How Broke is Detroit? There’s Now a 4 Hour Wait For Police Calls

Detroit has been one of the cities hit hardest by the financial crisis, teetering on the edge of financial disaster for months now, but this takes the cake.

Fox 2′s Charlie LeDuff decided to try an experiment to determine how long it takes Detroit Police to respond to a call.

The investigation began with a woman whose home had been broken into. LeDuff waited outside with her so that he could time the cops.

The police took so long to arrive that LeDuff had time to make a McDonald’s run, return to McDonald’s to get them to correct his order, and take a bath while the homeowner washed and dried his pants. LeDuff even had time to read to the homeowner’s grandchildren before the police finally arrived.

Although no police stopped at the house during their long wait, a cop car did drive right pass the home.

How long did it takes for the cops to finally arrive? Four hours!

Budget cuts have wreaked havoc on Detroit, and basically given criminals a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card.

It is no secret that Detroit is scrambling for money. As it is, 40 percent of the city’s streetlights are broken,  and won’t be fixed because the city can’t afford to fix them. Mayor Bing presented a plan that would allow much of the city to go dark in order to save money in the budget.

“You have to identify those neighborhoods where you want to concentrate your population,” said Chris Brown, Detroit’s chief operating officer. “We’re not going to light distressed areas like we light other areas.”

It seems that there is just not enough money to keep the entire city going, so the city has decided to concentrate people in areas it can protect. Doesn’t look like that’s working either.

Watch full video of the police wait here. 

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