SALT LAKE CITY — The average response time for Salt Lake City police officers for the most urgent of calls dropped in November, according to the agency in a briefing Tuesday. The department also said overall crime in the city is decreasing. 

Happening this morning: @ChiefMikeBrown to give an update on @slcpd response times. It’s something the short-staffed agency has been working to reduce this year. @kslnewsradio pic.twitter.com/Rkpd119JRi

— Nick Wyatt (@NickWyattNews) December 9, 2021

Chief Mike Brown announced reductions in average response times for Priority 1, 2, and 3 calls for the month of November. Each was lower than in October and significantly less than in August. 

The chief said he’s pleased with the improvements. 

“I’m happy to announce that our response times are getting better, but again, we still have more work to do,” said Brown. 

The Salt Lake City Police Department has been criticized for lengthy response times throughout 2021. While it’s something the agency is actively working on, it’s still shorthanded. 

Chief Brown said his agency has 57 officer vacancies as of this week. 

“Good news: we’re hiring. We’re staffing a class for January, we’re staffing a class for May. One of those goals in our crime control plan is to be fully staffed by June 30th of 2022,” he explained. 

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The agency also announced some crime reduction statistics during the briefing. It claims to have cut citywide overall crime by 23%, violent crime by 1%, and property crime by 25% over the last 28 days. 

Regarding drop in average response times across priority 1, 2, and 3 calls: @ChiefMikeBrown “our response times are getting better, but we still have more work to do” @kslnewsradio pic.twitter.com/QULKMpB8b3

— Nick Wyatt (@NickWyattNews) December 9, 2021

Reflecting on the progress his department has made, Chief Brown says reducing crime takes more than just hiring police officers. 

“It takes our community and it takes time,” he said. 

SLCPD also said citywide overall crime has declined 4.3% year-to-date. 

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