Twice to report attempted crimes against me for the report for the insurance company.
Once to report 2 calfs (calves? Very underage cows) wandering on the grassy shoulder of an interstate. I didn’t want to see them hit by a vehicle.
And one time… I had just returned to my apt from somewhere and in the parking lot was a man and 2 women. One woman was very loudly telling the guy to go fuck himself and other assorted pleasantries. The guy was making calming sounds and wisely keeping a vehicle between himself and shouting woman. And the other woman was closer to shouting woman making calming sounds at her too. And shouting woman was just getting madder and madder. I had recently separated from the EX at the time and recognized what was happening.
And the way the law seems to work is it wouldn’t have mattered how many times shouting woman struck the man if she got close enough, if he raised one hand to block a punch, HE’d be charged with assault. So I called the police and told them she’s been shouting “fuck you” at the guy for 15 minutes now and she’s not cooling off and she needs to be restrained.
I’ve called 911 a few times, almost all while I was out delivering papers very early in the morning. Let’s see…
Once my son (he was helping me do papers and had driven back to his apartment for a route list) was robbed at gunpoint. If you are a bad guy who robs a teenage paper carrier driving a 1986 Buick, you deserve the crappy haul you end up getting.
A couple of times for someone collapsed on a sidewalk or drunkenly trying different doors in the neighborhood.
Last week, I called because I found a 75 year old man wandering the neighborhood at 4 a.m. He collapsed in the grass and I hung out with him until the police and ambulance came to get him. He was fine but confused, turned out he had stolen his caregiver’s shoes and gone for an early morning stroll, then forgot how to get home.
And non-work related, I called last fall because I found my ex-boyfriend lurking outside my house in the dark. Filed a trespass warrant against him and no problems since.
I’ve called three times for medical emergencies. Once, my MIL called me at 6 AM because she had chest pains and her left arm hurt (my husband was away at the time). Turned out she had only had a reaction to one of her meds, but I had not a moment’s hesitation that this was a potential emergency. Another time my daughter awoke in excruciating (as in lie on the floor in a fetal position) abdominal pain. That turned out to be a gall bladder attack. The first time was when I was home alone without a working car and one of my daughters fell and got a bad cut on her head which needed medical attention.
Just this summer we called because there was a raccoon acting strangely in our driveway, in broad daylight. Unfortunately, it staggered off into the woods before the authorities arrived.
We’ve also had occasion to call for non-emergency situations.
Oh, and twice I called to ask for welfare checks for customers who hadn’t picked up their papers. Not typical, but I knew one was ill and one was elderly with a history of falls.
The elderly lady was fine. The chronically ill one was dead.
I’ve called the police several times while living in Little Rock, Arkansas.
[ul]
[li]I called once because one of my neighbors was walking up and down the street after midnight on a weekday shouting incoherently.[/li][li]I called once because the same neighbor was involved in a very heated argument with her paramour and I wasn’t sure whether it was violent or was about to become violent.[/li][li]I called 911 when 18+ teenagers were brawling in my front yard.[/li][li]I’ve called 911 multiple times because of gunshots being fired. After a few times I stopped calling unless the shots were close to the house.[/li][li]I called the non-emergency number because one of my neighbors decided to invite 100 of her closest friends to a party. I would have slept through it had some of the party goers refrained from stopping on the corner and booming loud music out of their automobile. [/li][li]I’ve called the police after each time my car was broken into. A total of three times.[/li][li]I’ve called the police because the destructive little bastards across the street were vandalizing the unoccupied house next door.[/li][/ul]
I called several times for my father who had ill health and had to be hospitalized a number of times. And once because my mother was having a hard time breathing, and she was treated at the ER and released.
I called the police in my parents’ home town from my then home town because my sister had tried to call them and they weren’t answering their phone, and I tried and they weren’t answering the phone. The police showed up at their door and it turned out that their phone was off the hook.
I called police from work after commuting to work in Los Angeles because there was a dog lying on the side of the freeway that looked like it had been hit by a car, and the animal control wasn’t answering their phone.
I called police twice because my apartment was burgled.
I called police for a loud party in the apartment next door, after having just lived with their loud parties about three times before, and was just fed up with it. I called police for the neighbors in the apartment on the other side because it sounded like the man was beating his wife.
A few months ago I was driving in Portland, specifically right here, where SW Capitol Hwy meets Barbur Blvd. A guy roared around me, passing across a double line, to get in front of me on that on ramp. When he did so his tire nailed the railing and blew. I sat there and waited for him to arrange himself, then he took off driving again. On the rim. I followed him, as he was totally driving on the rim, shooting sparks everywhere, waiting for him to pull over. When I realized that he, like me, was actually getting on the Ross Island Bridge East (scroll up on the map), I called 911 and gave them the plates and vehicle description.
Before I had crossed the other side of the bridge a cop pulled alongside me, waved, then got in front of me and pulled him over, still sparking merrily along. We’re talking maybe less than a minute after I called.
I found a man lying unconscious in the road (the cars in front of me just swerved around him and kept going). I parked my car at an angle to block the lane and went to check him out. He was breathing, but unresponsive, so I called 911.
The second time, was because my neighbors’ nightly argument kicked up a few notches. Normally, it was just yelling, but this time there was stuff breaking.
I have also called the non-emergency number on a few occasions:
In my apartment complex in Las Vegas, some of the apartments had a storage closet on the balconies (these were not air-conditioned). Someone had locked their dog in one of these closets, in the daytime, in the Summer, and the residents were not home. Assholes.
While in New Jersey, I left my apartment to go to work, only to find my supported by a single jack. All four tires were gone.
The last time was also in Jersey. Some teenagers went on a smash and grab spree in the parking lot of my apartments. They smashed my car window with a brick, snatched my iPod and the spare change out of my console. They hit 20 cars that night.
I called 911 for a dog left in a car on a hot day, maybe three years ago. It was in Walmart’s parking lot, and I had the store page 3 times and no one showed up. The officer came but said he couldn’t do anything until the dog seemed distressed. He kept making rounds checking on the dog, until this old lady with three grandchildren came out, with an air conditioner in the cart and ice cream cones all around. She swore she had only been in there a couple minutes, until I showed her the time on the phone when I called 911, and told her I’d waited 15 minutes before I called, and mentioned the pages. The cop told her to leave the dog at home when it was hot.
The 2nd time I called 911 was when my neighbor’s garage was on fire.
I have our local police non-emergency number taped up on the fridge. We had a meth house bust in our neighborhood and the police told us to call if there were any signs of people living there, so I’ve called a few times regarding that.
I’ve also called the non-emergency number when my car was busted into and when I saw a stop sign that had been stolen (pole and all).
I’ve called 911 twice. Once in college, when a roommate (a guy we didn’t really know that well when he moved in and who made our lives living hell) threw his girlfriend out of his moving car. Second time was when my husband and I witnessed a very serious accident, which turned out to be fatal. I guess I wasn’t really calling the police that time - just anyone who would come and help.
I called when the woman off her meds opened fire with a shotgun.
Assorted ladders, carpet rolls, drunk drivers and car accidents.
And, of course, the time when I got hit by another driver head on when I was 5 months pregnant. I had had the car got less than 12 hours. (Yes, it sticks in my mind). Baby and I were fine.
Once, late 1980s, to report a break-in and theft. Car was there in minutes, shortly the crime scene people came, took report, dusted for prints, knocked on other tenants’ doors. Pretty unexciting.
Once when our house had been entered without our being there (I can’t say it was broken into because we’d accidentally left the door unlocked.) In addition to a bunch of other oddities, we found a pair of boots that belonged to none of us by the kitchen door. When we mentioned that to the police, they said, “Get out of the house, now. The person may still be in there.” :eek: I hadn’t thought of that. Anyhoo, turns out he’d left his boots in exchange for my husband’s. They caught the guy later that night. He’d walked into another house, insisting to the owners that it was his house, and when they called the cops, the cops discovered that he was wearing my husband’s boots. They called us to let us know.
Yes regretfully on my mother in 2003 when I was 16. Another time when I saw this guy physically abusing his girlfriend public and to report an accident.
I work in a 9-1-1 center. Everything in the OP would be considered normal police business here and a perfectly valid reason to call 9-1-1. Most everything I’ve read in this thread is valid 9-1-1 material too.
We do get calls that are total waste of time and an abuse of the system. People call 9-1-1 to ask what time it is. People call 9-1-1 because its a free call and they don’t have any credit so could we call their spouse to tell hm to pick up milk and bread on his way home from work. People call to ask for a phone number of a restaurant or business and they don’t want to pay to call 4-1-1. People call to report things that should obviously not be a police matter (Caller:There are fish swimming in the ocean. 9-1-1:OK, that’s where fish are supposed to swim.) And so on.
And to answer the other Op question… yes, for non-worked related matters I’ve had to call 9-1-1 several times and once I called a state version of the FBI.
I’ve called to report a scuba diving accident resulting in a drowning.
I’ve called to report car crashes a few times, one I was in and others I witnessed.
I’ve called the state version of the FBI to report a teacher who admitted sexually abusing a student. He was arrested and served several years.
I don’t consider it the obligation of a citizen to blindly reinforce and perpetuate a broken system. Nor to tattlle on every scofflaw, nor act as a vigilante.
to report serious damage after a tornado and advise that the street needed to be blocked off because of debris.
various car accidents I witnessed
to report a break-in of the condo below us when we heard someone break the glass in the picture window when we knew the occupants were gone. Turned out to be an angry ex.
when neighbor lady banged on the door at 2:00 in the morning and begged us to call the police because her husband was drunk, had beat her up, thrown all her clothes on the lawn and locked her out of the house.
when one of our cars was broken into
when my son, 11, took our dog for a walk in his grandmothers strange to him neighborhood on a very hot day and didnt come back for four hours. He got lost very easily and was, in fact, quite lost.
But vigilantes depend on people like you. Because every time a lynch mob dragged away a black man to hang him, every time some young woman like Kitty Genovese was murdered on a public street, every time the Jews started getting put on trains “going east”, there were people like you around who figured it wasn’t their problem.
Good point. Although I wonder if there’s an obligation to respond. I do think they use some kind of codes to signify priority, because I often hear an AB or C before the label of the offense.
Me too!
Thanks. Good to get your perspective. I guess I just feel badly for the people who have to wait for a cop for a long time because they’re back logged.
I did remember two other times I reported something. Both for cattle, coincidentally. One was a cow trotting down the right hand lane of a dark highway. At least he was going in the right direction, and at the proper speed. The other was to report some seriously bony cattle in a field near a wildlife refuge where I was photographing. I told the officer they may be treating them for a known issue, but I just want to make sure they’re not being neglected. I got transferred several times but finally got to the proper person.
