When science teacher Michael Lane moved into his new house in Oakland, CA, he knew he was settling into a rough area. His neighborhood was placed between a wealthier area and a poorer one, so he equipped his house with an alarm system in case anyone broke into his house. Only six months later, his alarm went off.

Lane was at work when he got a notification on his phone: his home had been broken into. On the frantic drive home from work, he called the police to tell them that someone was breaking in.

“I arrived, and I thought, ‘I don’t know if I should go in, because there seems to be a break, the alarm’s still going off and there could be someone in there,’ so I waited outside,” Lane said. “I must have waited for about 45 minutes for a cop to show up. It was just like, ‘What am I doing here?’”

He simply went in and looked for himself. In the end, nothing was taken from his house. His back window was smashed and someone went in, but they were likely scared off. Lane thinks that the false break in may have been a test to see if he had alarms rather than a real attempt to steal from him.

His alarm went off two more times.

“After that first time, I stopped waiting and just went in, like the other time. I had a feeling no one was there, but I still went in and yelled with a really rough voice holding a baseball bat,” Lane said. “I think the alarm scared them enough, and it shouldn’t have, especially because of how slow the police are to arrive.”

Lane thinks his experience is far from unique. In urban areas, slow emergency response times could leave physically capable residents feeling vulnerable and forced to take matters into their own hands. Police departments prioritize violent crimes and immediate threats to life over property crimes such as burglaries and break-ins.

“It’s like they only respond to pressing emergencies like ‘Hey, I’m being attacked’ or ‘I see someone robbing the convenience store across the street,’” Lane said. “But if it’s ‘Someone broke in,’ or ‘Someone stole from me,’ they’ll get to it later.”

Former NYPD police officer Joseph Palladino explained that police response times can be so delayed in many urban areas, especially for property crimes because of how 911 calls are handled and prioritized.

“When a person calls 911, it goes to a police operator. There are several police operators because there are many 911 calls,” Palladino said. “They listen to your call and identify where it is and how serious the emergency is. Then they dispatch that information to a police officer working in the sector closest to that area so the response time is as quick as possible.”

To understand why incidents like Lane’s break-in fall lower on the priority list, Palladino explains how operators sort emergency calls as they come in.

“One (call) might be, ‘My car was broken into in my driveway and they stole a jacket’. But another call might be, ‘My parent is sick and needs medical attention.’,” Palladino said. “That parent becomes the priority, and non-priority call gets pushed down until the higher-priority calls are addressed.”

One contributing factor to slow response times is that there are just not enough police officers in some places. Some cities are even cutting funding for their police departments, which could further exacerbate the issue.

“When you defund, you’re left with less coverage in a geographical area,” Palladino said. “If a city is supposed to have 1,000 officers and now only has 500, that affects coverage.”

A shortage of officers is especially prevalent in urban areas, where there are larger numbers of people and more crimes.

“Where I live in Highland Park, maybe there’s one call a day,” Palladino said. “If you have three or four police cars there, they show up in two minutes. But in urbanized areas, your apartment could be broken into at 10 a.m., and no one arrives until 2 p.m. You’re still the victim and want police there in 10 minutes.”

People also underestimate just how busy the police are. Even after information arrives, officers are often tied up elsewhere.

“(Police) are not always on the streets. They’re in court, hospitals, already on calls, writing reports. There’s not an unlimited amount of police,” Palladino said. “Sometimes criminals will call in a fake shooting on one street so every officer responds there, and then they rob a house down the block .”

Those kinds of moments highlight just how quickly a department can be overwhelmed.

“People don’t realize there are only so many resources. Once you’re out, you’re out,” Palladino said. “It’s like football — if three offensive linemen get hurt, you run out of replacements.”