06:32 PM CST on Tuesday, January 31, 2006

By Mike Zientek / 11 News

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Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt answered questions from 11 News about the slow response time to a hotel shooting that ended with a man in the hospital.

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"If there are some shortcomings on our part we're going to review it and make sure it doesn't happen again," Chief Hurtt told 11 News.

The 11 News crew beat police to the scene and emergency crews waited for nearly 30 minutes for any sign of HPD.

A clerk at the Baymont Inn was shot, possibly after intervening in an argument between Katrina evacuees.

“It doesn’t really concern me that much.  I think it’s okay,” said Carl Couser, hotel guest.

But what might be troubling is that an HPD spokesperson said the department tries to respond to calls like the one at the hotel in 12 minutes at the most.  That same spokesperson told 11 News it took a lot longer than that.

According to HPD’s own timeline, a dispatcher got the call at 6:24 a.m., made two requests for units and received no response.

At 6:40 a.m. a supervisor from the day shift left for the scene.

He arrived at 7:01 a.m., 37 minutes after dispatch received the call.

In fact it took so long that the 11 News photographer recorded firefighters putting up crime tape—not police.

“There should have been somebody on the air, somebody in the city of Houston to answer that call,” Chief Hurtt said.  “It’s not routine for the city of Houston.  This was an extraordinary incident, again we’re in the process of reviewing it.  If there are some shortcomings on our part we’re going to review it and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

For now the search is on for a gunman who had more than half an hour to escape police and remains on the run.