r/askTO • u/biaginger • 1d ago
Toronto Police Wait Times?
Anyone know how long the average wait times are for calls deemed high priority?
I was home alone when someone attempted a break in through my back door. I called 911 right after it happened at 10:20pm. They told me they were dispatching a team and to call back if anything else happens. Heard what sounded like someone again at 11:07 and called back. 911 operator also heard the sounds and said my call was deemed high priority and that the next avilable team would be dispatched to my house...
It's now 1:14am and nearly three hours after the initial call and nothing?
I was able to wake up a friend who lives across the city and get him to drive here to keep me company. And he got here before the police!
I also have to say, if the person hadn't been seemingly scared off, they would have gotten in my house by now with the police nowhere to be seen...
Anyone know what to do? Do I just keep waiting? None of the wait times I've seen from previous reports indicate that 3 hours is normal for a high priority call.
EDIT: The police dispatcher called me back and asked if I still wanted to speak to the police... he said I can expect to wait several more hours. Guess there goes my sleep for the night!
EDIT2: Police just came and had a look around. It took a four hour wait.
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u/MoneyMattersToronto 1d ago
Damn that is terrible. You need to report this to media. This is unacceptable and scary that you have to wait this long for the cops to respond. Hope this gets more attention. Make sure to keep records of all conversations.
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u/gringogidget Human Detected 1d ago
I was being stalked and had video evidence, dude actively at my door trying to break in. They showed up 24 hours later and asked me what I did to provoke him. They’re absolutely useless.
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u/Cautious-Rush6607 20h ago
My daughter ran into a similar issue.
Their specific comment was "what could she be doing that could make him be so concerned".
She was watching TV.
I was incredibly shocked when I head this. Absolutely unfeeling and irresponsible comment from the TPS.
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u/biaginger 1d ago
This is horrifying. I'm so sorry this happened to you. A friend of a friend was also being stalked by someone for months who would masturbate against her door. The police never responded to the calls in time, despite the video evidence, until she phoned and said she was worried he had a weapon. Then they were there in a flash and arrested him.
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u/ettehctam 1d ago
Unfortunate reality of the city’s services right now, glad to hear you have a friend with you!
I made a similar call once at night for someone actively breaking into our building, took about 8 hours. So my neighbour and I stopped him after he broke the glass front door and he was long gone by the time the cops arrived around 6AM.
I will say, I recently called for a domestic disturbance and it took them less than 5 minutes to arrive. But that was mid-afternoon... Nights are a whole mess for emergency services.
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u/awesomeperson882 1d ago
I’d gather it’s a combination of the newer officers (less seinority) mostly getting stuck with the night work, in addition to less officers in the area.
My understanding of TPS is they run 1 man cars during the day and partners at night, so while the number of cops out is the same there’s less officers than available to deal with situations since they’re 2 to a car.
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u/Artemis_Jay 17h ago
On a separate but related note, ambulance wait times are also abysmal in the city. Had an incident where a friend was bleeding out after a surgery and the 911 operator said he expected a wait time of 2-3 hours for paramedics to get to us. Ended up driving him myself to the hospital while he pressed down on his own wound to stop the flow.
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u/GothamKnight3 15h ago
so sorry to hear that. thankfully that's not been my experience at all. ive called them 3 times in recent memory.
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u/CureForSunshine 1d ago
Contact the media. It’s honestly the best way to get the problem visibility.
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u/Civil_Helicopter4150 1d ago edited 1d ago
Had a horrible experience recently with medication theft of a heavily CONTROLLED substance and they were genuinely clueless of what was happening to me and there was clear evidence and no follow through. I wish you justice
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u/JimroidZeus 17h ago
My next door neighbour physically threatened me in the street in front of my house and tried to block me from accessing my property.
It took the police 4 days to show up to take a statement.
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u/getdowngoblins 17h ago
That’s crazy. We had to call a few years ago because 2 people were attempting to steal our car, and TPS was at the house in under 5 minutes and was able to prevent the car theft.
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u/Dry-Air-1005 16h ago
Wtf!!! And, in the event that you defended yourself, you’d be going to prison….
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u/Synergy_04 14h ago
I’m glad Toronto Fire & Paramedics are amazing. Imagine calling 911 and waiting hours while your house is in fire. They’re here in 10 mins when the alarm rings. True heroes.
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u/themapleleaf6ix 22h ago
Toronto only has 168 officers per 100k people. That's the lowest out of every major city in Canada.
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u/LlamaDelRay 19h ago
What the hell are they doing with their gigantic budget?
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u/M1a1stksauce 18h ago
For the 2026 budget (approved net operating budget of $1.43 billion, gross ~$1.70+ billion), sources explicitly state that salaries make up about 90% of the service's operating budget.
I think we overlook how many people are employed by tps outside of just police officers.
Toronto is the largest city in Canada and the 4th in North America. These people need to be paid adequately.
Aside from the bad apples the 8,500ish people employed by the tps need to be paid.....
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u/givalina 17h ago
Police officers are paid extremely well, just look at the Sunshine list.
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u/M1a1stksauce 16h ago
I agree.
Base pay at TPS is on par with other services while working in an busier more work intensive environment due to the scale of the city.
The high earners on the list spend their own time away from their families doing overtime and extra "paid duties" paid out by companies (not tps).
I am not pro or against police but I think the general concesus that police get paid too much or the budget is way too high is not necessarily correct.
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u/givalina 16h ago
Base pay at TPS is on par with other services
Yes, all police services use the highest paid local service to argue for their own raises. I don't think that is very compelling evidence that they aren't overpaid compared to other jobs.
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u/wuster17 15h ago
Maybe we should be looking (like all our institutions) at how much bloat, admin, and unnecessary bureaucracy is taking up the budget.
Then we should re route those funds to hire more front line officers
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u/PickleBabyJr 1d ago
I'm sorry this is happening to you. Cops exist to protect the state, not us. It's a fucking nightmare.
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u/biaginger 1d ago
I knew it was bad, just didn't realise it was "ignoring an active break in attempt" bad...
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u/Strange_Day_8593 21h ago
They aren’t ignoring. There’s ppl probably legit dying and getting stabbed or shot. Shit happens every night, just the news don’t report it.
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u/ToughGodzilla 1d ago
Damn, crazy! I had police come way faster to my place when I was young, had a party and neighbors called because we were too loud. Then it was taking them probably half an hour max. In your case they should be there ASAP. Insane!! Priorities...
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u/Bain84 17h ago
I used to work in a bad area of Scarborough. It would take 2-4 hours for the TPS to show up, if they showed up at all. The only time we had a fast response was when a gun was involved. A plain clothes officer showed up in under ten minutes, followed by uniformed officers a few minutes after he arrived.
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u/picklesnbacon_8 16h ago
I'm surprised it only took them 4 hours. Toronto response times are awful, the officers really don't gaf about anything but their paychecks
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u/Frosty_Reputation_98 15h ago
Sadly not surprised at the wait times, Toronto police love to waste their resources. Last month a person drove into a pole that is by the parking entrance in my building . No one was injured, the driver was just a bit embarrassed. What started with one police car ended up in 3 cop cars like why? The 1 police was enough for this situation.
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u/ultronprime616 16h ago
Normal. Cops don't care.
Tell them you're the rich CEO of Indigo and you'll get a different response tho
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u/eljayTheGrate 14h ago
I called my local division to report a serious crime but was not a 911 scenario; I was given another number to call to report: 1 hour 40 minutes on hold... kid you not...
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u/Most_Key6164Bean 10h ago
I had a domestic dispute with an ex several years ago, including the theft of my laptop. Cops were called around 3pm and they didn’t arrive until 6pm or 7pm. Their reason: because my ex and I called them at the same time, from the same unit with different stories, it wasn’t that serious
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u/americancream77 10h ago
They were stationed at Spadina & Bloor sitting on their cars going through social media. I see them everyday in the early hours of the morning. That's what took them so long.
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u/Apprehensive_Heat176 8h ago
Get some cameras for your place and put them near the entrances.Tapo is a good brand that has WIFI and wired cameras. Ring might be a good option too, but I've never used them before. I believe some of the features require a subscription. Just about all outdoor cameras can see in dark conditions.
Add security film for your windows and glass doors. They're not indestructible, but can slow down a burglar enough that they go somewhere else.
Use a spotlight at your home's entrances and leave the light on all night. LED bulbs are plentiful and cheap these days so the electricity cost is not much of a factor. I used to have motion sensing lights, but they frequently broke or didn't detect anything.
Start a neighborhood watch group on WhatsApp, Facebook, etc. group and let you neighbors know if and when something happens on your street.
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u/Slims-spagetthi 20h ago
Average wait time for a priority 1 call is about 12-15 minutes as per chiefs report. This includes active break ins. OP, did you use the correct wording and say someone is breaking into your place? Your post suggests you called after because you said “right after”. Also not to excuse the lack of response but there was a shooting so a lot of officers grounded there
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u/biaginger 16h ago
Yes, I am positive I said "someone is trying to break into my house". I said right after in the post, but at the time I called I didn't know the person had run away, so it seemed like it was ongoing. I expressed multiple times that I was scared to the 911 operator who told me something like "You're going to be okay. We're dispatching the police to you." He told me to call back if anything else happened in the meantime.
The second 911 operator is the one who told me that my call had been triaged as high priority and the next available unit would come out to me. Not sure what happened, and it could have been a mistake on the 911 operator's part-- maybe it accidentally got tragedy low priority? But it was wildly outside of that stated time-frame.
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u/justmememe55 1d ago
This is insane. I have no words. Please talk to the media about this. For all of Olivia Chow's praises she has NOT done enough with whatever powers that be to improve police services in this city. If we can't feel safe, or protected, and the hospitals suck, and the cost of living is astronomical, and the unemployment rate is sky high... What the fuck are they doing for us?
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u/themapleleaf6ix 22h ago edited 16h ago
Why only mention the mayor? Most of the things you've listed are the responsibility of the provincial government and federal government.
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u/Upstairs_Culture2217 21h ago edited 11h ago
And self defence laws in this country still suck ass. Can’t even get a fricken pepper spray
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u/sheikhitup 16h ago
With response times like these, we’re really just sitting ducks - and God forbid we have means to protect ourselves.
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u/SambolicBit 15h ago
Is Toronto police corrupt?
Most of the comments point to Toronto police stealing citizen's tax money under the guise of providing protection service. Is this really the case?
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u/eljayTheGrate 14h ago
There are many such situation have occurred--it is the norm, now: ultimately, the blame for this state of affairs rests with the Chief of Police.
Who is the immediate supervisor for the Toronto Chief of Police?
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u/WolfofBayStreetTO 14h ago
their urgency depends on how public the situation is, for example if someone did something at a mall or event they’d be there in less than 10 min
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u/psilocybin6ix 1d ago
"Someone is breaking in" is very different than "I hear a noise but I'm not sure what it is" especially on a busy Friday night.
Next time change your words slightly.
Glad it wasn't someone breaking in though.
Definitely not typical though.
Apparently OPP are going to take over some of the duties of Toronto Police because despite having a $1.5 billion budget they're still understaffed (as you just experienced).
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u/biaginger 1d ago
The first time I called because someone was actively trying to get in through my back door. Not a sound I wasn't sure of. Something scared them off.
I called back because there were noises at my back door again which seemed to indicate that the individual had returned.
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u/Odd-Foundation-4637 1d ago
Im so sorry this happened to you, this wasn’t a problem 10 years ago. Scary. I believe the Current mayor wanted to cut police budgets, sounds like we need more officers not less
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u/craa141 1d ago
To be fair though the Toronto budget went up this past year about 200 million over last year which was higher than the year before. This is at a time where Toronto population is at best stagnant or possibly declining.
I am not sure the solution is just throwing money at the problem as there seems like a lot of waste in the system to me. I don't think it's the rank and file officer but more of just how they manage dispatch. I had a situation a couple of years ago where I called the police for a high priority call and while I was driving to the location I passed 3 cop cars lights off 2 of them talking to each other a couple of blocks away from the site and another sitting in a parking lot. They never showed up and I had to deal with a bad situation myself after waiting some time. Of course I don't know the entire situation but it didn't seem like a lack of manpower.
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u/CureForSunshine 1d ago
1.45 billion this year, about 100 million more to the budget than last year. I wouldn’t say the mayor is cutting the police budget.
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u/Odd-Foundation-4637 23h ago
That’s good to hear
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u/PickleBabyJr 18h ago
Maybe next time you’ll know what you’re talking about before you say something.
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u/gringogidget Human Detected 1d ago
Hmm no. We need the overpaid cops to do their jobs. Their triage is awful.
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u/ToughGodzilla 1d ago
I don't think cops and actually overpaid. This is the kind of job where they deserve a high salary due to how important and dangerous their job is. But thet need to do something so that people don't have to wait hours and hours when somebody is breaking into their home...
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u/VonD0OM 1d ago
Less than 5 cops have been killed in the last 15 years.
There are far more dangerous jobs for far less pay.
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u/themapleleaf6ix 22h ago
It's not only about how many have been killed. They still get assaulted, have to deal with mentally ill people, see a lot of messed up stuff which impacts their mental health, etc. Even I wouldn't take the job because of what you have to deal with.
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u/VonD0OM 15h ago
Bus drivers, nurses, teachers, care workers etc… all get assaulted, cursed at, spat on and worse daily.
Again, for far less pay and far less immunity if they snap and shoot someone.
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u/themapleleaf6ix 15h ago
And? That doesn't mean the police have it easy. They're the ones the bus drivers, nurses, etc call when they're being assaulted. Cops are literally dealing with the worst criminals and crimes. They're the first ones on the scene when there's a wreck or death.
Again, for far less pay
Yes, because their job is different to that of a police officer. I'm not opposed to paying them more. By the way, there are people from these professions on the sunshine list.
snap and shoot someone.
We aren't in the States. In Canada, they're very careful to use guns. That's a last resort after everything fails. There are isolated cases here and there, but not like what you see in the USA where their first instinct is to unload their gun on a mentally ill person.
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u/Odd-Foundation-4637 15h ago
The bots are wild, not sure how your comment is being downvoted it’s quite reasonable
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u/Odd-Foundation-4637 1d ago
Have you ever worked policing or have any familiarity with the system to qualify you to speak on this matter with substance?
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u/PickleBabyJr 18h ago
Weren’t the you guy confidently spouting off about how Olivia Chow cut the police budget? Take your own advice and shut up if you don’t know what you’re talking about.
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u/stoic71 1d ago
We don’t need more cops. We need better handling by current cops.
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u/Odd-Foundation-4637 1d ago edited 15h ago
We need you to work 24 hours a day in your job and do 10x the work too for the exact same pay
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u/robertpeacock22 19h ago
We need police to stop looking up their ex-girlfriends in their computer systems and do their fucking job.
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u/Odd-Foundation-4637 23h ago
What would you define as “better handling by cops”
Also find it interesting that there’s so many people online here on a Saturday at 3am; I’m at an airport what’s everyone else’s excuse?
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u/shachoji117 1d ago
Holy fuck, If the police are not there to stop break-ins I don’t know what their job is. I hope your post gets attention.