How long is Portland's average police response time? Longer than you think

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Despite the Portland Police Bureau’s recent efforts to hire more officers in order to keep up with increased demand, their average response time has gotten slower since last year.

According to the bureau's latest numbers, it took Portland police officers an average of 21 minutes to get to the scene of a high-priority crime in June 2023 – more than five minutes slower than June 2022.

A closer look at the numbers shows that 18% of high-priority calls – including shootings or burglaries – had a five-minute-or-less response time. More than half the calls received a response within 10 minutes.

As for lower priority calls, the response time became more than 83 minutes -- nearly an hour and a half.

Sgt. Kevin Allen told KOIN 6 News that aside from being generally short-staffed, PPB also recently brought back its Traffic Division, which pulled away officers from other duties.

"A lot of it is that we're running on minimum staffing for most shifts," Allen said.

Currently, there are about 12-19 officers available per precinct at a time. With three total precincts, that means there could be fewer than 40 officers on duty in a city with more than 600,000 people.

While there have been dozens of new hires, it will take time for them to be fully trained. The bureau says when there is a major crime that pulls in several officers, it can also add to the wait time when there is crime underway elsewhere.