of Milwaukee’s central city, I hear it all the time. You call the cops and hope they show up promptly, if at all. And although most residents understand that a quick response is not always possible, considering the high volume of calls for help the Milwaukee Police Department receives, it was still important to examine just how long it takes on average for police to respond to violent crime calls.

By analyzing more than 1 million police dispatch records, we were able to learn the response times for several violent crimes, including reckless use of a weapon (74 minutes), and strong-armed robbery (38 minutes). The response times for other calls, as well as the reasons for slow police response times in the City of Milwaukee, are highlighted in this article, which was my favorite of 2018.

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Raised in a South Side neighborhood where he still lives, Edgar Mendez is the managing editor of the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service. Mendez is a proud graduate of UW-Milwaukee, where he double majored in journalism and sociology, and of Marquette University, where he earned a master’s degree in communication. He won a 2018 Regional Edward R. Murrow Award and 2014, 2017, and 2018 Milwaukee Press Club Awards for his reporting on taverns, marijuana law enforcement, and lead in water service lines. In 2008, he won a Society of Professional Journalists’ regional award for columns dealing with issues such as poverty, homelessness and racism. His writing has been published by the Associated Press, Reuters, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other media. He has also co-authored three articles published in scholarly journals.