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Palm Bay residents who call 911 seeking help during emergencies — think active shooters, sexual assaults, even drowning swimmers — are waiting an average of 2 minutes longer for police officers to respond than they did in 2020.

The thinly spread Palm Bay Police Department ranks 241st out of Florida’s 246 municipal police departments in number of sworn officers (1.31) per 1,000 residents, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement reports. That’s 161 officers serving a city of 122,765 people, according to 2021 statistics.