HOUSTON -- A Houston Police Department staffing shortage is causing the city to take too long to respond to emergency calls, forcing some crime victims to wait hours for help, a police union official told KPRC Local 2 Tuesday.

After one of the bloodiest holiday weekends in the city's history, HPD's police union said the department's 4,700 officers are spread too thin.

"How many of those murders, before they ended up being a murder, was called in as a disturbance that we didn't show up at?" said Hans Marticiuc, with the Houston Police Officer's Union.

Marticiuc said the department is incapable of providing basic police services.

To back up the claim, the union analyzed police calls for the month of October in three high-crime districts. The analysis found that in over 500 calls for service, victims waited up to 12 hours and 39 minutes before dispatchers sent a patrol car. It took 8 hours and 29 minutes for an officer to be dispatched to a robbery, and a sex assault victim waited 5 hours and 23 minutes for an investigator to arrive.

The union puts the blame on HPD Chief Harold Hurtt.

"That is simply unacceptable," Marticiuc said.

Hurtt has not yet responded.

But the union took its complaints to Houston City Hall and to Mayor Bill White.

"This issue of people holding calls from intake and dispatch -- that's an issue that I think is a serious issue that I haven't quite got the right answer yet about what is going on there," White said.

The mayor also had some proposals to beef up the police ranks. He wants to begin the next police cadet class six months early to put more officers on the street sooner. He is also considering asking apartment building owners to help pay the cost of extra officers because about half of the city's violent crime is occurring at apartment complexes.

Southwest Houston was the scene of multiple murders over Thanksgiving weekend, where more homicides happened in the area near Highway 59, the Southwest Freeway, and Beltway 8 than any other part of town.

Across the city, 14 people were killed from Thanksgiving through Sunday. Most of the homicides happened on the west and southwest sides of the city, where police said violent crimes have been on the rise.

Residents of those areas said it is linked to growing gang activity.

"But they still come over here. And when people don't participate, and do what they want to do, they come and they hurt them," Houstonian Dorothy McGee Rogers told KPRC Local 2.

Hurtt said the department has been working to curb the rise in crime since June.

At this same time last year, 274 people had been murdered in the city. From January to October of this year, 286 people have been killed.