A pedestrian struck in a hit-and-run says it took 50 minutes for Toronto police to arrive at the scene, a troubling delay that the Toronto police union president says reflects “the norm in this city.”
Alana Fekete was crossing the street last month when a vehicle turning left hit her. The driver then fled the scene.
A bystander who saw the incident unfold called 911. According to Fekete, officers arrived 50 minutes later and apologized for taking so long.
Fekete was not seriously injured, but decided to speak out to express concerns about the wait.
Police said they are investigating Fekete’s account of the incident.
Toronto Police Association President Mike McCormack called police wait times “the unfortunate reality for people who live in Toronto right now.”
“Our officers, when they’re arriving, the first words out of their mouths are, ‘Sorry it took us so long,’” McCormack said in an interview with CP24 on Wednesday. “The public become the victims of the long wait times.”
The deeper problem, McCormack says, is understaffing. He says nearly 90 per cent of police shifts are understaffed, and the force has lost a significant number of officers in recent years.
“When you lose 222 police officers last year, so far this year we’ve lost almost 90 police officers in the first eight weeks of the year, it’s going to have an impact,” he said.
The police union has set up a website to field public concerns about wait times.
“We’re hearing about victims of sexual assault, victims of domestic assault, who are waiting hours for the police to respond,” McCormack said. “This is a daily occurrence.”
In January, the union ran a full-page newspaper ad blaming Toronto Mayor John Tory and Police Chief Mark Saunders for the wait times. The ad showed the men laughing with what appeared to be blood splattered in the background in the shape of the numbers 911.
At the time, Tory admitted that 911 callers had been put on hold lately, but that recent hires had been made to offset the issue.
“The notion to me that the way you deal with this is to put an ad in the newspaper showing people laughing while blood is splattered behind them is beyond comprehension,” Tory said.
