People encountering problems filing police reports online

ABC-7 has gotten several complaints from viewers saying filing a police report for nonviolent crimes has become a big headache.

Long wait times on the phone and a glitchy website are frustrating El Pasoans and
today ABC-7 spoke with El Paso Police and city officials about the problem.

If you’ve gotten on the city web site to file a police report …its not happening.

Several glitches in the system make it nearly impossible to file a report.

You can enter birth dates, but the site keeps telling you to enter a number.

In other instances the system will ask for a date but you can’t type in a date before the year 2000.

“We’ve been rolling out a new website design that started last Thursday,” said Enrique Martinez, City Information Technology Director.

Martinez tells ABC-7 they are are revamping the city’s website.

The website also includes the El Paso police department’s website and it has come with some issues.

“With a website rollout of this magnitude there’s additional components that need to be modified,” said Martinez. He went on to say, “There are some components there like the calenders that have been identified and we are actively working on that as we speak.”

And what about calling the report in?

Viewers have told ABC-7 they’ve had to wait on hold for up to an hour without anyone answering the call.

“Of course we’d like to improve wait times,” said Police Spokesman Mike Baranyay.

Baranyay tells ABC-7 it all depends on how busy the phone lines are that day.

“You may call to report a burglary at your house in 2 minutes on day and the next day you call and report the same burglary and it can take them 15 to twenty minutes to get someone there. It’s not something that’s predictable but we do the best we can with the resources we have,” Baranyay said.

City officials tell ABC-7 the police reporting page will now take top priority and all the kinks should be worked out by Thursday evening.