# 911 hanging up on caller for swearing -- can they DO that? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 4, 2009, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308 "2009-05-04T17:22:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308/101 "2009-05-05T08:34:58Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > Your rosy view of your own youth is par for the course, but complete crap. Yeah, who am I gonna believe, some book you found or my own lying eyes? :rolleyes: I was twenty years old in 1968 and I was no angel, believe me. Neither were most of my friends. The junior high school I attended had approximately 600 students and my high school had 1,600. I had plenty of experiences between 1958 and 1968 with teenagers of every background and anywhere from three years older than me to three years younger and everything in between, as well as experiences with them in various parts of the country and, a little later on, at several colleges around the country. I know how people my age acted then, mmkay? I know that the popular dodge around here is that if it doesn’t exist as printed data somewhere then it doesn’t exist at all, but it’s just as big a mistake to believe in everything you read as it is to ignore anything you haven’t. There is a reason why people learn from experience, and why books are only as good as the data they are based on, the political agenda behind them if any, and the analytical ability of the authors who interpret and present that data. And guess what? Most books are based on incomplete research and data, and frequently written to support their authors’ bias, so a book has to have some pretty heavyweight credentials before I accept unquestioningly whatever it has to say. And besides, teenagers aren’t my primary gripe anyway. They just happened to be the most recent examples of the kind of behavior I’m talking about, probably because standards in this society have only recently degenerated far enough for them to be the first to feel that that kind of behavior in public is perfectly acceptable. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308/102 "2009-05-05T08:36:52Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Your entire post is an irrelevant sidetrack. She told the officer that there was an emergency and where it was. That’s what you are supposed to do when calling 911, is it not? That is not enough information to get the help you need. What kind of emergency? How hurt is somebody? Is there ongoing danger? “Send me an ambulance at 123 Main St” is not going to get you an ambulance. More information is needed. The dispatcher needs to be able to figure out if they need to dispatch EMTs, paramedics, fire, police or any combination of these. Medics will not go in if there is a violent alltercation that is still happening so the police would have to go in first. Paramedics are needed depending on how serious it is. Fire might need to go if certain equipment is needed. > [@Red\_Barchetta](#): > > Actually, that much was made clear when she **dialed 911.** No it is not clear just because it was on 911. Even discounting the misdials and hangups there are plenty of people who dial it for mundane reasons that happen to be important to them but not emergencies. He shouldn’t have hung up. But 911 isn’t some magical system by which the help you need gets there automatically because you wish it. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Barchetta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/da6949/32.png) [@Red\_Barchetta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Barchetta)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308/103 "2009-05-05T08:43:10Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > No it is not clear just because it was on 911. Even discounting the misdials and hangups there are plenty of people who dial it for mundane reasons that happen to be important to them but not emergencies. Until proven otherwise, it should be (and is, by any 911 call-operator of moderate competence) treated as an emergency. ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Mood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@Blue\_Mood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Mood)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308/104 "2009-05-05T08:43:51Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Clearly the cop was wrong. … Once he made this misjudgement the girl did little to correct him. In fact, her behavior reinforced it. She didn’t say “my father is dying, please send help!” She didn’t sound in serious physical or emotional distress. Instead, she engaged him in a pissing contest. She didn’t ask for help or describe her problem. She simply ordered him to send an ambulance, and cursed. She called him back and said “Are you going to send an ambulance, or what?” and “What is your name? Do you want to get sued?” **She was being a bitch and not acting like an injured person, or a panicked person or a person who was overwrought with concern over her father who was supposed to have been dying on the floor**. … > > Secondly, her refusal to stop swearing didn’t help anything. To me, they didn’t sound like inadvertent panicky swears. They sounded bitchy challenging don’t tell me not to swear curses. Like, she was doing it because he told her not to. Again, she doesn’t sound panicked or concerned. She sounds bitchy, challenging, and demanding. … > > **I’m not trying to be an apologist for the cop here. I think he clearly screwed up**. I agree completely. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308/105 "2009-05-05T09:22:22Z")
> [@Red\_Barchetta](#): > > Until proven otherwise, it should be (and is, by any 911 call-operator of moderate competence) treated as an emergency. I don’t dispute that. But that is not what you said. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308/106 "2009-05-05T15:16:12Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > I think a lot of adults would be doing worse if they thought someone they loved was in danger and six minutes passed with the people who are supposed to help just letting him die. I never said stupidity was _rare._ Just that this particular woman is clearly afflicted with it. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308/107 "2009-05-05T15:36:03Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > That is not enough information to get the help you need. What kind of emergency? How hurt is somebody? Is there ongoing danger? “Send me an ambulance at 123 Main St” is not going to get you an ambulance. More information is needed. The dispatcher needs to be able to figure out if they need to dispatch EMTs, paramedics, fire, police or any combination of these. Medics will not go in if there is a violent alltercation that is still happening so the police would have to go in first. Paramedics are needed depending on how serious it is. Fire might need to go if certain equipment is needed. And maybe if the cop had bothered to ask instead of getting pissy about her language she would have been able to tell him. I see no reason other than orneriness to blame the girl for what happened. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308/108 "2009-05-05T15:38:03Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > I see no reason other than orneriness to blame the girl for what happened. Yeah, she was pretty ornery, all right. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308/109 "2009-05-05T15:42:57Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > No, societal mores back then were such that the kind of behavior described by the girl in the OP simply wasn’t tolerated. Apparently it isn’t tolerated nowadays. 😉 > [@](#): > > There were faux-curse words to be sure. “Criminy” for Christ, “Jiminy Christmas” for Jesus Christ, “shucks” for shit, etc. But it was mostly old people who used those. 😃 That’s my point, though. The words considered vulgar were shifted - it’s not that people weren’t vulgar, they just used different words when they were. > [@](#): > > The same words were around then, but most girls didn’t use them and boys didn’t use them in mixed company, and nobody used them around little kids or out loud in public like they do now. So what would be shocking is the open and aggessive use of them nowadays and not the words themselves. I know the value you place on your personal experience, but i’d hope that even you would agree that you really can’t know whether girls didn’t use them outside of mixed company either. Unless you have something to confess to us, of course. My point isn’t that the words we use now weren’t around then, but that they had different words to express themselves vulgarly. A person could say something as societally offensive as “shit” without saying “shit” specifically, and those words seem pretty tame and inoffensive (to an extent) now. If this was a more vulgar society, we should consider both those old words along with the new as vulgar. > [@](#): > > I was twenty years old in 1968 and I was no angel, believe me. Neither were most of my friends. The junior high school I attended had approximately 600 students and my high school had 1,600. I had plenty of experiences between 1958 and 1968 with teenagers of every background and anywhere from three years older than me to three years younger and everything in between, as well as experiences with them in various parts of the country and, a little later on, at several colleges around the country. > > I know how people my age acted then, mmkay? That’s silly. I really mean no offense, but the population of the U.S. is in the hundreds of millions. You can’t generalise from the experiences of one person, there’s simply far too many people to do so. And again I mean no offense but i’m even less sure i’d be willing to generalise the entire population of the U.S. from a 50-40 year old memory of one person’s experiences. > [@](#): > > I know that the popular dodge around here is that if it doesn’t exist as printed data somewhere then it doesn’t exist at all, but it’s just as big a mistake to believe in everything you read as it is to ignore anything you haven’t. I think actually the “popular dodge” is not to disbelieve your own story, but to disagree that it’s reasonable to generalise so hugely from it. I’m happy to accept your word for what happened to you. I’m not so happy to accept your word and declare that the entirety of American society of the time may be known and examined through you as a single source. I mean, let me ask you this. If I told you what my high school years were like, would you assume that what I had to say was largely true for all British kids of the '90s? ---
**Author:** ![Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleeps_With_Butterflies)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308/110 "2009-05-05T16:38:42Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > He shouldn’t have hung up. But 911 isn’t some magical system by which the help you need gets there automatically because you wish it. Incorrect. 911 is a “magical” system by which you get the help you need. Even if you call it and hang up, the police will come. For all they know you called for help and then passed out, or you called for help and the person breaking into your house pulled the phone out of the wall, etc etc. You (and others) can pick apart everything the girl said and did. You can guess what kind of person she is or if she’s got a smart mouth. You can say that she should have just cleaned up her mouth and asked nicely. You can do all of this as long as you want because the simple fact is that he failed to do his job and could have been the cause of a loss of life. No, this time he didn’t cause a death, but had she not complained who knows what could have happened? I know good police officers who really are trying to help the public and do the best job they can. They probably get cursed at every single day. They ignore the language and do their jobs because they realize that if they are in a situation with the public, it’s an escalated situation and emotions run high. They don’t turn into Miss Manners to lecture people, scold them, and refuse to help them properly. Look how easily he failed to do his job. He was manipulated (if you want to assign her blame) by a seventeen year old! He’s been on the force for over twenty years and he was so easily distracted by the word fuck that he put someone’s life in danger? That’s a pretty piss poor example of a police officer some of you people are defending. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308/111 "2009-05-05T16:39:56Z")
> [@DWMarch](#): > > I don’t blame the cop at all and her father deserves anything and everything horrible that happened to him as a direct result of his daughter’s stupidity. People do prank 911 all the time and I don’t think the dispatchers owe it to anyone to put up with verbal assaults just because somewhere in the background someone _might_ be hurt. The law disagrees with you. **Starving Artist** – _ **THE PLURAL OF ANECDOTE IS NOT DATA!!!** _. WE were not there, and the only site you have is, “my post.” Other peoples’ experiences have been far different. And good god, man, my own experience in high school was not nearly the hellish wasteland you seem to be painting of life post-sixties…and I graduated in 1996. Oh but hey, we used the f-word. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308/112 "2009-05-05T16:42:10Z")
> [@DWMarch](#): > > I don’t blame the cop at all and her father deserves anything and everything horrible that happened to him as a direct result of his daughter’s stupidity. People do prank 911 all the time and I don’t think the dispatchers owe it to anyone to put up with verbal assaults just because somewhere in the background someone _might_ be hurt. Might be hurt? Someone was hurt. And this is the whole point of 911. ---
**Author:** ![Frustrated\_Wonderer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a4c791/32.png) [@Frustrated\_Wonderer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frustrated_Wonderer)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308/113 "2009-05-05T17:02:44Z")
What’s up with all this stupid obsession on “curse words”? Oh puh-please cry me a fucking river and play me the world’s smallest violin. We get enough bullshit from politicians as it is with all the diplomatic talk. Can people be so sensitive that if they hear a curse word they open there mouth in shock and awe? Two words: Fuck That. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308/114 "2009-05-05T17:31:40Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > That is not enough information to get the help you need. What kind of emergency? How hurt is somebody? Is there ongoing danger? “Send me an ambulance at 123 Main St” is not going to get you an ambulance. More information is needed. The dispatcher needs to be able to figure out if they need to dispatch EMTs, paramedics, fire, police or any combination of these. Medics will not go in if there is a violent alltercation that is still happening so the police would have to go in first. Paramedics are needed depending on how serious it is. Fire might need to go if certain equipment is needed. > > No it is not clear just because it was on 911. Even discounting the misdials and hangups there are plenty of people who dial it for mundane reasons that happen to be important to them but not emergencies. > > He shouldn’t have hung up. But 911 isn’t some magical system by which the help you need gets there automatically because you wish it. “Send me an ambulance at 123 Main St” is good enough to turn the wheels. We’ll find out what the issue is on the phone or when we get there and then someone will tell the medics and they can be waiting outside, but in any system worth a damn, if you have a good address and what kind of help is needed, you get the responders rolling immediately. No delays for further natures, no counselling someone for being a rude bitch, no sleeping, no bantering no bullshit. 9-1-1 isn’t a magical system, but it’s one we’ve had almost 40 years to perfect. I agree with the idea that society has denegrated socially. It grates on my nerves like nobody’s business. That said, so what? These are the cards we’re dealt, and by god, if someone calls 9-1-1, there had better be a damn good reason like an unconfirmed address or a cell with an open line that can’t be traced NOT to send responders within a minute of receiving the call. This is 2009. Delays in response are not only unnecessary, but potentially deadly. If this man fell and the caller did nothing BUT swear, as long as you have an address that’s good, you send, send, send. THEN ask questions. This, even though it’s 6 months old, is bullshit of the highest order and that moron of a Sgt should no longer have a job. I don’t care how things used to be, I’m sure they were great, hell, they were great when I was a kid, too. Things change, and the earliest adopters to the changes in society are and need to continue to be emergency responders. Bottom line, the cop was wrong, wrong, wrong. He’s lucky as hell nothing truly bad happened. You don’t HANG UP on someone who’s called 9-1-1, especially someone requesting a damned ambulance. No sir, the girl was a rude little twat, but the cop put her fathers life in further danger. HE and that department are the perpetrators of the wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308/115 "2009-05-05T17:35:56Z")
I can;t believe it is rare for people calling 911 to swear. Plus the cop flat-out lied when he told the dispatcher that he couldn’t get thru the caller’s comments to get the details. He started lecturing her - if he had said “What is the emergency?” instead of talking down to her or hanging up on her, he could have had the details in a minute flat. This is 911. _You don’t get to hang up on a caller if they don’t say pretty please_. Yes, the girl said a lot of stupid stuff about suing, and swore. She is seventeen, and her father is lying on the floor after being released from the hospital and brain surgery. Shouldn’t the person supposedly trained in handling emergencies be able to redirect the conversation towards getting the details he is supposed to, and not lecturing a frantic teenager on her phone manners? Come on. I usually bend over backwards to try to give the po-pos the benefit of the doubt. But this is well over the line. It is unreasonable to expect people who call 911 to be at their rational best when they need an ambulance. Sheesh. Gosh golly and jeepers. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308/116 "2009-05-05T18:12:51Z")
[Ex-EMT hat on] One of the things all emergency services types need to learn is, everyone reponds differently to stress and crisis. You learn to filter out the profanity and the babbling for scraps of what the hell lead to person on the ground getting there. This cop blew it, bad, and after listening to the audio of him referring to the girl as “hostile” and being “unable to find out what the problem was”, I think the biggest favor this waste of carbon could have done us was to clock out, climb into a dumpster, and shoot himself in the head. I am normally one of the biggest cop and or “system” apologists here. The only way I could ever see this as even marginally excusable behavior is if it was his first day as a cop, pointed at the phones, given no training whatsoever, after being told it was the crime tips hotline. In my area, the 911 operators are required to have 1 year of feild experience before applying so you have some points of reference about what is going on at an emergency scene that you are trying to analyze over the phone. The girl is a tool, yes I agree, so are alot of the people who call. Part of why the system is not mired in 2 year olds who burned their finger on a pop tart is that the 911 operators take the time to ask the right questions and determine the correct response. Even with good information 911 responses are often restricted to basic response until an official assessment of the scene by first in units justifies greater response. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308/117 "2009-05-05T18:15:57Z")
Was it actually a 911 number? (Youtube is blocked for me.) Did her call get forwarded to a regular (non-emergency) phone line? ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Barchetta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/da6949/32.png) [@Red\_Barchetta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Barchetta)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308/118 "2009-05-05T18:16:30Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > I don’t dispute that. But that is not what you said. Come on, do I have to breakdown everything for you? I stated “Actually, that much was made clear when she dialed 911.” Obviously there are prank calls and some people’s distorted views of what constitutes an emergency. That’s all irrelevant until such information is demonstrably true. Until that point, it is an **emergency** , for all practical purposes. ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308/119 "2009-05-05T18:24:19Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > Was it actually a 911 number? (Youtube is blocked for me.) > > Did her call get forwarded to a regular (non-emergency) phone line? If for example she called a non urgent line, usually the first thing those people say is “hang up and dial 911” so the tracing system is able to do its thing. If for some reason that is not possible they need to collect some basic information and contact the dispatchers. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308/120 "2009-05-05T18:32:05Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > Was it actually a 911 number? (Youtube is blocked for me.) > > Did her call get forwarded to a regular (non-emergency) phone line? From the recording, it sounded like it. Typically the recording starts as soon as the call is received as opposed to being picked up by an operator, so in the you tube clip there’s a little background of the caller before the operator picks up. That means it’s a 911 call, referred 7 digits don’t typically have that feature on event recorders. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/911-hanging-up-on-caller-for-swearing-can-they-do-that/495308.md?page=7)