A Toronto woman hit by a driver who took off from the scene is upset with how long it took for police to get to the scene.
Alana Fekete was crossing the street on a green light in the Yonge and Sheppard area a couple of weeks ago. Dash cam video shows her with a group of people when a car turning left drives right into them.
"I kind of went up on the hood and rolled onto the floor," she told NEWSTALK 1010's John Moore.
The video then shows her fiance running towards the vehicle as the driver opens his door.
"He was yelling at the gentleman to get out of the car," she says.
Moments later, you hear the car's engine revving as the driver takes off, dragging Fekete's fiance about 25 feet.
It's what happened next that most upsets Fekete. A bystander called 911, and she informed the dispatcher she did not need an ambulance. She says they called 911 three more times before police got there 50 minutes later.
"I didn't need medical urgent help, but I needed the police's help," she says. "Every minute you wait is another minute that that driver gets further and further away from the scene."
Fekete says she has heard back from the detective on the case, and she has been told the driver from the North Bay area has been identified and he has since turned himself in to a local station.
"I find it troubling that he was able to drive himself to the police station."
No word from police on whether any charges have been laid.
This comes as the Toronto police union has been campaigning for more resources, arguing that understaffing has led to slower response times.
Discussing the incident with CP24 on Wednesday, Toronto Police Association President Mike McCormack called it a “troubling” example of the cost of a reduction in front-line officers due to the ongoing modernization of the Toronto Police Service.
“Unfortunately this has become the norm in the city, the lack of staffing, the lack of resources,” he said. “We are in a crisis and this is something that has to be addressed.”
The TPA has said that there are 577 fewer officers than there were in 2010, though the TPS did end a three-year hiring freeze prematurely in August in order to bring in 80 new cadets.
Despite the recent hires, McCormack said that about 90 per cent of shifts remain understaffed and response times have been affected.
He said that about 90 officers have already left the force so far in 2018 and that TPS needs to replace those officers as well as the hundreds that have been lost through attrition over the last few years.
“It speaks to what is going on in policing in the city right now and we have approached the chief, the mayor and the chair of the TPS board and said ‘You need to fix this and you need to fix it now,’” he said of the 50-minute response time to the hit-and-run. “We are hearing about people who are victims of sexual domestic assault waiting hours for the police to respond.”
Police have said that they are investigating Fekete’s account and are looking into why it took officers so long to respond.