When an erratic patron started threatening himself and others at the Rockrimmon Library on the evening of April 22, staff called 911 for help. Then they called again and again, never receiving an in-person response from patrol during the nearly two-hour incident.

Police say the lack of response was due to a combination of factors, including a higher priority call in the area and a mix-up between two library incidents. Overall response times for the Colorado Springs Police Department have risen in the past few years, however, with 2023 and early 2024 figures adding 20 minutes to one priority category’s average over averages six years ago.

Michael Brantner, chief safety, community resources and security officer with the Pikes Peak Library District, said that the incident at Rockrimmon began around 5:07 p.m. with a patron who in addition to making threats destroyed property, refused to follow directions from staff and “stood in front of doors refusing to move.”

Staff called 911 and library security, which operates out of six of the district’s 16 library locations. Security arrived at 5:38 p.m. and the incident was resolved around 6:52 p.m. with the patron finally leaving and being locked outside, according to Brantner.

The CSPD said they received “multiple calls for service” over the course of the incident from the library location starting at 5:28 p.m. but never sent officers. The CSPD’s explanation involves the call-ranking system the department uses to prioritize responses.

All 911 calls made in Colorado Springs are ranked according to three priority categories, according to CSPD spokesperson Ira Cronin. Priority 1 calls “represent an imminent life-threatening situation” like an in-progress shooting or assault that “requires an immediate response.”

Priority 2 calls are dangerous, “critical situations” in-progress but with no immediate threat to life and can include abuse, neglect and DUIs, according to Cronin. Priority 3 calls are the lowest-categorized in-progress incidents like harassment, loitering and suspicious persons/vehicles, as well as property crimes and incidents that are no longer in progress.

When staff at the library first called 911, Cronin said that incident was classified as a priority 3 trespassing call. The CSPD’s average response time for a priority 3 call from Jan. 1 through Feb. 29 this year has been about two hours and 37 minutes, well past the time library security resolved the situation at Rockrimmon.

A later call to 911 recategorized the incident as a priority 2 disturbance, according to Cronin. That type of call for this year has a nearly 52 minute response time average. Officers were tied up in the area with another priority 1 call, however, lengthening the time for anyone to respond to the library.

A call-center mix up with another priority 2 incident at a different library location ultimately prevented any response at all from happening at Rockrimmon. Cronin said that when library security called police to cancel a response for a disturbance at the East Library, the CSPD mistook that for a  cancellation at Rockrimmon.

“This type of confusion caused by both calls is something we are addressing internally and working to ensure it doesn’t happen again,” he said.

Response times have also been a continuing priority for the CSPD. Last year a spokesperson told The Gazette that the department’s goal when at the authorized 2024 sworn strength was to bring the priority 1 average response time to 10 minutes, calling that figure a “realistic target” given full staffing. The 2024 Jan. 1 through Feb. 29 priority 1 response time was 16 minutes and seven seconds, similar to 2023’s 16 minutes and 24 seconds.

A person asking for a police response in the city waits on average nearly four minutes longer for a priority 1 call over a caller in pre-pandemic 2019. A person waiting for a priority 2 response waits nearly 20 minutes longer, according to CPSD data.

The CSPD has in the past largely blamed increasing response times on ongoing staffing shortages. Cronin said the CSPD currently has 771 sworn staff out of an authorized 819.

Brantner said that the PPLD “understands that CSPD faces the same staffing issues as many other law enforcement departments across the country” and that “the CSPD is doing the best they can at a difficult time.”

Since Jan. 1, PPLD has logged 302 security incidents at library locations, which can include a variety of criminal and non-criminal issues, according to Brantner. All staff members are required to take a crisis prevention course to resolve incidents nonviolently. Brantner said that numbers of incidents at different locations vary, with some experiencing security issues “daily or multiple times a day.”

The Rockrimmon location has seen eight security incidents so far this year.