Police in Texas took five calls to respond to news of an elderly woman being found dead in her backgarden.
Retired cop Robert A. Gross found the body on June 18, two days after she had died, and immediately phoned emergency services – but he claims four of his calls went unanswered.
Gross has now written a letter to Austin Mayor Kirk Watson to raise the alarm about the real impact ongoing staffing shortages across the police department are having on residents.
In the letter, the retired cop claimed he called 911 “four or five times” after finding the woman’s body and was then forced to ask his wife to drive to the nearest fire station to get them to respond.
Gross had been checking in with an elderly couple living close to him because the husband had recently undergone surgery.
He said he found the woman laying dead in the garden at the back of the house while the husband stared at a “blank wall” in the living room.
Gross wrote: “AFD on scene followed closely with EMS response and I was still on the phone waiting for 9-1-1 to answer.
“I finally got a response after 17 minutes and 22 seconds with public safety already on the scene.
“The elderly couple had been there for two days. One deceased [redacted] in the back yard and the [redacted] with no support could have been a second victim.
“[Redacted] was sitting in the living room staring at a blank wall. The [redacted] had a recent hospitalisation and head surgery.”
According to Texas state law, police are required to respond every time a death is reported as every death is regarded as suspicious until detectives give the go-ahead for a body to be removed from the scene.
Gross said that AFD and EMS “were shocked but not surprised that 9-1-1 had not answered” as he claimed Austin has been struggling for years with a severe shortage of new hires.
Despite the Texan city attracting thousands of new residents each year over the past decade, the number of sworn officers is considerably lower than it was even 15 years ago.
The shortages have even forced some members of the force to pick up a second job, with sergeants reported to be moonlighting as 9-1-1 dispatchers to ensure calls were answered.
Retired policeman Dennis Farris, who serves with Gross on the Austin Retired Officers Association, had previously noted Governor Greg Abbott had been allocating Department of Public Safety agents to help out around Austin.
Farris cited the city’s Council 2020 decision to cut the police budget by nearly a third to “re-imagine” policing as the root cause for people not signing up to become cops.
He told Fox News Digital: “The big picture on this shows that you have people who don’t want to come work for Austin.
“They don’t want to come work at Austin’s 9-1-1 centre and be a police dispatcher or they don’t want to work for APD because of the feeling and the perception that the political leaders in this city don’t support them.”
Austin Police Department has been approached for comment.
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