Police response time in Norway

Both the Wall Street Journal and New York Times have articles looking at this issue - why did it take the police so long to respond. Per the New York Times most police there are unarmed, and that could be one reason why a police officer at the camp there wound up being one of the first to get shot.

In addition to unarmed police, there were other issues. The New York Times gives the generic statement that "A police helicopter was unable to get off the ground", whereas the Wall Street Journal supplies the details that this was because "its crew members were on vacation." Why was there no backup crew? And then after they drove the shore opposite the camp, their boat broke down according to the Wall Street Journal.

The New York Times notes that

It took police SWAT units more than an hour to reach the camp, on Utoya Island, after reports of the shooting came in. Officers had to drive to the shore across from the site of the shooting attack, and use boats to get to the island. A police helicopter was unable to get off the ground; news crews that reached the island by air could only watch as the gunman continued the massacre.

Seems like a somewhat self-serving quote on the part of journalists to me. If the journalists could make it to the island by air, presumably they could have allowed the police to hop on their helicopter as well. "Could only watch" seems like a bit of a false statement.

Anne Holt, Norway’s former justice minister, told the BBC: “That makes him a person that killed one person every minute. If the police had actually been there just a half an hour earlier, then 30 young lives would have been saved.”