Human stupidity never ceases it suprises me.
Good on you for calling.
I’ve done the same, except it was Sam’s club.
Huh? Look in your phone book for “Police Dept, Non-emergency” It’s the number that you call if have a question for them that isn’t an emergency (Which side of the street do I park on at night? I’m running a charity, could you donate some money? Someone knocked down my mailbox, can you send an officer over to take a report? Those kinds of things).
Depending on where you live, it’s quite possible that the schmucks answering the non-emergency line are the same schmucks answering the 911 lines. I am one such schmuck. The only difference between the regular lines and the 911 lines as far as we’re concerned is that the 911 lines give us the caller’s location and phone number. Usually. Plus they have a very loud and grating ringtone.
Can’t speak for all agencies of course (I work in Hooterville and there’s never much going on), but we wouldn’t think twice about taking a 911 call involving a dumbass endangering an animal. It’s better than all the 911 calls we get whenever there’s a power outage. Glad it ended well.
Good for you!
They do in my city as well. I’ve used them interchangeably. Last summer I got a call from my dad that the alarm at work was going off and I needed to go and meet the police at the store to let them in. Now, when that happens, the cops like to know when I’ll be there and what type of car I’ll have so they know it’s me and not just a passerby trying to see what’s going on (it’s a small town so it’s not unusual to have three or four cops in the parking lot with their lights on when I get there, it attracts a lot of attention). I called the non-emergency number and got their answering machine, so I called 911. She seemed…annoyed and asked that in the future I call the non-emergency number…until I explained that I know she answers both phones herself and I would happily call the NE number but she didn’t pick it up when I tried.
Good for you St Germain! I think too many people “mind their own business” on stuff like this b/c it’s “just an animal.” No, it’s a living breathing creature that could die a torturous death; that’s everybody’s business.
I’ve only called 911 twice, and it was for obvious, veering, lane-swerving drunk or impaired drivers that I feared would kill somebody…but if I saw an animal in a car in summer I would call, too.
And I’ve also called the non-emergency number so I know it exists. 
(I was about to leave the bar I work at when I noticed a strange car with a strange guy in it, sitting within 20 feet of my car. This is at like 4 in the morning. It made me nervous so I called non-emergency to ask if they could send somebody out when they weren’t busy. The cop was there, lights flashing, within 3 minutes, and the creep had fled. The cop was very pleasant and told me to call anytime, because he’d rather show up to walk somebody to their car than show up at a crime scene.)
Where I live, there is no non-emergency number, as I said before. All calls have to go through 911. There are numbers in the phone book for the detective bureau and business office, but if you call those numbers and don’t have a specific person to talk to regarding a specific case #, they connect you to the 911 operator or tell you to hang up and call 911. The only way they can dispatch is through the 911 operator.
Where I work, it’s a small jurisdiction and they don’t publish ANY numbers in the phone book besides 911. The only way you’re going to get a direct extension to anyone there is if it’s given to you.
I realize that many departments still have non-emergency numbers and if you know that number, you should probably dial it if it’s not a dire emergency, but in this day and age of cell phones and a lack of phone books (who carries the yellow pages in their car?), I seriously doubt any police department would have a problem with someone calling 911 to reach the police.
San Jose has 311. But yes, quite a few have only 911 unless you happen to have the # of Dispatch or something.
It’s Ok to call 911 in this case, unless your city does have a 311 line.
In our county, if an officer is going to be (or might be) dispatched, it goes through 911.
Good job, St. Germain.
You must have nice police where you live. I called last summer when I saw our neighbor break our window at 2 a.m. They did not charge her, and they charged me with misuse of 911.
That said, why on earth can’t these people leave their dogs at home?
Yep. Absolutely the right thing to do. We have people who call 911 like it’s 411, call to say they’ve finished dinner @ the nursing home,and call to report a plugged up toidy; don’t even get me started on the hang-ups, misdials and mobile butt-dials.
This was an actionable thing that was being monitored and was dealt with appropriately on both ends. Inform the pros and let them handle it.
Good job.
???
The 911 operator and the policeman disagrees with you. Evidenced by the fact that the operator followed up on the call instead of disregarding it, and the officer hung around instead of just saying ‘this isn’t an emergency’ and then going to the local donut shop.
Plus - oftentimes one doesn’t know the local police or animal control number. But everyone knows 911, where they can reroute the call as appropriate.
Good call IMO. I probably would have consided calling the regular police number, wouldn’t have known what that number is (who has that memorized?) and would have then walked off out of fear of getting in trouble for calling 911.
FWIW I had a similar experience when I came across a dog trapped in an irrigation canal. (For those unfamiliar with them, they’re meant to move water around, not barges or boats. As such they’re not particularly deep or wide, but you can die if you fall into one.) The dog was sitting on a piece of debris and could not climb the steep bank to get out. Likewise, I could not climb to him or reach him in any way. I was jogging so had little with me but my cell phone.
I called 911 and led off with “I don’t know if this qualifies as an emergency but…” and explained the situation. The dispatcher assured me it was a proper use of the system, sent out a cop, who called for animal control when he couldn’t figure out how to save it either. Animal control used one of those loop poles to snag it and pull it up.
I had a similar experience last summer in a parking lot. I live in Arizona and am a MAJOR dog lover. It was about 110 and the car windows were cracked about an inch.
The dog was a largish terrier and what caught my attention was that the car was pulsing. Since I don’t use hallucinogenics, I didn’t figure I was seeing things. The dog was panting so hard it was rocking the car.
I called 911 and told them what was going on. The operator said he’d send a car and animal control out right away. I said I’d wait by the car, then the operator surprised me by saying, “If it looks as though the dog’s condition is deteriorating before the officers get there, break the window out yourself and tend to it.”
I asked if that would get me in any kind of trouble and he said, “If you broke somebody’s ribs trying to give them CPR you wouldn’t get charged with assault. Good samaritan is good samaritan as far as we’re concerned.”
I stayed by the car and talked to the dog through the window. His panting never changed, but I was only going to wait a couple more minutes before getting him out. Happily, the cop showed up, broke the window, got the dog out and gave him water. Apparently plastic water bowls are standard issue for Phoenix cop cars. Who knew? Animal control showed up a few minutes later and said they were going to take the dog to their emergency center for assessment.
When the owner came out she laid into the cop for damaging her car. Didn’t even ask if the dog was okay or seem the least bit concerned about him. The cop advised her about AZ’s felony animal cruelty law and assured her she would be charged, misdemeanor if the dog turned out to be okay, felony if it didn’t. I don’t know how things turned out.
What? On what basis did they charge YOU with reporting a crime?