9-1-1: Do You Have a Real Emergency?
Just about everyone in the US knows that if you have an emergency, see something suspicious, or witness a crime you dial 9-1-1. But, do people know what actually happens when you call? Based on my experience as a 9-1-1 dispatcher the answer is a resounding ‘No’.
You’re probably thinking I’m wrong, crazy, or that I’m just some disgruntled worker telling another story about how she doesn’t like her job. I actually love my job; it’s the second best job I have ever had with US Army Soldier being the first. Ok…so what’s the deal with this blog then? The deal is I’ve been doing this job for just under 4 years and I can tell you most of the people I talk to on 9-1-1 don’t actually need 9-1-1. My co-workers and I have often joked that a class should be taught in high school on when it is appropriate to dial 9-1-1 and when it is not.
The amount of calls that come in on a 9-1-1 line where the person does not have an emergency and/or no need for police, fire, or EMS is outrageous. Most people have no idea that their local police department has a non-emergency number they can call even though most police department websites have it listed. Even if you have a city that is dispatched by a county dispatch center the website still lists the correct number. To take it a step further I always make sure to remind people that they need to ensure they are calling the city in the correct state. Shocking as it may be multiple states have cities of the same name (anyone remember which Springfield the Simpson’s were in?).
One of the biggest examples that I can give you is child custody issues. It never fails, every shift someone calls 9-1-1 upset because the other parent won’t give them their child back. “The police need to come and make them give me my kid back right now!” The first question any 9-1-1 dispatcher should ask, “Is there a custody agreement in place from the court?” 9 times out of 10 there isn’t, which means the police have no legal basis to go to a parent’s home and remove a child unless that child is in some sort of danger. No, your text conversation where the other parent agreed to something does not give us a legal right to enter someone’s house and remove their child. No, them not being on the birth certificate does not matter because you just said, on a recorded line, this person is the biological parent. “So you aren’t going to help me?!” Is that what I said? No. I said the police are not going to forcibly remove a minor child from their parent’s home if they are not in danger and there is no court order saying they have to. What they will do is go to the home of the other parent with you (so long as they live in our city) and stand by while you attempt to get your child back.
Another example, parking complaints. If I never answered another call from someone complaining that their neighbor’s car is parked on the street where they do not believe it should be parked I would weep unending tears of joy. Now, most cities have ordinances about parking. Living in Minnesota we have the added benefit of a thing called a ‘snow emergency’ where a city can declare they are having one and that overrides any ordinances so that streets can be cleared for snow plows. Trust me, your neighbors know this and some live for it. Your neighborhood busybody has one eye on the clock, one on the street, and their phone clutched in their hand, fingers ready to rapid fire dial 9-1-1, as though someone’s life depends on it, because you had the audacity to park on “their” street. Is this something the police go out and enforce? Yes. Does this require a call in to 9-1-1? NO. The non-emergency line is what you should be calling. Also, do not expect an immediate response; if you get one that means your police department has nothing else going on.
So why does it matter which line you call? Are they all answered by different people? Is my non-emergency call magically routed to an officer at a desk sipping coffee and enjoying his morning paper just waiting to speak to someone? Maybe; it depends on what type of dispatch center your local department has. For my dispatch center we cover one city only. We sit in a room with a certain number of dispatchers on for each shift where we all can hear the phone ringing and the radio chatter going on at the same time. Sometimes, when it gets busy, I can be on the phone with someone taking information from them while running a name for a warrant check or license status for an officer over the radio handling a completely different call at the same time. Some centers separate their call takers from their radio dispatchers. No matter how it is set up you will have an easier time finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow accompanied by some cheeky leprechaun than you will finding a 9-1-1 dispatcher who does not get irritated by someone calling 9-1-1 for a non-emergency.
I know what you’re thinking — are you ever going to answer the question? Yes, but the background was important. Now, picture this in your mind’s eye: you are sitting at a desk in front of multiple computer monitors with your headset on and the phones are ringing off the hook. You are responsible for answering them but you currently have several 911 lines ringing and two non-emergency lines ringing. Which do you think gets answered first? Obviously it would be 9-1-1 because that means someone is having an emergency. Right? Sometimes, but not always. So when you have multiple phone lines ringing and you’re short staffed (it’s actually well known in the dispatch community that most centers across the US are short staffed) you have to make a split second decision on which call is the most urgent. You start with 9-1-1 only to have someone calling because a car they don’t recognize is parked on their street, unoccupied, lights off, engine off, just sitting there. “I mean doesn’t the city have a parking ordinance?” they snidely comment as you attempt to tell them this is not an emergency. In some centers you cannot put 9-1-1 callers on hold, even if the call is non-emergent. That means someone who is calling because they are having an actual life or death emergency cannot get through until that parking complaint goes in.
No one wants to be feel responsible for someone not getting the help they need and potentially seeing fatal consequences because they couldn’t be helped in time. As the person behind that desk, the voice on the end of the phone line, that’s the true risk we run if we don’t do our jobs correctly. If you think the neighborhood busybody is going to feel remorse because their call delayed someone else getting help you are wrong. If you believe the parents who can’t be adults and handle their own custody issues without the police getting involved because one (or both) are still upset over the breakdown of their relationship aren’t going to continuously call getting more and more upset with the dispatcher because the police didn’t show up within 30 seconds you are wrong. I’ve dealt with this first hand and I can tell you when people call 911 they truly believe what they are calling about is the most important thing going on at that very moment when in reality it may be a call that doesn’t get responded to for several hours or even days. 911 isn’t first come, first served. It’s biggest emergency first, parents who shouldn’t be parents second from the bottom, and parking complaints dead last (in my perfect world non-existent unless it’s causing a traffic issue).
That class on when to call 911 sounds pretty useful right about now doesn’t it?
