Response Times for LCSD

[Anonymous]

Recently (in the past week) I met an elderly lady who was asking me about the Harrison Bumper sticker I had on the back of my car. She wanted to know why I supported Harrison and not Metts. I gave her my short list of the important subjects:

1) He is willing to increase the Deputies on patrol on our streets

2) He is willing to release the purse strings on the budget and have it
looked into and is willing to reduce the budget that Metts has raised over 60% in the last 5 years.

3) He seems dedicated to this position and truly Wants to Be Our Sheriff.

Long story short. I asked her whom she was supporting in the race. Surprisingly, she became angry and stated "Not Metts". I asked her why? This I found really disturbing and interesting. However, it is repairable with Harrison's theory.

She's 80+ years old. She lives in Lexington County. One evening her and her son are home. He's in the back of the house and she is in another room. A gun shot hits the window in the den and ricochets through her home. Frightened she contacts 911 and they dispatch the LCSD Deputy to the response. Now keep in mind. They were home for the evening, shes 80+ years old, no enemies and doesn't know if someone is shooting at her, her son, or it's just random drive by shootings. (Of course, this is a rural area) so driveby theory is unlikely. The point is she didn't know what was happening.

However 45minutes later a Deputy finally does arrive. He is about 20 minutes behind this ladies daughter, son-in-law, preacher and the other 4-5 people she called that lived 15-20 minutes from her home. She was angry because they did not take her serious enough to have someone sent right away. Angry because her life could have ended if she were sitting in that den at that very moment. But, it took 45 minutes to respond to a gunshot call.

I was in shock. I have seen deputies stake out peoples homes for childsupport for hours, but a gun shot in a home and it takes them 45 minutes to respond to the call. This happened to her approximately 15 months ago. However, the point is IT HAPPENED. She has since moved. She was to scared to live where she was at once she realized that even the police could not really get to her timely enough to protect her if she needed it. She explained her sole reason for moving closer to her family was so she could feel more protected. It was really disappointing to hear the story. But more so that the value of life was not worhty of a quick response time. What if that person who shot in her home was actually breaking in next? Then what was she to do?

Can someone please explain the response time issues that our community is facing? What is a normal response time for our County? Richland County is 5 and no more than 10 minutes. Most of the time it is less than that. I asked a few Deputies and called for those stats, they are not made up.

This is a great example of Harrison's theory on putting more Deputies on patrol. I realize it must be very hectic to cover the territories that you do. Which raises my next question. How many Deputies is adequate coverage for a County as large as Lexington County? What type of radius to our Deputies have to partrol in?

What guidelines do you go by to justify what takes precedents in your response to calls?

If we are one of the fasting growing communities in our state, why haven't we already increased the Deputies we have on patrol? It appears logical to increase the size of the foot patrol before you increase the size of the internal positions in the Department because the greater need would be in servicing the community.

Just some things I would appreciate clarity on. I would greatly appreciate all logical responses. I am really weary of the parables and other waste of reading. This is a real topic, that should be read and addressed appropriately.

Thanks for reading and responding.. :roll: Oh one more thing.. The nice elderly lady I met.. She is voting for Harrison. She really liked his platform and made some other points that were really interesting..

[Anonymous]

I am surprised that you have received no response to any of these questions. Why is that? They are very good questions and deserving of quality answers: I would like to know them as well.


No Doubt wrote: Can someone please explain the response time issues that our community is facing?

What is a normal response time for our County?

How many Deputies is adequate coverage for a County as large as Lexington County?

What type of radius to our Deputies have to partrol in?

What guidelines do you go by to justify what takes precedents in your response to calls?

If we are one of the fasting growing communities in our state, why haven't we already increased the Deputies we have on patrol?

It appears logical to increase the size of the foot patrol before you increase the size of the internal positions in the Department because the greater need would be in servicing the community.

[Anonymous]

The Region 2, where Swansea, Pelion, Gaston, B-L, and Gilbert are located, is commanded by a captain that is shacking up with retired judge baggett's daughter, and a LT that was fired for receiving oral sex from a 14 year old, then rehired back.

This is the type of people that are running this region.

On average, there are 5 to 7 officers on a good day, patrolling from B-L to Swansea, back to Cayce.

I don't work at LCSD now, but I used to. I was "let go" for basically being female that didn't play nice. The above info is absolutely 100 percent accurate and honest.

[Anonymous]

It really does appear that the majority of Metts people are out here to just mud sling and stir up trouble. Why can't one of you actually do something your being paid to know about. I would really like the answers to these questions. Now, can one of you stop trying to detract from REAL ISSUES... and start answering with REAL FACTS? :evil:

What is a normal response time for our County?

How many Deputies is adequate coverage for a County as large as Lexington County?

What type of radius to our Deputies have to partrol in?

What guidelines do you go by to justify what takes precedents in your response to calls?

If we are one of the fasting growing communities in our state, why haven't we already increased the Deputies we have on patrol?

[Anonymous]

Why don't you go to the sheriffs Department and ask or better yet, pull all of the incident reports for say one month and your answers will be right in front of you. Lets see on the report it has the time notified (oh my god) the time dispatched (oh my god another clue) and the time arrived (holy crap i think i found it) If you were to pull the reports (foI) and looked at them real hard you would also figure out "what takes precedents" Lets see, the radius our deputies "partrol" in, well I dont know anyone who partrols but if you were to look at the departments web site somewhere in there you would be able to find (maybe) the outline of the PATROL areas. The real issue here is that there is NO Doubt that you are a idiot and a person that wants everything handed to them. You want the facts,you can't handle the facts.

[Anonymous]

See, theres that infantile idiot that always comes out whenever you ask a REAL and POINTED question. You see, you guys act as if your so wonderful and dedicated. When asked a legit question, you get your panties knotted and come back with stupidity and no real facts.

I wanted to see what YOU had to say. I could look it up. But, I was more curious to see how YOU would react to a REAL question and YOU just proved my point!.. Just another REASON TO ELECT HARRISON!!!

Thanks... Your such a Pal... NOT!!

[Anonymous]

No Doubt -

You wonder why no one responded to your question? You provided the answer. You don't care what the answer is, you don't care what the truth is - you just want to find some idiot or even someone that might not have all the facts and use their answer to advance Harrisons agenda/campaign. Well, guess what - response times could be lower - maybe more deputies would help, but that is not always the only solution - adding deputies to the road is not the ONLY answer, but just because the Harrison's campaign only has a week and a half left I will do my best to help you out- just in case you get a sudden urge for the truth

First - I believe the AVERAGE response time is around 18 minutes (changes a little each month) - the average response time for priority calls are much less than that - I think around 9 to 10 minutes. The time has been decreasing over the past 5-10 years. But remember these are averages - any agency will have 45 minute response times and 1 minute response times - Because of that I would not base my vote on a response time to one call

What is an adequate number of deputies - good question, one that most law enforcement officials, researchers, academics, and politicians can not answer. Why? well there are so many factors that need to be considered like the type of call, support staff levels, land mass, traffic, suspect resistance against officers (ie need for two man patrol cars), community needs and requests. It is important to note that every study that has been done on response times say that a faster response will not deter or prevent crime(look at any NIJ study - consider it takes a criminal possbibly seconds up to a few minutes to commit a crime), but it may make people feel better (which should not be minimized). A far as I know, there is not a huge community outrage about sheriff's department response times (except for this website).

What type of radius does our deputies have - thats another tuff question. Deputies often move around so their radius can change. You can not simply look at the size of the land mass they are responsible for. Most of our calls come from a limited area and through our active patrol we put deputies in the problem areas and where we receive the most calls.

What takes precedent - well your smart, if you were a cop what calls would you turn on the lights and go faster to. Violent crimes in progress, some non-violent crimes in progress etc. I won't go into all the details, it could take all night, but help yourself to the LCSD policy manual, last time I checked it was public information. But remember, crime can escalate and calm down quickly and often times the caller does not provide all the information to help inform the deputy that this is a priority call.

Why have we not increased deputies on patrol? Well in many ways we have. We have added school resource officers. Does that reduce response time - YES. Officers on the road can focus on responding to other calls then going to the school. We have added a telephone reporting unit - does that reduce response time - YES - now officers don't have to respond to those calls that can be taken over the phone. We have also developed patrol districts which helps allocate personnel and yes reduce response times - we have added resident deputies that assist in taking calls for service and most importantly the sheriff's department is doing what it can to be sure that crime does not occur in the first place and if you were wondering - yes lower crime helps reduce response times.

Like I said before - response times could go up or down a little and additional deputies could help, and that is why Sheriff Metts is supportive of adding additional deputies to the road - However, ask youself why you have not heard guarantees from Larry to reduce response times. It is a very difficult thing to promise especially when response times are pretty low already.

Good luck with the campaign, hope this limited answer somewhat satisfies your very good but complex questions

[Anonymous]

No Doubt....If I was Harrison, I wouldn't want a dumb ass like you in my corner. You are hurting his campaign. SHUT UP.

[TopCAt]

OK we want to talk about response times well they suck big time for LCSO. I write from numerous experiences with them. On one event my son had been hit by a pvc pipe numerous times by a neighbor kid and I called for a officer, 1.5 hrs later still no officer. I called and it had not been dispatched yet since it had not even been entered into the CAD system yet..You see that is why the response time looked ok was because most of the LCSO dispatchers were writing down the info and not putting it in the CAd until they were ready to dispatch it so it did not have such a long response time...hmmmm On the above incident after 2.5 hrs of waiting I went and being told no officer was available in the area yet I went to a well known fire dept. and guess what 2 officers there sitting playing playstation with the fireguys...hmmmm Could that have been the reason... Well you can bet I made an ass out of myself and lite into them. But that is ok cause I have learned that if you want them there fast for a somewhat emergency to real emergency fast just call them up and tell them you have a gun, they have a gun, someone has a gun and they will be right over. It is a shame you have to use such drastic measures to get help in this county. The way I look at it if they don't want to do their job then move on and get the hell out of Lexington. Unfortunately these bad seeds make it so hard on the good ones we have and we do have some good ones out there too. Maybe if Metts took a look at these situations then maybe he would understand why so many people are disappointed in him. Thankfully now the LCSO dispatch has moved in with the 911 center and the 911 dispatchers don't play that game. Call comes in, call put into CAD, and call dispatched. Now maybe soon the response times will be real and not fake.....

[Anonymous]

Bull Sh*t.

[Anonymous]

i agree bull sh*t.....dispatch was much better when it was at LCSD now that it's at 911 central---it sucks ask any citizen or any deputy they are extemely rude over there they don't want to be there so they take it out on every body else. learn your facts first TopCAt. if that really happened as you said it does, then you should blame that one dispatcher not the whole, especially not the deputy!

[Anonymous]

What's the matter guest the campaign getting a little to close for comfort? Feeling the urge to vent and the other place you find relief is by posting idiotic tantrums on a message board? Get a grip... three more days and everyone will have their answers.

Why. That was very informative and truthfully answered the questions I have. Regardless of what you think, it was more to find the answers of my questions and not to promote Harrisons campaign. However, after this past weeks events, if it promotes his campaign, I am certainly all for that.

Harrison did address shorter response times in one of the public meetings that he spoke at recently. You are correct in the fluctuation of response times over a period of time. However, the problem is that in the particular case that was outlined in the original post, my question was why would an 80 year old woman, who had bullets zinging through her home have to wait 45 mintues for a deputy to respond to the call? That response time would make one think that LC did not really care that she was for all practical purposes being shot at? Its hard to justify a response time like that. I realize that there are also extinuating circumstances that can detain one from responding as quickly, i.e., inclement weather, road hazards, unexpected accident or traffic delays. However, it is still an extraoridnary long time to respond to gunshots in a home.

You may not support Harrison and that is your option. But, we both do agree that response times could be better and that there are ways that over time they have potential to improve from what they are right now.

Again, I do appreciate your post and I did learn something from it and I can tell that you took time to actually be factual about what you posted. It will be informative to other visitors as well and that is what this message board is really supposed to be utilized for. Not for short runners like Guest.

Thanks again.. :)

[Anonymous]

Did anyone check out the State News Editorial Page today (Saturday)? It seems that after interviewing the three candidates, looking at their accomplishments, and their shortcomings, the editorial board and The State Newspaper endorsed Sheriff Metts. Check it out for yourself.

I believe the title is:

"METTS BEST GOP CHOICE TO SERVE AS LEXINGTON SHERIFF".

tick...tick...tock

[Anonymous]

Being endorsed by The State Paper is..


THE KISS OF DEATH



Too bad for Jimmy. When you read the article it is actually negative on Metts and seems to be promoting Larry Harrison.

See you at the polls on Tuesday!

[Anonymous]

SUPPORTIVE OF HARRISON?

I BELIEVE THEY SAID HE WAS UNQUALIFIED

WIPE OFF THOSE GLASSES

GO SHERIFF METTS