Oakland city leaders say their police department has improved its 911 answering times by 25% this past November, which is a dramatic improvement compared to one year ago.
For over a year and a half, NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit has been reporting on Oakland’s failing 911 emergency calling system crisis impacting city residents, businesses and people traveling into Oakland. The city has had the slowest answering times in the entire state, according to state data we reviewed.
The city started taking action after NBC Bay Area’s original investigation in the summer of 2023, and now there’s significant progress with its 911 answering times citywide. Mayor Sheng Thao, who is wrapping up her last days as mayor after being recalled in the last election, said these improvements were the result of Oakland finally investing in its IT infrastructure.
“What we did is we funded the largest public safety I.T. project, an overhaul of the infrastructure, in the past two decades. In the past two decades, there was no funding or investments into this kind of infrastructure,” she told NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit Wednesday.
The result, according to her team: In November 2024, the Oakland Police Department picked up 71% of its 911 calls within the 15-second state standard. In November 2023, the Department was picking up only 46% of calls within that standard.
Throughout 2023 and 2024, the Investigative Unit reported on state data showing Oakland has had by far the worst 911 response time out of all of California’s more than 400 dispatch centers. It’s average 911 answer time was nearly a minute long, which is four times the state standard. Some people in Oakland called our news organization to say they were waiting 10, 15, even 20 minutes for a dispatcher to answer.
Our year-long investigative series led to Oakland addressing a serious 911 dispatching hiring problem and investing $2.5 million into its 911 center. The California Office of Emergency Services also threatened to take away funding from Oakland if the city didn’t fix its 911 times. However, the State withdrew that threat, it said, after seeing response times start to turn around.
When asked if these improvements in 911 answering times will improve after she is no longer mayor, Mayor Thao said she hoped so.
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“Who’s to know. I know that the 911 response world was one of my top priorities, and I would just hope that when new leadership comes in, that it will continue to be that way. You know, there are a lot of things that we invested in, and it’s actually working,” she said.
Oakland still needs to answer more than 90% of its calls within 15 seconds to meet state's standard – something Oakland officials, before the recall, told NBC Bay Area it hopes to accomplish in 2025.
Catch up on all of NBC Bay Area’s investigations on Oakland’s 911 crisis: nbcbayarea.com/911.
Candice Nguyen is the investigative reporter on this story. If you’d like to contact her about this report or if you have another investigative tip, email her at candice.nguyen@nbcuni.com.
