A mother wants to know why it took Dallas police and paramedics more than an hour-and-a-half to respond to 911 calls to help her 14-year-old son after he was robbed and pistol-whipped Monday.
When Dallas police and an ambulance pulled up in front of Kevin Crockett's southern Dallas home, it was a surprise – a surprise for the amount of time it took them to arrive.
"I called the police, I guess over an hour-and-a-half ago," explained neighbor, Sammy Smith. "They told me it was not a priority at first and I said, 'Why was it not a priority when a 14-year old has been slapped and shot at?'"
Crockett said he was walking home from the first day of class at a summer collegiate program. He was at Treetop Lane and Tioga Street when two masked men came up from behind him.
"And then he said, 'This is not a joke. I'm gonna shoot you,'" Crockett recalled. "Then he shot the gun and the other one came and punched me in the face."
Crockett said he was pistol-whipped in the back of his head.
"I felt like I was dying," Crockett's mother, Sophia Silvas said. "I felt like someone shot me in the chest."
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Silvas said she called 911, too, several times. Dallas Fire-Rescue said it was assigned an hour after Smith's call came in, but had to wait for police. The Dallas Police Department log shows officers were dispatched at 4:25 p.m.
"If my son was shot, he would have been dead by the time they got here," Silva said.
DPD has been grappling with a decrease in the number of officers on the street, an increase in call times and troubles with the 911 call system.
Officers at the scene told NBC 5 they didn't know why the response took the time it did. NBC 5 reached out to DPD for an official response, but had not heard back Monday night.
