SNAPSHOT A NIGHT ON 911 DUTY : Backed-Up Calls, Few Units: ‘It Scares Me Many Nights’

In a bomb shelter under City Hall East, a 911 switchboard operator took an emergency call that underscored the importance of having enough patrol cars on the streets of Los Angeles. A young man in the Harbor area was reported wounded in the leg, the victim of a drive-by shooting. It was 11:20 p.m. on a recent Friday night.

The operator issued a high priority “hotshot” call for any available unit to respond immediately.

But there were no available units. All seven police cars in the Harbor area were handling other high-priority calls.

“It scares me many nights when I know how few units I have out there,” said Joe DeLadurantey, who until recently was the Harbor Division captain.

Ten minutes passed before a unit broadcast an acknowledgment that it could take this one.

Meanwhile, six other calls backed up in the Harbor Division--one classified as urgent and the rest as “routine” disturbances and disputes.

Citywide, the picture was the same. There were 40 backed-up calls.

And this, said the 911 operators, was a slow Friday night.

On some nights, records show, there are more than 80 backed-up calls.