Cops struggle with 'saturation point'

   When Colorado Springs police are too busy to respond to emergencies, they call it "saturation point" - and they reach it, on average, nearly half of each day.

   "It's the amount of time during the day when 100 percent of the officers on patrol duty are all tied up and nobody's available for service," said Colorado Springs police Lt. Skip Arms. "We have to take people off other calls."

   Police say the figure demonstrates a point they've been making for years: Growth in Colorado Springs is outstripping their ability to keep up.

   With a thin force and diminishing budget, police have resorted to shaving services - eliminating responses to certain crimes without suspects, disbanding specialized units such as the traffic patrol unit and relying increasingly on automated crime reporting, among other steps.

   Even with the changes, police say, critical improvements are needed.

   Police say: 

   - The average response time for emergencies was a little more than 10 minutes in 2007, falling short of the department's longstanding goal of arriving within eight minutes at least 90 percent of the time. 

   - An average of 2,000 to 2,500 911 calls go unanswered in Colorado Springs every month because there are not enough call takers. 

   - Emergency calls are held an average of four minutes before officers are dispatched, in part because no patrol officers are available to respond.

   Without more officers, the deficiencies could approach the level of a crisis, said Stephannie Finley, cochairwoman of Citizens for Effective Government.

   The Colorado Springsbased coalition spent a year studying gaps in public safety services in El Paso County and may pursue a new sales tax this year to raise an additional $70 million annually for police, the Sheriff's Office, Coroner's Office and 4th Judicial District Attorney's Office, Finley said.

   The Police Department's share wouldn't solve the problems, but it would help, she said.

   "When you're sitting there and somebody's breaking into your house and (police) don't have the kind of backup they need to be there, that's a grave concern," she said.

   Police blame a shortage in personnel: with roughly 690 officers policing a community of 400,000, Colorado Springs is less protected than cities with a similar population.

   The average ratio for departments in cities of at least 250,000 people was 2.5 officers per 1,000 people, according to a 2003 study by the U.S. Department of Justice.

   Colorado Springs, with 1.7 officers for every 1,000 residents, would need more than 300 additional officers to achieve that goal.

   "Ultimately, we'd like to have the resources so that officers can solve problems before crime happens," said Colorado Springs police Deputy Chief Ron Gibson.

   This year, the Police Department's budget is $71 million, about $1.3 million less than a year earlier, leading to a discarded plan to close substations overnight and the brief grounding of the police helicopters.

   Police say they are making whatever adjustments they must to work within their means.

   That includes a move in December to stop sending officers to nonemergency calls such as vandalism and thefts without suspects - amounting to thousands of calls a year.

   The officers are instead directed to focus on bigger crimes police have a better chance of solving.

   "We've tooled it as best as we can," Arms said.

   The saturation rate, approaching 45 percent, adds to response times because police officers must redirect from other calls or interrupt follow-up investigations to respond, police said.

   Police do not keep a record of how many emergency calls they receive for which no officers are immediately available.

   Determining that number would take 16 hours of analysis, and anyone requesting the information would have to pay $30 per hour, said police analyst Karen Lincoln.

   The unanswered 911 calls are returned as soon as possible using the city's reverse 911 system, said Tina Young, manager of the police communications center.

   The department tallied more than 4,000 abandoned calls in August, the high from 2007.

   Young said calls are routinely dropped during times when many people are calling about the same incident, such as a traffic accident. Other dropped calls are from people who did not intend to call 911 and hung up.

   CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0366 or lance.benzel@gazette.com