Have you ever called the cops?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
141

You can always try. If the area is not covered then the call will not go through. More than 97% of the US population is covered by 9-1-1 for calls made from landlines. There are more gaps in cell coverage in the rural areas.

This is a normal everyday problem. The call can easily be transferred to the correct 9-1-1 answering center (called a PSAP in industry lingo) once the location is determined. It can get far too confusing for the public to have to sort out, but we’re accustomed to dealing with the issue.

The local operator is often not local anymore and thus may not know the geographic area well enough to route the call properly. Dial “0” has largely been replaced by dial “4-1-1” and is often answered at some distance.

142

Wouldn’t it be more racist to assume he wasn’t black?

143

I didn’t say it was racist, I didn’t understand why it was mentioned. It’s like saying he was wearing an orange shirt and then the whole story you’re waiting to find out why the shirt color mattered.

144

Another instance happened this morning on Dr. Phil - they were talking about some cold cases in Cleveland (I think - I don’t remember - this was two hours ago) and the tip line if you knew anything about these missing people was an FBI hotline.

145

I have called the police in Austin exactly once, about 9 years ago.

A strange, elderly Hispanic male rang my doorbell one night, said he’d been kidnapped and robbed, and thrown out of a car on my street. He asked me to call the police.

Now, I live in a safe, quiet, middle-class neighborhood. I’ve never encountered or heard of any serious crime, and I hadn’t heard anything outside. I didn’t really believe the guy’s story, but the way I figured it… either he HAD been robbed or he was a delusional (though seemingly harmless) old man, and in either case, calling the police seemed like the right thing to do.

So, I called them, a car arrived in about 3 minutes. The police seemed to recognize him, thanked me for calling, put him in the back of their car, and took him either home, or to the police station. I got the feeling they’d picked him up on similar occasions before.

There are some nursing homes not far from my house, and part of me suspects he MAY have been a partially senile resident of one of those nursing homes. He MAY wander off from one of them every so often.

146

I’ve called 911 or the non-emergency line multiple times, which number depends on if I need help now, or if I have time to grab my smart phone and use google to find the number in question. Most of the times were while I was working (I work at a Pharmacy for the record). Here is what I remember.

  1. My mother-in-law passed away, in her bed. We knew it was happening, stayed by her side for a few hours, and I was responsible for calling 911 when she actually passed to report it.
  2. Fire in an apartment. I lived down the hall from a woman who burned and started a fire in her oven. I heard the fire alarm going off, so went into the hallway. She was panicking, I called 911, and grabbed the fire extinguisher the complex had in my apartment. I had the fire out before the fire department arrived.
  3. Had a person come straight back to my pharmacy counter and ask me to call 911, so I did. Paramedics arrived and treated the patient.
  4. Forgery - had a forgery for a controlled substance called in, called the non-emergency line who transferred me to 911. A cop came out to take a report, told me to call back if they ever showed… They showed, called 911, cop came out, arrested person trying to pick up, along with an accomplice in the car. Found out later that they actually cracked a ring that was forging prescriptions all over the place.
  5. Called non-emergency to report forgery, took report over the phone, they never followed up, even though I had name of person that tried to call in the forgery.
  6. Woman walks down asle looking behind her repeatedly, sits in our waiting area (which has a half wall behind her), looks behind the half wall of area a couple times. I go out and ask if she’s ok, she mentions someone was following her. I offer to call 911 for her, and to open our counseling room, which is locked from the outside and no one can enter without the key (that I have). She accepts, I call 911, cops come, talk to woman, cop’s partner finds suspicion person, ends up being some sort of domestic issue, cops do their thing (something about having a “talk” with other person or something, I only heard through radio of cop in front of me). Cop told woman to go somewhere away, she had no money to pay cab to the next town. I ended up asked cop how much the trip should cost to her destination, and gave woman the $10-ish dollars for taxi ride… Later that week, she actually returned to store and gave them the money I gave her to give back to me.
  7. Forgery - Called non-emergency line, cop came and took report. Told me he’ll be in the area for the next few hours. Told me to call if the person came back, they did. I tried delaying person while I called cops, person got spooked, and bolted. Cop was in parking lot, and observed person leaving store. Had other cop follow, while he came and got my report. Had other cop pull over and detain person, brought person back to store for my ID - I confirmed ID, person was arrested.

From memory, I think that is all the times I’ve called the cops… One thing I’ve learned, the smaller the town, the better and faster the police response. When I’ve called the town police, I get a response pretty quick, take a report, and follow up later in the day if needed… When I’ve called county police, I pretty much just take a number, they get to me when they get to me (if ever), and don’t seem to take an interest in the crime I’m reporting.

147

We witnessed an attempted assault.

Because he was black.

:dubious: Why do you ask?

148

There’s a well-known book that received a lot of mainstream and internet coverage that alleged the average person commits 3 felonies a day. I’m frankly skeptical that anyone who posts here would be unaware of this.

ETA:
Some hypotheticals here:

149

To Hirka T’Bawa: I once called the police when I was on duty as a security guard. Some people had left their cars on the lot–it was a three-day weekend–and I saw suspicious activity around one car. When I was satisfied, I got on the phone, by which time the trespasser had sped off the lot. A cop came and investigated. The car was intact; eleven months later I was subpoenaed, and testified in juvenile court. The defendant was convicted of attempted vehicle theft.

150

If someone has three of those hypotheticals occur to them in one day they have a very interesting life.

To put it more succinctly: bullshit.

151

A former ACLU chapter president wrote a book disparaging the US legal system? Shocking! :dubious:

152

You know, I hadn’t even THOUGHT of this incident in ages. But now that I look at it, it reminds me a LITTLE of the Wafer murder in Detroit, that’s been in the news lately.

Like Theodore Wafer, I had a possibly drunk or crazy person outside my door. I’ve never owned a gun, never thought I needed one, and wouldn’t have gotten one out if I’d had one! All I did was close the door and call the police, who arrived in a few minutes, and everything turned out fine.

It’s hard to imagine why that wasn’t good enough for Theodore Wafer.

153

About 20 years ago I was not feeling well and was standing in the dark,looking out the bathroom window. A truck pulled up across the street and they just sat there,talking and playing the radio (not awfully loud) Suddenly one of the guys jumped out,ran around the truck and started across the street holding a 5 gallon water bottle that was on fire! He dropped it and drew back to kick it… Tranjectory – under my truck:eek:
I roared “What the HELL are you doing!” He ran -bottle was burning nicely in the middle of the street… Called son and police… Son shows up,barefoot ,armed with pistol,shotgun and the .22… We watched the bottle burn,then I told him to go on home,didn’t want him standing there,looking like a wildman… Police came,watched the bottle gutter out…asked about enemys… Nope. Still don’t know who,but think it was maybe an accident.

154

I gotta admit, that is damn wierd.

155

I ask because I wasn’t clear why that was important to the plot of the story and it made the narrative less clear. You didn’t mention the race of anyone else in the story, not the cop’s, not the attacker, not your own.

156

I’ve called the cops a bunch of times. Several times trying to get them to report my car as stolen (same incident; it eventually worked, but despite my story being exactly the same every time, everyone gave me a different response), once on my upstairs neighbor who I could hear physically abusing a toddler (it wasn’t his kid but he was staying with the parents, and as far as I can tell he wasn’t allowed back after that), MANY times about a noise complaint (eventually solved without the help of the police), once about a terrified woman I heard screaming “someone help me!” (I watched out the window for like an hour after I called and saw no police response, so I hope I just missed it even though I don’t see how that would have been possible), once about a convicted child sex offender on my block who was living with a young child (sadly, they couldn’t do anything about it), and once on my psycho ex who poured a half gallon of orange juice all over my carpet and refused to leave (they made him leave).

157

After my divorce, I had the joy to live in section 8 housing for a few years. Most of the people there were good people, lviving their lives, saying ‘hi’ when you passed them outside, etc. As with most things, it took only a handful of people to make life holy hell for everyone else.

Each building was a set up two up, two down apartments, all four doors adjacent to the street. Three of every four were tax-assist; I had the market-rate one because my three jobs gave me enough income that I didn’t qualify for the assist rates. Retired couple downstairs from me were all right; couple upstairs in the apt next to mine were dealing crack; couple downstairs kitty-corner from me were into the whole domestic violence scene (they gave each other as good as the other got). Thanks to the drug dealers, I had people trying to get into my apartment every evening/night for a couple of years, until the dealers were evicted.

The one time I called the cops, though, was when some prince charming was beating on my door, drunk, screaming at me to open the fuck up so he could beat some sense into me. When I went to look through the door’s peep hole, he slammed his hand over it, and helpfully let me know that I knew exactly who he was, bitch.

Huh. Admittedly, I thought it was my ex at first, as he had threatened on numerous occasions until I blocked his phone and email that he was going to track me down and beat the shit out of me, but it turns out this gentleman was a stranger to me. While I was speaking to the police, he was kicking and punching at the door, throwing himself against it shoulder-first, and loudly letting me know that I was a cunt, bitch, whore, and that he was going to kill me when he got inside. He was so loud the cop down the phone could hear all of it.

Then, all of a sudden, the guy stops all the pounding, and says, more or less, ‘Oh, shit! Shit shit shit! Er…he he he, hi, lady? Um, wow. So sorry – ha ha, I’m at the wrong apartment! I meant to be over at the B apartment in the next building. He he, jeez. Wow – so ha ha, don’t call the police or anything, just playing around,ok? Ha ha, bye’

He seriously attempted to change from psycho to chummily apologetic ‘Oops, tra laa, wowser, so sorry!’

I phoned the police back and let them know the dude had moved on to beat the shit out of the woman in the next apartment. The police did stop by my apartment for a follow up.

While I was living there, someone called the police on me, but not on me – domestic violence lady downstairs had called the cops on her guy so many times that the cops had stopped coming to her address, so she gave them mine instead.

So I had cops at the door asking me about my non-existant husband, and if I wasn’t married, why did I call them to tell them that my husband had kidnapped my kids? The two officers were giving me holy hell and reading me the riot act about wasting police business when she poked her head out of the door and said, ‘Heh, I’m actually the one who called you.’

Thanks, lady. Also thanks for the multiple times you hit my car because you couldn’t parallel park for toffee.

The cops were always coming into that street in the last year or so before I finally got out.

158

I called 911 once when I came upon a guy in a parking lot who had been mugged. He was bleeding profusely from head and face and obviously concussed. I told the op he needed an ambulance, she told me no, he was probably just despondent. I wasn’t expecting that.
I have TBI and sometimes have a flareup called Sudden Rage, it’s very frightening and noisy (I’m a big ugly) but never physically violent, but I went off on an annoying white trash neighbor a couple years ago then went in and called the Sheriff and reported myself. Saved myself a trip to jail, happy to report the bad neighbor defaulted on his home loan and absconded, the son of a beetch.

159

I’ve called them. Every name in the book. Oh, on the phone. Nope.

160

I once saw a bumper sticker that read—just like this:

** IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE POLICE!
THE NEXT TIME YOU NEED HELP–
CALL A HIPPIE!**