Experts presented startling data to the New Orleans City Council on Wednesday, as city leaders get answers about police response times in the city.
"Average response times (for all NOPD calls) over the last three years have tripled," Rachel Weinstein of AH Datalytics told councilmembers. "In 2019, the response time was 51 minutes. This year, it was 150 minutes. This month, it was 177 minutes, which is just about three hours."
Weinstein says response times for non-emergency calls tripled, while emergency calls doubled during the same span.
"This indicates that there is effort being placed on responding to emergency calls in a timely fashion, but reduced personnel is impacting both emergency and non-emergency calls."
According to Weinstein, the New Orleans Police Department right now has only 974 officers and 20 recruits.
"That's a nine-percent decline since 2021, and it's the lowest number since the 1950s," Weinstein said.
And that, according to her colleague Jeff Asher, has a direct impact on NOPD's response times.
"For every officer lost, you're averaging about 30 seconds more response time this year," Asher said. "We lost two officers this week relative to last week. We'd expect a minute longer response time."