The general rule in New York is that a governmental agency can't be held liable in damages for failing to take an action it should have taken, even if it's on a matter within its jurisdiction. For example, if you call the police and tell them that your crazy next-door neighbor is out on his front yard, waving around a gun while screaming at the top of his lungs about his plan to shoot you, and the police have plenty of time to get there but just don't bother, and he then does shoot you and injure you, you probably lose any lawsuit against the city.
One exception would be if the agency, going beyond simply not making things better, actively made them worse. For example, if a 911 dipatcher advised you to stay in your house and wait for the police, who would arrive momentarily, and they then took forever to get there, you'd have a colorable case on the theory that the dispatcher's advice induced you to forgo the alternative of fleeting to safety when you could have. Just based on the cursory press account of this cae, though, I don't see a basis for an argument like that.
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