A lot of police departments will simply redirect you to 911 if you call the non-emergency line for something like that. It has become such that the non-emergency lines, in many places, are only used for administrative purposes or reaching an officer... Dispatch is handled through 911.

That's what I was told when I lived in a small town, anyway.

That is 100% completely untrue and incorrect. Small town or not, every PD and FD has a non-emergency number and your call will be routed to a dispatcher. <edit> Doesn't mean you will speak with a dispatcher directly, but your call will get there.</edit>

I'd appreciate it if you could cite a credible source for that statement. If anything, all agencies are looking for a way to prevent this type of abuse. Fines have been a topic of discussion but tabled because they don't want to discourage people from reporting actual emergencies.

It is a serious problem and one that needs to be solved. The 911 systems that are failing are because of unwarranted call volumes. Response to actual emergencies are being delayed because the public thinks 911 is the answer to everything, and it's not. It's for emergency use only. Simple as that.

Hint: You talking to someone who knows better, and knows the facts.

I can see your point, but you are out-to-lunch on this one or in the Twilight Zone. I was there, you were not.

Background:

I served for 10 years on this Fire Dept. and know not to "tie up" the emergency line:

http://tristatefire.org/

This is pre- 9-1-1 days:

When I first got married, we were busted, broke, after making a down payment on our first house [ mid 1970's]. To get extra money I use to work in the dispatch center on my "off" days to make some extra bucks. I use to get all kinds of off-the-wall calls. Funniest one was someone calling in to our fire department wanting to come out and fix their toilet that was over flowing - what the ?

I am FULLY aware that are NON-emergency numbers to ALL departments - police and fire having worked in one for 9 years. Have you worked in one and have more years of service then me?

The three 9-1-1 calls that I made, I CLEARLY made my point to the cell phone operator that my situation was NOT an emergency, but I did need to speak to someone at the Hinsdale, IL Police Dept. WHERE they connect me to is THEIR job and RESPONSIBILTY. Having worked part-time in a dispatch center, I am fully aware of the abuses to the 9-1-1 center. I made it CLEAR to the operator that I wanted a non-emergency avenue.

On a postive note, I do like to collect 9-1-1 calls as a side hobby.

My two Favorites - the first one just cracks me up - I enjoy it:

http://learnabit.homeserver.com/lab/math911.wmv

and, this guy said the wrong thing:

http://learnabit.homeserver.com/lab/911_operator_screws_up.wmv

So your point is MUTE and not appreciated.

It's what I heard through the grapevine, I don't have a credible source. The local PD / FD / EMS where I've lived in the last fifteen years have essentially stopped advertising their non-emergency numbers; that probably contributed to the rumor. I don't even know the local police non-emergency number in my hometown (I used to know it, but we went through a municipal restructuring, so...)

That's probably part of the problem, from my point of view. I heard a few years ago that some communities were implanting 311 for non-emergency, do you know why that didn't become more widespread?

(Edit: Just found out 311's available in my home town. For the last three years. Great information campaign, there.)

Then you of all people should know better.


I did local law enforcement for five years and federal for three before getting injured in the line of duty and medically retired. I also served on a multi-agency panel trying to come up with viable solutions to solve the 911 abuse problem for Los Angles County.

Hopefully this will never happen to you or anyone here, but picture yourself looking down at a loved one suffering or dying, you dial 911 and get put on hold for 5 minutes while the operator is answering calls about someone who hit a parked car, locked themselves out of their car, or their toilet is overflowing.

If anything, all you just did was reinforce my point. You know better, and knew better before you made the call.

WHY?

Simple, ALL 9-1-1 calls are recorded, date stamped, time stamped etc. so the town/village/city can do a PYA and have their ducks inline with the lawyer representing their town. Virtually NO ONE in the towns/cities records the non-emergency calls.

Found this out on the NON-Emergency line to our PD compalining about the next door neighbor was throwing crap into the street. They told me to hang up and call 9-1-1. Made no sense to me. Dial 9-1-1 for garbage in the street? - Scratches her bald spot!

Hugs and Kisses !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WE are on the SAME page. Yea, we too, have 3-1-1 non-emergency call sevice.

MothBalls, sorry to see of your misfortunes - now I feel like a twerp for the rip!

Sorry ;)

Yea, hear ya load and clear.

This is what made me quit in 1980:

Was assigned to ambulance duty at that time. Got the alarms ringing for a person on the road, unresponsive and went there. I was 30 something at the time. Saw the guy on the ground when we got there. Saw purple fluid coming from his ears - that is spinal fluid - knew it was hopeless. Took him to the hospital to be pronounced dead. He got married about 10 days before the call, came back from their honeymoon, and was a victum of a hit and run while walking his new bride's dog. That did it for me. I quit and found another carrer in inspecting fire sprinkler systems for a comapny for the next 20 years. I have no nightmares, but 30 years later, I remember exactly how we found this poor guy - still bugs me. Not the guy that died - the driver that HIT HIM and just simply ... drove away.

Just wanted to say sorry, didn't mean to jump you. I guess you can understand how one incident can change your life. Sometimes you read/see/hear things that strike a nerve. This one did.

When I was working the street there were three incidents that stuck with me because being there a few minutes earlier would have made the difference. I won't go into details except to say that one was a 4 year old child and a few minutes would have made the difference. His grandmother told us she was on hold for 14 minutes before talking to an operator. We were 4 blocks away and our response time was less than 2 minutes.

That's why I volunteered to serve on the 911 solutions panel when I heard about it. They were soliciting input from multiple agencies and jurisdictions to come up with possible solutions. I worked this project on my own time, talking with people, writing documentation, etc. One of our recommendations was to give the operator the ability to immediately transfer non emergency calls to an automated call center. There were 100's of ideas that got canned, from fines, penalties, and my idea of reading them the riot act in 5 languages then sending 10,000 volts down the phone line. I don't know why they canned my idea, a bunch of us really liked it.

Oh, and the line "then you of all people should know better". I got pulled over by a CHP officer for doing 75 in a 55 in my POV. When he asked for my license, I just happened to let me creds slip open. He looked at it, asked me "are you a cop?". I said "why yes I am" hoping he might show me some professional courtesy. He said "well, you of all people should know better" and then he wrote me a speeding ticket. He told me he was planning on giving me a warning, until he saw my badge.

Me too MothBalls - SORRY ;) . We have both served the public. They have NO CLUE on how we work to protect/save them from harm.

I do RESPECT your comments.

Speaking of Mothballs, have you ever entered a bathroom and said "jeez this bathroom smells like moth balls".

My response is: "I never got that close to to a Moth to smell his balls."

:D :D :D

My repair tag to fix my truck is now approaching $3,000 over a hit-and-run driver.

My intent was to say "THANKS" to the local police for finding the dingle-ling that hit me.

Police Officers are GREAT guys/gals to know.

Police = Nice folks!

If there any Police Officers playing SH3/SH4 you have my HIGHEST respects for taking the extra mile.

I was LUCKY to have a police officer who took the time to make an extra effort.

Nah, MAJOR problem that the average John/Jane Doe is BLIND to:

MothBalls you got BIG BALLS and are so right on.

Thank you for your comments. Maybe one person [here] will realize 9-1-1 is NOT the answer to all your problems.

I think we have the same kind of problem in many countries...

3 weeks before my wedding, my wife to be was out jogging. She has some allergies, but they have never been anything other than a discomfort.
This day she must have swallowed something, because she started to feal bad - really fast.
Luckily she was close to her parents house and went inside.
All she could say at this point was "Ambulance-ambulance" to her farther.
He called 112 (our emergency number) and reported to the situation.
(The hospital is just 1,5 mile from where they live)
They waited 5-10 min.
At this point she began to have trouble breathing and her face has swollen.
He had to call them again to make it clear that this was REALLY an emergency!

5 min later the ambulance came and gave her adrenalin and took her to the hospital...

A close call :dead:

Wouldn't it solve the problem to put a few more men to the emergency phone lines? I mean I don't think you can get the people to change their abuse of emergency calls, so the system has to evolve (otherwise a lot of people will pay the price for too slow responding times). In a stress situation one is sometimes not thinking clearly (a car accident, even one where only a parked car gets hit, can place some people into some real stress because they don't know what to do now) and this might add to the non emergency calls. So if the call centers weren't under crewed this would solve the problem wouldn't it? This doesn't have to be fully trained police officers but people who can answer calls and redirect the emergencies to the dispatcher while solving non emergencies themselves.

But this is again a question of money....:down:

Wow, this situation really sucks. I'm hoping it never happens to me. I was wondering if maybe Hinsdale's weird location partly in Cook and mostly in DuPage counties had anything to do with it. Its a bit out there, but those dispatchers are definately idiots regardless. A friend of mine had a similar issue recently with an accident on the Tri State tollway. He first had trouble getting the State Police dispatcher, and then the moron told the responding trooper that he was in a tractor trailer (his interpretation of an Audi TT) meaning that it took an hour of waiting on the side of the expressway for him to be found, and the trooper himself had to call him to figure out that he was indeed not in an 18 wheeler, but a german sports car. Idiots!

DAMN BUBBA - you got it right !!!

I was parked at Ninth Street and County Line Road. [55th Street and County Line Road]. 90% of Hinsdale is in DuPage County the other 10% is in Cook County. I NEVER thought of this to now. I was smack dab on the street on the road that splits the town between the two counties. I DID make the phone calls from both sides of the street [County Line Road]. Man! now all the confusion makes sense!!!

Yea, that Fire Dept that I worked on for ten years has a bad name - Tri-State Fire Protection District considering the Tri-State tollway [I-294] runs one mile through it. It protects the towns of Burr Ridge, Darien, and Willowbrook, IL.

To this day, people think think the 50 miles of I-294 has its own fire department. ;)

A Fire DISTRICT in Illinois is its own governing body - reports to NO ONE but the county board. A Fire DEPARTMENT reports to it village/town/city's MAYOR and is a BRANCH of that towns government. Confusing for the average John/Jane Doe but there are 1,000's of them [fire DISTRICTS] in the USA.