The scenario is that you unexpectedly have police (or FBI or DEA or…) - or people claiming to be police (or…) - outside the door demanding entry. Modestly aggressively too. Being sensible, you ring 999 / 911 to verify the officers, because that’s what the PSAs say you should do. But how does that work? Do they contact the officers to give you a codeword designated by you, or what?
No, I don’t need an answer fast, and I’m putting this in GQ because I expect there’s a procedure.
It’s a little trickier with a federal agency, but aince you also asked about police, that one is easy. The dispatchers will know whete their units are and what they are doing. If you call 911 and ask if there are copa at your address serving a warrant or something, they will be able to answer that for you.
I work as a supervisor in a 9-1-1 center.
Procedure likely varies from one location to the next.
The Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) may have the ability to locate police vehicles and/or officers using tracking technology that operates over the cell network or other radio spectrum. In that way the PSAP could verify presence of police at the given location.
The radio dispatcher may simply recognize the voice of the officer and be able to make radio contact to verify location. This works for very small centers where all officers are known to the dispatchers, but can also work in very large centers where the radio dispatchers deal with a subset of officers on a particular beat patrol.
There are other options too. And yes, even a caller supplied password may be used in certain circumstances.
Only on the Dope!
What about Federal Marshals serving a warrant on a fugitive or the DEA getting ready to bust down the door of a meth lab? Would 911 know they were there or even if they did would they be required to inform the people on the phone about it? Or would they say go ahead and open up, it’s your friend Dave.
Federal officers serving warrants or conducting otherwise potentially alarming operations are supposed to inform local law enforcement of their presence when possible.
It doesn’t always work out perfectly.
Over the last decade or so, deconfliction systems have been being used in metropolitan areas to make sure that when Fed Agency shows up they don’t exchange fire with locals working on the same address (it happens).
IME, 911 isn’t generally going to know much (at least in a large metro area); I know we never told them what we were up to (we were Feds). Frankly, that’s because just because you have a badge/work as a dispatcher/etc, doesn’t mean we trust you to not get us hurt.
Translator working on a wiretap that involved her boyfriend? Yup… that kind of thing happened; very surprising to hit the door and see him wearing a T-shirt with our agency’s logo on it…
Indeed, which is why a sensible person doesn’t accept that you are the real deal just because you’re wearing logoed gear. A sensible person checks.
Dave’s not here man.
And what do officers do in this event? After all, in America the person allegedly calling 911 could be getting her machine gun. Or calling 911 while someone else gets firearms, disposes of evidence, or whatever.
And how long should someone calling 999 / 911 give them to identify that the officers outside are real before acting in self defence? The putative officers are acting aggressively, remember.
Edit: Or what if the ‘officers’ outside don’t respect the person calling 911?