News
Toronto Police Chief reports improved priority one response times

Apr. 30, 2024, Toronto, Ont. – The Toronto Police Service’s priority one response times have improved by several minutes, to 18.1 minutes, compared to 22 minutes late last year.

“Since deploying 146 new police officers to frontline operations and promoting 80 sergeants and 50 staff sergeants to ensure frontline supervision, we are seeing early indications of an improvement in priority one call response times,” said Myron Demkiw, Toronto Police Chief in his report to the Toronto Police Service Board.

“We are grateful for the support of the Board, the City of Toronto and City Council, which allowed us to continue to hire, and we look forward to our efforts to develop a sustainable multi-year hiring plan,” said Chief Demkiw, who also reported that priority one call volume is up 7 per cent.

Chief Demkiw explained that the service has worked with the communications centre, supervisors, and leaders at every level to improve core service delivery, and more work is needed to try to continue this positive trend into the busy summer months.

“Our work in this area is ever changing and we will evolve and adapt as required. We are committed to driving down our priority call response times, and I thank our members for their dedication.”

Chief Demkiw also reported that since October 7, TPS has attended approximately 1,072 hate crime calls for service, and there have been 244 hate crime occurrences resulting in 77 arrests and 200 charges.

“Over the past six months, the alarming increase in hate crimes in our city, which prides itself on its diversity, is unprecedented.”

He encouraged residents to report any suspected hateful acts to police or Crime Stoppers.

In the coming weeks, a dashboard will be launched to regularly share hate crime data with the public.