HOUSTON, Texas – When your life is in danger, every minute counts. This is why Houston police have to prioritize the more than 1 million calls for help the department receives each year.
Priority One calls are the most serious; threats to life, violent crimes in progress. HPD’s goal for responding to these calls is between five and six minutes.
An operational summary for May 2025 shows HPD is averaging a 6.1-minute response time for Priority One calls. This is down from a 6.2-minute response during the same time frame in 2024, but up from an average response time of 5.5 minutes in 2019.
2 Investigates also analyzed response times broken down by police beat from Jan. 1, 2024, through May 5, 2025, and saw variations in how quickly officers are responding to Priority One calls in different areas of the city.
HPD divides the city into 120 police beats. We found 35 percent of beats have a six-minute or longer average response time to Priority One calls, and 24 percent of beats have a seven-minute or longer average response time.
President of the Houston Police Officers’ Union, Doug Griffith, said multiple factors impact response times.
“The staffing levels have been stagnant for the last couple of years,” said Griffith. “We may be up 30 or 40 officers here or there, and then we lose them every year by the time retirements come around."
HPD’s current operational summary shows 5,254 employees classified as officers. In fiscal year 2020, HPD had 5,281 employees classified as officers, according to an annual summary.
“There’s not always an officer in every single beat, on all three shifts?” asked 2 Investigates Robert Arnold.
“Correct,” Griffith said. “We try to move our assets around as best we can, but at the end of the day, the numbers are the numbers. Whatever we have in that division is what we’re going to have to run those calls for that division.”
Griffith adds officers can also become tied up handling lengthy scenes, such as homicides. This means officers have to come from other beats to handle calls for help.
“Let’s say we have a shooting scene, you’re going to need two units for that scene, more than likely. So that may pull someone out of another beat to cover both areas," said Griffith.
Griffith said parts of town with higher crime rates have more officers assigned to those areas, therefore faster response times. When having to race beat-to-beat, Houston’s notorious traffic becomes a factor.
“If you try to drop a call over in the Galleria area any time between 2 and 6 o’clock, you’re going to have an extensive wait time because of the traffic,” said Griffith. “Nighttime, in the middle of the night, your response times are going to be better than daytime. Why? Because no traffic.”
Griffith said HPD is also dealing with a shortage of patrol vehicles.
“We are down a couple of hundred vehicles. There are times when we have to have a shift holdover so we can wait for a vehicle to come in if they have a late call,” said Griffith.
Griffith said he believes the city is working on two of these factors: staffing and vehicles. Griffith said the significant pay raise for Houston police officers recently approved by the city council, as well as funding for recruiting 500 more officers, will help bring down response times.
During the recent legislative session, the city was also successful in securing $10,000,000 in state funds to buy new cars.
HPD officials declined 2 Investigates’ request for an interview, but sent a written statement.
“The Houston Police Department (HPD) places the highest priority on responding to calls for service in a safe and quick manner. Response times across the city can be impacted by many factors such as traffic patterns, roadway conditions, weather, staffing, the current call for service volume and even the day of week or time of day. HPD conducts regular response time analyses and, when possible, uses proactive crime reduction methods to improve our response abilities.”
