Was Frank Rizzo right about calling 911? Ask Jerry Blavat | Stu Bykofsky

What do you have to do to get a cop to come to your aid — die?

That’s what Sheri Minkoff was wondering when she was the victim of a hit-and-run driver. She couldn’t get a cop to the scene, not even after calling 911 six times in a two-hour period.

“We respond to all auto accidents if called to 911,” says a police spokesperson. “How long you have to wait depends on where it happened, if cars are occupied on other assignments.”

Before I report Minkoff’s harrowing tale, I can tell you that last Oct. 17, I saw legendary DJ Jerry Blavat talking with a motorist at Sixth and Walnut. The Geator told me the car had struck him on his bicycle and knocked him over. A park ranger called 911 about a half-hour earlier, Blavat told me about 3 p.m. I waited with him for 20 minutes.

It was like waiting for Godot, who never shows. After a while, waiting seemed pointless, and everyone left the scene.

It puts me in mind of Frank Rizzo, who jokingly referred to 911 as “Dial-a-Prayer.”

In Minkoff’s case, her 2017 black Subaru Legacy was run into by another car about 8:30 a.m. Jan. 22 at Roosevelt Boulevard and Front Street. She was on her way to work at a health-care institution when a car with Delaware plates smashed her car’s front-left side and kept on rolling.

It happened so fast that Minkoff, 55, didn’t get a look at the car.

It was bad, and about to get worse.

She called 911. And called again. She kept on calling that morning: 8:38, 9:03, 9:15, 9:23, 10:06, 10:24. She works in corporate communications, but had trouble communicating with 911.

“I felt vulnerable and unsafe standing in 6-degree weather on a street corner,” says Minkoff, who tells me she was crying. Minkoff, who lives in Philly near City Avenue, says 911 told her she was not a priority.

Minkoff was standing next to her disabled vehicle with the hazard lights blinking while talking with 911. An operator advised her to try to flag down a police car. She was told to remain at the scene.

Amazingly, a few minutes later a patrol car with two officers was approaching. Minkoff says she waved her arms like crazy — and the patrol car went right past her. On the door she saw the police motto: Honor, Integrity, Service.

After two hours, cops didn’t arrive — but a tow truck did, and it was not going to wait for the cops. The truck towed the car and gave Minkoff a lift to work.

Early that afternoon, she and her son, Aron, 25, acted on a suggestion from 911 and went to the police district to file a report. They’d been directed by 911 to go to the 25th District, but that was wrong. On arrival, they were told to go to the 24th, which is in the same building — but that was wrong, too. For the first time that day, a cop, Cpl. Brian Younger at the 24th, volunteered to help them by filling out their incident report and faxing it to the 35th District.

Seems to me that when 911 knows no cars are available, it ought to tell victims they don’t have to wait at the scene and they should file a report at the police district. They should be given the address of the correct district. How hard is that?

Minkoff later inquired about obtaining surveillance-camera footage and a copy of her own police report. Both requests were rebuffed. Police reports, called DCs, are not immediately available to victims, and that is another travesty. Police didn’t respond to my invitation to discuss Minkoff’s claims.

“I am left feeling like no one can and will help,” she says. She is upset that the driver of the car with Delaware plates got away with it and may harm someone else. Cops are “not interested at all in investigating this accident."

Minkoff was so distressed by everything that happened — and didn’t happen — she filed a complaint with Internal Affairs. An officer has been assigned to investigate.

Minkoff is not optimistic. You can understand why.

Correction: An earlier version of this column inaccurately reported that Minkoff’s son had been in the car with her when the accident happened.