Fan attacked at Arrowhead isn’t alone: 911 wait times getting worse across Kansas City

Editor’s note:The Kansas City Police Department on Monday evening said Johnathan Scaletty waited just over four minutes in the 911 queue before being transferred to a call taker, rather than 15 minutes. They confirmed it took the ambulance an hour to arrive.

More than two days after a Lee’s Summit man said he was injured in an attack before a country music concert at Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City police have not answered questions about the attack or their response.

Johnathan Scaletty, 34, and his wife, said they were randomly attacked by strangers in the stadium parking lot Saturday night, and then made to wait about an hour for an ambulance to arrive.

The Star made repeated requests to Kansas City police for information about the attack, including asking whether they could confirm Scaletty’s account or timeline, as well as for the incident report. The questions remained unanswered by late Monday afternoon and the incident report had yet to be provided.

It’s not the first time recently that questions have been raised about 911 hold times and emergency response times in Kansas City. Kansas City police have, in fact, failed for several years to meet national standards on answering 911 calls.

It’s a problem which is just getting worse, according to data on 911 hold times and response times. It’s also a problem public officials have sounded alarms about before.

In late May, Mayor Quinton Lucas spoke out publicly after he said his sister was on hold with 911 dispatchers for five minutes before getting help for their mother.

More 911 calls, fewer staff

Police attribute the extended 911 hold times to “recurring issues are staffing levels and increased 911 call volumes,” said Capt. Corey Carlisle, a spokesman for the Kansas City Police Department. He said that hold times have been discussed numerous times in monthly Board of Police Commissioners meeting.

Deputy Chief Joseph Mabin told commissioners at their May 23 meeting the average 911 hold time for the month of April was 46 seconds, up from 35 seconds the previous month.

The primary reason for the increase in 911 hold times and response times compared to last month was due to an increase in call volume, Mabin said.

But Kansas City police have failed for several years to meet the National Emergency Number Association call answering standards of 90% of calls answered within 15 seconds and 95% answered within 20 seconds, according to data from the Mid-America Regional Council’s Regional Ringtime Range.

In 2019, 75.51% of the calls were answered in 15 seconds and 78.38% of calls answered within 20 seconds, according to the data. That compares to 65.47% of calls answered within 15 seconds and 86.68% of calls answered within 20 seconds for 2022.

Last month, only 40.76% of the calls were answered in 15 seconds and 45.05% of the calls within 20 seconds.

The Mid-America Regional Council, known as MARC, serves as the coordinating agency for the Kansas City’s regional 911 system.

It owns the equipment that allows the call to get from your phone to the appropriate “public safety answering points” based on your location, said Eric Winebrenner, MARC’s public safety communications director.

“MARC is responsible to deliver the call but we don’t have anything to do with it after the call is delivered and the agency answers,” Winebrenner said.

Regionally, most of the 911 calls are answered within 15 seconds. It’s just “individual pockets” that have issues, Winebrenner said. And those issues mostly revolve around staffing and a shortage of 911 dispatchers.

“All of them are seeing staffing issues and that’s across nation, not just in this region,” said Winebrenner, who added that it’s a hard job that requires background checks and a lot of training.

“It’s working nights and holidays and weekends an lot of times you’re working mandatory overtime. It’s a tough position to fill.”

The Kansas City Fire Department is investigating its response to the incident but was not able to answers questions posed by The Star on Monday.

“For us, every call for help is important and we are currently investigating this response,” said Jason Spreitzer, a spokesman for the department said.

Scaletty’s account is the latest in ongoing conversations about slow emergency response times in Kansas City.

After the experience Lucas said his sister had in May, waiting on hold with 911 dispatchers for five minutes before getting help for their mother, the mayor posted on social media, calling the wait times “terrifying and unacceptable.”

‘It just rang and rang’

In this latest incident, Scaletty told The Star he and his wife had opted to wait out rain showers in their car before heading into the stadium for the Luke Combs concert on Saturday. As they waited, he said he heard someone opening their vehicle and he saw a group of people in their late 20s or early 30s gathered around and laughing.

He shut the door with a button and told them to stop it. They laughed and did it again. Scaletty said he got out to talk to the group, but said he was almost immediately attacked. He said he was grabbed by his legs and that another person grabbed his throat.

A man swung at Scaletty’s wife as she tried to pull him off. He missed, but he took with him a fistful of her hair. The attackers eventually walked off, leaving Scaletty on the ground with a foot broken in multiple places, he said.

Scaletty said he called 911 about 6:15 p.m. from his wife’s phone as she tried to help him. He was on hold for 15 minutes before getting someone on the phone, he said.

“It just rang and rang and rang and rang,” he told the Star.

Arrowhead Security was the first to respond, followed by Kansas City police about 10 minutes later and then the fire department, Scaletty said. An ambulance pulled up about an hour after Scaletty said he initially called 911.

“It seemed like we weren’t helped or protected or safe at all even after we were reaching out for it,” Scaletty said Sunday, after being released from the hospital that morning.