Houston slow police response times blamed on all sorts of things such as training and manpower...
http://www.click2houston.com/news/7881025/detail.html
http://www.click2houston.com/news/4512431/detail.html
http://www.aframnews.com/html/inters...get/Page1.html
http://www.americanconservativedaily...on-law-stance/ (claimed to be around 5 minutes here in 2008 by the chief)
I find this last citation a bit ironic given that it is claimed here...
http://dailyuw.com/2008/1/9/faster-s...-police-force/
that the national average for major cities is 7 minutes and I just don't see Houston beating the national average given all of their previous problems. Even so, the claimed averages are from 5-10.3 minutes with many calls going way beyond that amount for emergency priority 1 calls.
Calling the police is just wishful thinking if you are expecting them to save your life in an immediate crisis. Most such events are over long before the cops ever arrive, not because the cops are doing anything wrong, but because of how the process works. There simply aren't enough well trained personnel to response to each an every priority 1 crisis in the small amount of time to actually effect the outcome of that crisis in a positive manner. Those cops don't exist because tax payers aren't willing to pay to have them and many folks would fear a police presence that powerful. A cop on every corner is almost what is needed only it would be extremely costly and create paranoia of a police state.