9-1-1 Calls of the Week

There are Some Real Idiots Out There on the Roads

2011-01-16T14:29:00.001-08:00

We had our "change over" days this weekend. That's the week/couple days where we switch from the schedule we've been working the last 4 months, to the one we will work for the next 4.

Ordinarily there isn't much change since we don't require that people rotate their shifts. So it goes by senioritiy and except for a couple of small changes near the bottom of the seniority list, there isn't much movement.

This wasn't the case for this bid and change over. Two supervisors were demoted and they came back into the room with all their seniority intact. I KNOW!

Anway, that caused quite a bit of controversy but beside that, one of them is at the top of the seniority list. Once she bid the day shift she wanted, everyone else had to shuffle from the person who had been bidding first all the way down to the 17th person. Needless to say, there was quite a bit of movement this time.

So one of my dispatchers that was moving to days from graveyard shift was rushing into work on Saturday, her first on her new shift. She was running a little bit behind so she was using the speed limit more like a guideline than an actual rule.

Seventy-eight in a 55 is what she said she was doing. Most of her drive is highway and at 5 in the morning on a weekend, there aren't many other cars on the road.

She's making good time, and probably going to be early for her shift instead of late when she glances in the rearview and sees a pair of headlights coming up behind her very fast.

"At that point, I was thinking, 'That guy is an idiot. I'm doing almost 80 mph and he's gonna pass me like I'm standing still. What is this moron's problem?'"

That was when the headlights, which seemed to appear out of nowhere settled in behind her and the state trooper flipped on his overheads to let her know she was being pulled over for speeding.

Glad that she could laugh at the irony. And glad she shared the story with everyone at work!

For the Troops

2011-01-07T21:36:00.000-08:00

This is part of a weekly staff notes we're emailing to our dispatchers. The Department has had a tough time of late, and there's more than enough low self esteem to go around. But changes are coming. Some of them have started already.

So the question is how to get people who were hurt by the whole thing, and who are naturally a little cynical and, on top of that, trained to be suspicious and not accept things at face value to buy in to the way up from here.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

To start, we want to clean up our conversations—make them constructive and progressive instead of harping on the negatives of the past. If anyone is observed doing this, they will be counseled by their supervisor and it will be reflected in their evaluations as a failure to meet the standard for promoting a courteous and professional work environment. It’s one thing to blow off a bit of steam after a frustrating call, but to go on about it for minutes or hours is not acceptable.

The supervisors are committed to communicating better and following up with your concerns to get resolution as soon as possible. But those concerns must be raised in a professional manner. Complaining aloud in the room about an issue or event well after it has passed is not a professional way to address a concern.

I want this to be a great place to work. I think we all do. The supervisors do. Vicki does. The Deputy Chiefs and the Chief all do. The people who rely on you when they call 911 need it to be a great comm center.
So tell me, “What is missing?” Of all the factors that would make this a great place to work, which ones are lacking? The compensation is fair, benefits are good. We’ve got comfortable work spaces. We save people every day: sometimes from the bad guys, sometimes from themselves. Every day we answer calls from people who need something only we can do. Be proud of that. Take pride in the fact that some of the phone calls that would scare a regular person right out of their mind are the ones you can’t wait to get. The suicide threats, the domestics, the bitter, angry, confused, terrified, helpless people you’ll call back when they hang up so that you can do what it is you’ve been trained to do—so you can do the thing that only you are able to do.

It’s an amazing job. It’s rewarding. It’s meaningful. It supports our families, and as far as I’m concerned, there are no other people I’d rather be working with.

So what, then, is missing? What do we need to make dispatch a place where people look forward to coming to work? What will it take to get to a place where people are proud to say they are a dispatcher for the Arvada Police? Where our reputation as an employer is so good that people envy us for working here?

You know what I think? I think the thing that really is missing—of all the things that will make Dispatch a great place to work—it’s not the pay. It’s not the temperature or the technology. It’s not the officers being nicer or the citizens being smarter.

It’s the people who work here believing it can be just that. Just believing it.

When the person working with you starts to complain, don’t jump on the bandwagon. We’re not asking you to tell them to stop. The supervisors will do that. Just don’t join them. Let them shout at the wind all they want.

But when something good happens…when you hear your partner, your teammate, do something exceptional, tell them. When you see something good happening in the department whether in the room, in patrol, among the command staff, or where ever: get on that bandwagon. Be good peer pressure for each other. Applaud each other. Encourage and help each other.

Commit with us, now, to do this—and we’re almost there. Let’s just be that agency: The one that doesn’t complain about our command staff when we go to training classes; the agency that talks about the triumphs of our co-workers behind their backs instead of tearing them down. The agency everyone else wishes they could be a part of.

Irony in High Heels

2011-01-01T13:50:00.000-08:00

I love the winter weather, but combine that with lots of people trying to make their inebriated way home from New Year's celebrations last night, and you've got a lot of hit and run accidents to clean up in the morning.

Fortunately, the weather was really really cold. And those intrepid souls who thought they could walk home after ditching their disabled cars didn't get away completely scott free.

I took a call early this morning from a home owner who awoke to find a car sized-whole in the fence around her back yard. The car was gone, though, and the graveyard shift didn't have any accidents in that area that they worked last night.

It's sad. I know. It's also one of my pet peeves: people who destroy property and don't take responsibility for their actions. Fortunately, mother nature shares my ideas on responsibility and didn't let this driver get home without leaving her own mark.

About 4 hours after the initial report, a woman called in saying the accident had been her fault. Of course, she also had a 10 min explanation of why she hadn't called the police right at that moment and decided to walk several blocks to a gas station to call for a ride.

Thanks to mother nature, and a female penchant for not wearing sensible shoes in negative windchill, she's got a little frostbite to remind her to never leave the scene of the accident.

A Jealous God

2010-11-08T10:09:00.000-08:00

There are, I guess, some souls born too precious. God calls them home-back to His side, for He cannot bear to be parted from them.

Made a tape this morning of a family who called 9-1-1 when they discovered their 7 month old son was called to Heaven while he slept.

Tough day.

Halloween...

2010-10-31T11:02:00.000-07:00

It's Halloween 2010.
We got a call from probably the leading news channel in Denver this morning. Someone in the city has sent them a cell phone pic of a house with crime scene tape on it.
So one of their intrepid crime / police beat reporters called us to ask if we were working any kind of major events in the area.
The call taker says, "um no. are you sure it's not just halloween decorations?"
The reporter apologizes and hangs up the phone.
I wish we could have told him there was reports of a warewolf loose in the area.

We've already had half a dozen or more calls asking when Halloween starts, or when can people go trick or treating. They'll just get better. maybe there will be some edits to this post with some good calls from later in the evening.

Weird

2010-09-25T10:04:00.000-07:00

Today we got a pair of calls that were noteworthy for their similarities. We recieved both around 11am about 10 minutes apart.

Both were suicide attempts. One was successful and one was not.

The events were completely unrelated, and the streets were about 30 blocks apart, but the house numbers were the same. Just weird.

WHOA!

2010-06-11T17:15:00.000-07:00

Two DUI calls at the same time with RP (reporting parties following) capped off with a nice traffic altercation near the more unsavoryof King Soopers in our great city.

What is it about storms that makes people say to themselves..."Hmm. I think I'll get shitfaced and go driving around."?

okay...followed by a 911 call for a woman who was at Pomona High School and was looking for their football stadium

"Give me just a moment ma'am while I consult my Life-and-Death-Emergency High School Events Schedule. Wait a sec...I didn't issued one of those probably cause they don't make them."

It's Been a Slow Month

2010-05-02T08:42:00.001-07:00

But today we had someone call the non-emergency line because they heard some suspicious noises last night. They thought they were fireworks. This morning, when they woke up, the found shell casings in the street in front of their house.

Yet again, another example of 1 to zero calls on actual gunshots. If we do get a call on it, it almost always turns out to be fireworks.

The Twilight Zone

2010-03-28T15:55:00.000-07:00

"baby daddy" used as a pronoun today "I, you, he, she, it, baby daddy, we, you, they, baby daddies--maybe they didn't have a direct translation for that in the Latin.

That woman was trying to report a disturbance that her brother was trying to avoid, but the way she described it, I had no idea who was fighting who, or who wanted to fight who.

"My brother's girlfriend's brother and baby daddy are trying to hurt my brother. They in a car that her brother's mom's or wait, his car was, it was her mom's car. Anyways...it's a white saturn."

This RP (reporting party) also used the word "ain'tin" as in, "There ain'tin nothin' I can do about it?" Sometimes you just wish there were minimum intelligence standards for dialing 9-1-1. I've heard 4 year olds save lives on the phone, but they were intellectual giants compared to this woman.

Later in the day a woman wanted the police to come and ask someone to turn down their stereo. It was being played too loudly, and the station to which it was tuned had "illicit" [sic] lyrics. The caller asked the person to turn it down but they refused.

The caller was afraid that if she pushed any harder to get the person to change the station to something a little less offensive, a fight would start.

Who would do that? Who would play music laced with obscenities so loud that it could cause this kind, little old lady, just home from church, no doubt, to have to say something? And then tell her to go away and that the channel wouldn't be changed as long as they were outside doing the yard work today?

Who would do that?

The caller's 20 yo daughter who lives in her own house. That's who. My RP was calling to report a noise disturbance coming from her own house.

911 Education

2010-03-20T15:17:00.001-07:00

Last Friday I had the pleasure of helping teach a 911 Program for kindergarten students. The program was an hour long. We introduced ourselves to the students, and then started a 15 min video with puppets talking about the things you'll need to know when you call 911. After the video we'd go back over the two most important things that the 6 year-olds would need to know if they ever had to call 911.

1) Your location: for the kids we tell them to learn their address because that is the place from which they are most likely to call 911. Mom or Dad suffer an accident and can't get to the phone or tragically some kind of disturbance occurs in the home and a parent or care taker is incapacitated. Six-year-olds generally don't leave the house unaccompanied, so it is unlikely that they'd have to figure out an address of some place other than their own house.

Also, if we know the address where help is needed, we can send police, fire, and medical all at once even if we don't know the exact nature of the emergency. We will get help there.

If, however, we can't figure out where they are, well, help might not get there. So the address is the most important thing to be able to give the 911 operator.

Technology does help some. Land line phones are usually loaded into a database that is connected to the 911 system so that your address is retrievable by the operator if needs be. Sometimes, these can be input incorrectly, or old address records could be attached to the new phone number you just got, and help could be sent to the wrong address.

Cell phones, do not show an address to which they are connected, and it takes several extra steps, and several extra minutes for dispatchers to hunt down the provider, call them and ask them for the subscribers' home address (assuming the emergency is happening there--usually we just go to the house hoping they are there, and if not, hoping that someone there knows where the person having the emergency might be) Most phones have gps location or systems that use the towers to triangulate the locations of the phone so if the line is open long enough, and it is still on, we can sometimes get the location of the phone by asking the phone system to transmit it's location.

In extreme cases, we can "ping" a phone. This means to use the towers that a cell phone is connecting to (even when it is not making a call) to ask for the phone's location. This only works if the phone is turned on. And it goes through the cell service provider which takes lots of time. Personally, I know of at least 1 case where a person threatening suicide actually committed suicide while dispatchers were dealing with cumbersome processes of faxing requests to and from the cell provider to get the phone's location.

2) Your Phone Number: Sometimes, in the middle of a call, the call can be dropped. Either the phone is dropped or unplugged or in the case of cell phones, signals are lost and the dispatchers connection to the scene is lost. Hopefully, we've gotten the address first and help is already on the way. But in the case of in-progress calls, we like to stay on the line to relay further information to the responding officers or medical, or fire personnel. If we have your phone number, we can always call you back to get more information.

I say this because most of the 6 year-olds we were teaching were able to, after just 30 minutes, tell me what the two most important pieces of information for the 911 operator were, and if they didn't know their own address or phone number, were able to express that they would tell their parent(s) to teach them those things.

So today I get a call from a 16 year-old. NOT a 6 yo, a 16 year old, who didn't know his own address. At the end of the call, I did ask him his age, and I hope that he picked up on the the incredulous tone to my voice because I did my best to let it come through.

The Somnilarcenist

2010-02-14T10:17:00.000-08:00

New legal defense: "I have 'mini-seizures' where I walk out of stores with out paying for things. But I'm completely unaware of doing it. I don't think I can be held liable for shoplifting if it occurs during one of my seizures."

So a guy calls today wanting legal advice. I told him I can't really give legal advice per se. But that I was familiar with many of our city statutes and if I couldn't answer his question, I could probably point him in the right direction.

His question was this: If someone has a seizure in public, can they be ticketed for mischief if they know they have seizures and are currently taking medication to prevent them?

A co-worker told me she had dealt with this caller before and he is one of those litigious types that got caught stealing from a store but was contesting the ticket he got --and counter-suing (along with a team of lawyers) because he had these mini-seizures where he didn't know what he was doing.

I wanted to tell him that he probably shouldn't go shopping...ever--if that was indeed the case. But, that's the kind of thing that turns "dispatchers" into "former dispatchers." So I bit my tongue.

I was a little concerned that he would ask me what that sound was in the background and I'd have to answer that was the sound of me rolling my eyes uncontrollably. But he didn't so we were able to make it through the rest of the call.

In the end I ended up telling him that wether or not he would be charged would ultimately be up to the officer that responded in the case of the sleep-larceny, but that for just having a seizure in public there weren't really any statutes that would be used against someone. Now if there was damage done to someone elses property, or items stolen, then there might be some kind of liability for that.

As for criminal charges, it would be up to the officer. So he thanked me and hung up the phone.

Wow. I feel like people are trying to do anything they can to prove they aren't responsible for their actions. I guess I feel just the opposite. On tv there are all kinds of crime dramas where someone tries to argue they are temporarily insane or incompetent to stand trial and either permanantly or temporarily lack the ability to tell right from wrong.

They use this as a reason why they should NOT be incarcerated. I say if you are incapable of telling the difference b/n right and wrong...you SHOULD be locked up until you CAN.

Not Different Calls, but a Different Me

2010-01-18T21:08:00.000-08:00

Calls this morning, minutes after hitting the chair:

first came in as a 911 hang up. That's what we call it when someone dials 911 and hangs up before we answer. what a lot of people don't realize is that the phone company completes that call anyways, and the caller ID information is transmitted to the police department. When the call-taker picks up the phone on their end and says, "911 what's your emergency?" they are greeted by a dial tone.

In most call centers, the standard procedure is to call the number back if one comes through on the ANI/ALI relay. In the event the call came from a house phone (so the caller id includes an address) we will send an officer if we don't get an answer on the call back to the house.

So when I got a dial tone on a call this morning, I "dumped" the info into my call screen and typed, "911 HANGUP...ON CALL BACK...."

Ringing...kept ringing...and kept ringing.... I was about to put the call in with the notes..."NO ANSWER ON CALL BACK."

Then someone picked up. A man.

"this is Russell from the police department. I just received a 911 call from this line what's going on there?

man: Well something's going on here. so you probably did get a call.

"What is going on, sir?

man: I just got a little worked up and went after my wife. Here talk to her.

"Hello?"

The wife gets on the phone.

wife: hello?

"Hi, this is Russell from the police department, what's going on there?"

(By this time, officers were already on the way.)

I won't even get into the rest of it. It's painfully cliche'. He hit her, I don't know how many times, but she didn't want him to get in trouble. She was even telling him to get in the car and leave before we got there.

He was a vet dealing with PTSD, and non-compliant with meds so he sometimes lashed out. I kept telling her that despite her protestations we were coming, officers were on their way and getting even closer.

It didn't make her angry. but she was despairing. The hardest part was hearing the 7 yo in the background absolutely distraught, crying the whole time because she felt she was going to lose her father.

I overheard the father telling her to go to her room, and the mother trying to explain that she was scared and she just wanted to hug him.

The recording was only 4 minutes long, but it felt like one of the longest calls I've ever taken.

Almost right after that, I get a call from a woman who was walking her dog when a tween girl comes running and screaming down the street. She was barefoot, and nearly incoherent. The caller didn't know if she had been attacked or if she was lost or hurt in some kind of accident or what.

The girl was telling the caller, in bits and pieces, that her bed had been moved, that she woke up in her closet, and her mom was missing. She was sobbing in the background. Eventually, we were able to find out that the girl's mother had recently passed. She probably did wake up in the closet in her house, just a few doors down, but she had no recollection of how she got there.

She had a small cut on one foot from running down the street without shoes.

I spent the next hour or so looking at pictures of my daughter on my phone an stored on my computer: wishing I could be home chasing her around our coffee table, turning her upside down and tickling her and laughing.

This job is what I love to do. I'm not bad at it. But it did get a lot harder when I came back to it after becoming a father.

Just When I Thought it Was Safe to Pick up the Phone

2010-01-09T11:34:00.000-08:00

So it's been a while since my last place post, but I got a great call today!

me: Police Dept, this is Russell.

caller: ah yeah. I'm trying to figure out how I should approach this. I lived in Denver for about 30 years and I ran across this practicing witch that did something to me
and I came back to wichita, ks, here, and I've had mental problems and physical problems, heart attacks, strokes, uh, gall bladder attacks, liver problems. uh and it's..

me: hold on sec for me. Okay, where was this?

Caller: Arvada

me: And how long ago?

Caller: Uh this was like 15 years ago but my health is getting worse and uh, apparently i'm supposed to call and turn in some dealer or something--which I don't know anything about. just that he's the possible one that worked in a bar, uh, there, called the Rear Inn.

Caller: The problems I'm havin' are getting worse. As far as I know this should stop it, (By this I think he meant that turning in the drug dealer, he would break the curse, but at this point I was mostly listening to hear what other strange things that might come over the line.) but if not, I'm gonna have to get a lawyer and some police departments...I've tried the FBI, but since I was doing drugs back then they said it was all mental.

Me: Okay...,

Caller: But I know its not

Me: Okay.

Caller: so no one wants to prosecute this gal because... i'm... it's...it's probably hard to find out if they are doing witch craft of black magic or whatever you wanna talk about.

Me: Yeah.

Caller: But i'm dying here. I'm gonna get to where I can't work.

Me: ...And you live in Wichita?

Caller: Yeah.

Me: Have you called your local police department? [This is me trying to pass the buck.]

Caller: Yeah. and they said it was mental. I tried to get a hold of the FBI and I couldn't get past the secretary.

Me: Okay. Yeah. See, the problem is, we really don't have any...there's no criminal statute we could employ to prosecute them.

Caller: Yeah. I know. that's the hard thing. I don't know how to go about getting rid of this, this problem. when I, when I let her live with me, within 2 weeks, they already had the police sayin' that I stole her merchandise and stuff.

Me: Okay...

Caller: So they had something on me. I don't know what it was, er...

Me: Hmm. yeah. there's not really anything we would be able to do for you sir.

Caller: Alright so I guess i'm going to have to get some kind of disability lawyer or something and retire early.

Me: Sounds like it. And you'll probably have to prove your disability is work related... but you've already said it isn't.

Caller: Oh no. It's witchcraft.

Caller: So I'm barkin up a tree.

Me: Yeah. I guess if that's your belief system, you could try and find someone that would do something for you to counteract that.

Caller: Yeah. well, that's what I was trying to see. to see if there was someone that actually believed me and knew what was going on. I mean, you see on tv all the time, these psychics and stuff.

Me: Not necessarily through the police dept. we wouldn't have any resource like that.

Caller: Yeah i know. Um...uh...Gang Related, and stuff like that I know. (I have no idea what the movie has to do with this guy's situation, but whatever...) Alright. I figured I'd try.

Me: No problem. You have a good day sir.

Caller: You too. Bye.

Okay, This one's for you, Katrina

2009-12-24T23:23:00.000-08:00

me: 911 what's your emergency?

caller: my son. he broke his hand.

me: he broke his hand?

caller: yes. his fingers. He was playing video games and he fell.

me: How old is he?

caller: 17.

me: Okay, I'm going to get some preliminary information and then I'm going to send you on to medical.

Question: how violent are video games when you can get broken fingers just playing them!!!

A Dispatcher Walks into a Dumb Question...

2009-12-21T11:17:00.000-08:00

Me: 911 what's your emergency?

caller: yeah, my wife needs a transport.

me: okay.

caller: we need an ambulance to take her to the hospital.

me: sure, what's your address?

[no answer]

me: sir, what's your address?

(wait for it...)

caller: It's just that she's feeling really weak and not getting around too good.

me: Oh, yeah. I understand. We can get some help out there. Where is she?

[no answer]

Me: hello?

(wait for it...)

caller: yeah?

(here it comes...)

me: What address is the ambulance going to?

caller: The hospital.

me: where are they picking your wife up?

[no answer]

me: sir?

caller: yes?}

me: WHAT's YOUR ADDRESS? (it gets all caps because I had to yell)

Finally he gives me an address and I can send him onto medical....

I knew he was going to say the hospital as soon as the words got passed my lips. oh well, he could only hear about half of what I said so I was glad to get that. live and learn.

A Little Jealous

2009-12-20T08:06:00.000-08:00

I'm a little bit jealous because I didn't actually take these calls, but I overheard the dispatcher that did, and she told me about the caller's end of the conversation later.

dispatch: Okay. Where are you? [Pause] 90th and Wads? Okay that's in Westminster, let me...What's that? 90th and Ave? They don't intersect. That sign means 90th Avenue. Let me get you to Westminster.

And yesterday...

Dispatch: I don't know sir. I wasn't shopping with you that day, So I have no idea what store you were at. All I'm saying is that there are no Walmarts in Arvada. You need to get your receipt or somehow figure out where you were when this happened so you can report it to the correct agency.

Reasons (stupid) People Call 911

2009-12-14T07:06:00.000-08:00

The next time you see on the news that a 911 dispatcher has told someone to go eff themselves, you should understand why people call the police in the first place:

This morning, just over an hour ago, we had a mother call for an officer to come wake their kid up for school. Wow! This isn't the first time we've dealt with this family. They called for the same thing a couple weeks ago.

And just a couple days ago, they were arguing with their 12 yo bipolar son and he broke some stuff in the house. "He's 5'4" and 125 bls!" screamed the grandmother into my ear. "Do you know how much damage a kid that size can do?"

I'm thinking not much. But then again, I'm reacting from the point of view of someone who had great parents who taught me to respect them, and our house, when I was much much younger and as a result, didn't have to deal with a pre-teen that was "out of control."

Now, I know that people with bipolar disorder are prone to rage, and they can be difficult, but the parents do have to take some responsibility. At some point, they have to be the ones to make sure their kids with mental disorders are compliant with medications and don't have the opportunity to slip into the clycles of mania and depression, and all the rage that goes with it.

So we sent an officer. An officer that's responded to wake the kid up before which we saw as a precedent. We probably should have an intervention to tell the officer she's enabling this family. But what can you do? I guess we'll threaten to send her out to talk to kids who won't clean up their room or who don't eat all their vegetables.

I sent a private message to the officer that said we could ask the mother if she wanted us to stand by to make her kid eat breakfast as well, maybe dress him, wipe his ass when he poops, etc.

The worst part of this whole thing is that the mother and stepdad are bastards, and dote on the two kids they've had together while the 12yo from the previous marriage gets pushed aside. Even a normal teen would act out in this situation--let alone one with bipolar disorder. The stepdad has even been sighted for child abuse!

Unfortunately, when the mom called today, she did call on a non-emergency number so we couldn't even ask the officer to ticket her for misuse of 911. But one day...one day she'll slip up and call 911 for some nannying request like this and we'll have her right where we want her.

I only hope Social Services can get involved and save this kid from his horrible parents. In my best dreams, parents like this are sterilized so they can't turn anymore innocent kids into little delinquents with their crap.

But I digress.

When you hear on the news that a 911 dispatcher has been fired for telling a caller off, realize that most of the day, we get calls like this. Remember that 85% (this stat is an average from a number of publised reports by metro 911 centers about their calls just google 911 calls) of calls into 911--a number for life and death emergencies, are not emergencies at all (have no imminent threat of harm to a person or property let alone a threat that could cause loss of life or destruction of property).

We get calls looking for phone numbers for other police departments (presumably these callers can't read a phone book or the internet, or even use their own precious iPhones to look up the right number), people who lost their ticket and want to know what day they have to go to court, people who want to know the phone numbers for certain restaurants, people who want police to come and make McDonalds construct a better burger (one caller was actually recorded using the phrase, "I want you to enforce my Value Meal") and the like.

It's only three digits so that it can be dialed quickly during an emergency, no so it's easier to remember when you're too lazy to pick up a phone book.

Romeo and Juliet

2009-12-09T20:51:00.001-08:00

We had kind of a tough call last week, a double suicide, and my trainee did an outstanding job as she caught the first call. I did end up taking over, but whole story was extremely convoluded and just about everything about this call made it confusing.

First, we got the first call on a non-emergency line--not a call about "I found my __________ in her room with a gun on the floor." Not an, "I just heard a gun shot followed closely there after by another gun shot from my neighbors' house..."

Our first call was from a middle aged man who was not at the scene. He also might have been in a coma for all the urgency he let slip into his voice.

Long, winding story short, a middle aged woman who had been battling depression for years walked outside her house and shot herself. This is a bit unsual because most profiles of women who attempt suicide are for younger or older women (teens or elderly) and most do not use violent methods such as guns--they tend to favor pills or Carbon Monoxide etc. But apparently she meant it.

So her boyfriend comes home and finds her in the back yard. It was his gun. Distraught, he calls the woman's sister who lives half a state away in a little po-dunk town, on the eastern edge of BFE.

He tells her that her sister shot herself with his gun and that he was thinking about doing the same thing. He says all the cliche things about not having anything to live for, it all being his fault etc. The sister, in BFE, is a freaked out. She doesn't know how to talk to someone who is threatening suicide or talking about it.

It seems to me that she was acting under the widely held misconception that saying "suicide" or asking someone why they want to kill themselves could actually talk them into doing it. She didn't know that studies of suicides and attempts have shown that talking to someone about it, usually does more help than harm. The fact that the boyfriend called anyone shows that he was on the fence about it.

And believe me, there are enough 911 tapes out there that go like this:
dispatch: 911 what's your emergency?
caller: You'll find me at ____________ address."
dispatch: what's going on there sir.
[muffled pop noise followed by open line/dead air]

People who have their mind set on it don't talk about it, but they frequently want the police to have some idea because they hope the authorities will get to the body/clean up the mess before their loved-ones find them.

If you know someone who you think might be having suicidal thoughts, talk to them, talk to professionals about helping them, talk to anyone you can to try to intervene. I mean it. You really can help.

Unfortunately, the sister did not know this, and she thought not talking about suicide was the better course of action so she hung up on the boyfriend. The she asked her husband what he though they should do.

Not knowing the telephone number for the police in our city (as they lived so far away), they decided to call the husband's brother who did live in our city. He was the comatose call we got first.

My trainee got all the basics of the info from him and quickly too. She did very well. He was apparently on the cell phone with his sister in law half a state away, and on his home line with us. He was relaying info as best he could, but the circuitous route the info was taking (suicidal boyfriend to sister, to husband's brother to the call taker) was confusing. He hadn't had communication with anyone on scene, though he knew their address.

Getting better information was like pulling teeth because he was talking so slowly, and because he had ask the sister, listen to her, then relay the answer to us. Despite the delay in the third hand reporting, we got officers started pretty quickly.

I took up the call at about this point, because trying to figure out exactly who our caller was and how he knew something was going on at the house was getting confusing. I ended up hanging up with him and calling the sister in BFE directly to hear about the boyfriend's state of mind, and the actual words he was using on what turned out to be his last phone call, straight from her.

In the end, there wasn't anything officers could do. The couple was found laying next to each other in the side yard by the first officer to arrive. There were no calls from neighbors on either of the two gunshots, which both happened outside, and the call from the uninvolved brother in law was the only incoming call we had on the whole thing.

Sometimes it happens like that...some kid lights off a bottle rocket, and half a city block calls in about gun shots (some people even trying to guess at calibers etc) and when there is an actual gun shot (2 in this case) no one hears it.

"A 'Flop House' I think it's called?"

2009-11-24T20:08:00.000-08:00

Again, there wasn't much happening this week. The training does mean that I am on phones all day, every day, but my primary focus is the probationary dispatcher in my charge, and not working the strangest most involved calls I can find.

None of the calls this week lasted very long so instead of the usual dialogue I include from the really good ones, what follows will be just the highlights of a trio of calls we got this week.

#1 Came in as a young woman reporting that she woke up after a "pretty big party" to find a man she barely knew in her room trying to undress her. She kicked him in the stomach and ran upstairs to the room of another male roommate who, after a couple hours was able to convince her to call the police.
Now this call, as far as I can tell turned out to be true. The problems I have with it are this: the caller is a young, single female who lives in a house that appears to be entirely populated by drunk, college age guys? Is that the safest, best room and board you could find?

The suspect stayed over, not frequently, but not too infrequently, and the caller knew both is first and last name, and his approximate age (down to a couple months)--which is great! I've taken enough calls from meth addicts shacking up with their dealers who can't give last names or approximate ages or even their current address. So this was starting out pretty good.

But, after further inquiry, the situation turned out to be this: the male half, who isn't really a friend of anyone who lives in the house at this point, sometimes stays over and spends the night just a few feet away from the basement bedroom of the caller-just out of ear shot of anyone she might want to call to for help, but only when everyone has had too much to drink isn't making good decisions.

For knowing his name and age, that was about all that could be found out about the guy. Apparently no one in the house really knew who he was or where he came from. It was just one of those houses where you could crash at the end of a good long drink and try to pick up an STD or two, or maybe a rape charge if you wanted.

#2 This is my pet peeve of 9-1-1 calls: the acrimonious divorced couple who call the police (generally refusing to leave their name at first) trying to report drug use, neglect, or other types of child abuse in the ex's home. In all honesty, these are the calls where I'm most likely to get testy with the callers and let them get under my skin. My favorite was one where the mother was trying to report the father--after a couple minutes of listening to her raving, I felt she needed to be reminded that it is very rare that a court would award full custody to the father instead of the mother and that spoke a great deal to me about her life style...and he hadn't even called me.

In the end, she had no specifics to report. All she could say was that the father occasionally drinks in his own home-admitted he doesn't drive when he drinks-and that there's never been any signs of abuse from the children. All legal activities--and none approaching whatever she must have been into for a judge to say that the father got full custody and any visitation rights for the mother was at the father's discretion.

#3 I had a call yesterday about a solicitor that started off like this, word for word: "Um, yeah. I just had a young hispanic gentleman at my door trying to sell something and well it just seemed like kind of a weird hour for them to be out."

I was trying to set an example for my trainee so I fought back the urge to ask if "Them" was referring to hispanics in general or just to those who sell magazine subscriptions. Racists...can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em.

It was 6:30pm! Yeah, it's getting dark by then here in CO, but if I were selling something door to door and wanted to catch people coming home from work, it's when I'd be out, dark or not.

The caller was from one of the more affluent neighborhoods in town, and the people up there do make calls like this. Not all the time, but frequently enough that we've noted it. If it's a suspicious person call coming from that neighborhood, he's probably going to be described as black or hispanic--in the same way that just about every stray dog nowadays is either a "pitt bull" or "has some pitt in him."

Week of Nov 14, 2009

2009-11-18T07:27:00.000-08:00

So this week was a little quieter. I've started training a new dispatcher and while I will be training during the call taking phase of training, the first two weeks of our San Jose model training program is called Academy Week and we use it to familiarize trainees with the department and the city as well as geography etc.

Because of this, I haven't spent much time on the phones this week. So the calls I have to choose from are limited. There was, however, one...

me: 911 what is your emergency?

caller: there's a guy in a van that's been following me everywhere.

me: where are you now?

caller: we're headed back to my girlfriend's house from starbucks.

me: where is your girlfriend's house?

caller: [gives address] but this van started following us when we left.

me: can you describe the van to me?

caller: yeah it's white big van, with pin striping on it.

me: so you first saw him just a couple blocks from your gf's house and then what?

caller: well we went to starbucks and then, when we got back on 64th and started back, he was there again.

me: is he gesturing at you or anything?

caller: no but he's been following us the whole time.

I wasn't really sure what kind of call this was going to be. We get lots of "road rage" incidents that start off like this where someone accidentally or intentionally cuts off another driver in traffic and the offended party is incensed. We call them traffic altercations and they can escalate quickly to more serious incidents like felony menacing (if one or more parties pulls out a knife or weapon and points it at the other party).
There were some things, though, that made it not seem like the run o' the mill traffic altercations: the driver of the van was not yelling or even glaring at the caller--and the caller stopped at a business (this particular starbucks does not have a drive-thru) and the driver of the van didn't follow him into the parking lot or try to approach him once he and his gf got out of the car.
I knew, from having lived in the area myself, that the shopping center with the starbucks held a grocery store, and a number of other businesses and just across the street is a nearly identical set up with even more fast food restaurants, another grocery store, a gas station etc. It's not rare to pull out of the neighborhood or onto the major road that goes by those stores, notice another car on the road behind or in front of you, and actually be headed to the same business as that person--and time of day plays a role as well--near lunch time, there's a possibility that the person is going to pull into Chipotle, Burger King, Subway, Taco Bell, etc and get food just as you were. Even if they choose a different fast foood joint, there's a good possibility you'll see them headed back to their house or place of employment on your return trip.
I was wondering if that was what was happening here. It does seem like the person might be following you, but it's really just a coincidence with the chances heightened due to patterns of behavior etc.

Me: where'd he go when you pulled into the shopping center with Starbucks?

caller: I don't know. but we started back going west on 64th, and he was somehow behind us?

me: but you didn't see him in the parking lot or anything?

caller: no. he came from somewhere else. he wasn't behind us when we pulled out. And I think he was smoking a bowl.

Someone in this call was experiencing a little paranoia--my money is on the person calling 911 claiming a guy in a van is following him.

Tricks O' the Trade

2009-11-08T11:45:00.000-08:00

This morning I took a call from a domestic disturbance in progress. The wife was calling and said her husband was high and throwing things out of the house etc. A lot of domestic calls start out like this.

So I get the address, her name, and start asking questions about what specifically is happening at the house. She's starts to tell a story about her husband coming home last night high on something (meth was her guess, though he sometimes "popped pills") and they got in an argument.

She left for the night--which was actually very responsible and probably the best thing she could have done to diffuse the situation. But, the sad fact of the matter was that she left because of the arguement and seemed to be completely fine with the drug use.

We do get lots of calls from households where drugs and alcohol are abused by both parties, so it was beginning to sound like this was one of those instances.

The husband takes off in his car and she starts screaming the license plate and the make and model of the car. I'm trying to ask for the direction he is headed when I hear him yelling "Whore!" in the background. This, it sounded like, was in retaliation for her giving his license plate number to the cops.

So a few seconds go by with me furiously typing the notes into the call and I hear her whisper to someone, "I don't want them to find..." I could also hear someone in the background moving around and it sounded like picking things up.

The caller knows I'm on the line still, so she keeps the phone covered and is whispering instructions to this unidentified third person. So I decided to see if she'd talk a little more freely to this person if she though she was on hold.

So I ask her to hold on for one moment, I needed to type some notes and I hit the mute button on my phone system. I was hoping that killing all the noise (even the white/background noise on my end) that she'd think she was on hold and would talk outloud to the person in the room with her.

I didn't get anything really good out of it, but I did hear her grunt loudly as if the person was going for something that she thought could wait a little longer than whatever it was she didn't want us to find.

Even though it wasn't very successful this time, I do look forward to employing this particular tactic again at a later time.

We Don't Do That Here

2009-11-06T10:05:00.000-08:00

This just happened today.

Our officer at the municipal court called over to ask us to pick up a woman who came in to turn herself in on an outstanding warrant. Apparently she needed to screw up her courage a little with the prospect of paying or serving a couple days in jail to make restitution for her crime. So she had a couple drinks to take the edge off.

She drives over, gets out of her car, and I imagine, takes a deep breath before walking into the building. Finally, she is ready to take responsibility for her actions. The drinks were helping a lot by this point.

When she got through the double doors, she was probably a little surprised to find a line of people waiting to talk to the Uniforms behind the counters.

Finally, the line moves forward and she tells the official looking man across the counter that she is there to turn herself in on a warrant.

He looked a little puzzled.

She has a warrant out of our city for obstruction, and probably a DUI out of another state, so he could arrest her and take her to jail.

Well it's just that we don't do that here, he told her.

Look this is hard enough for me. Just arrest me and take me to jail.

I'm sorry ma'am. I really can't help you.

Look, I'm drunk. I have to spend 6 day in jail. And all I'm asking is that you arrest me and take me to jail so that I can get this over with.

But ma'am I'm sorry we just don't do that kind of thing.

What do you mean, you don't do that kind of thing. You're the police aren't you?

No ma'am. I'm a mail clerk. This is the post office. I could sell you a book of stamps though, if you'd like.

Great.

The police department is across the street.

When she finally did get to the police department the arresting officer asked her how much she had to drink that morning

Tons she said.

Week of October 30th, 2009

2009-11-01T08:43:00.000-08:00

me: 911 What is your emergency?

her: turn on Cnn right now. Angelina Jolie is on there talking all about it.

me: i actually don't have a tv here in the dispatch center. what's she talking about?

her: she's talking about a movie about to come out that's about my life.

me: what do you mean...about your life.

her: in short: I am Angelina jolie.

At this point, I knew I had a CIT call. The young woman on the other end of the line was having a break from reality, but I didn't quite know where this was going.

her: just get a cop here right now. my father is coming. he's coming to rape me and he's been doing it all my life. this time he'll probably kill me.

me: where is your father right now?

her: at the store

me: and he's on his way over there right now?

her: yes. listen just turn it to cnn and you'll find out all about it. there's a movie

me: I can't get to cnn right now, tell me what they are saying?

her: it's me, it's angelina jolie and she's talking about a movie that's based on my life. the main character is based on my life and i'm playing her.

There were a couple times in here I had to put her on hold because I couldn't figure out which direction the delusions were taking. She thought she was Angelina Jolie but at the same time she answered to her real name and gave me her real address and phone number. She believed she was Angelina Jolie on CNN talking about a movie in which the main character was raped by her father and that the character was based on her real life.

The real dialogue was much more circular than this, but up until this point, I was asking her to confirm and reconfirm her address and phone number. The purpose of this was to shift her attention away from the schzophrenic break, and calm her down by creating a rhythm of question and answer to simple questions. The rhythm itself, and I'm not sure if there's any research on this, seems to help calm people down==repeating things they know and say in a certain rhythm whenever they are asked ie address, phone numbers etc.

me: is there anyone else in the house with you?

her: no. but my father watches. he watches the house and he knows when the cops come.

me: where is he right now?

Her: I don't know. but he has an explosive temper..an explosive temper. he can be very violent. and he always watches.

me: tell me a little bit about what's been going on today. earlier you were saying there was something about a movie on cnn? when did you start watching cnn today?

her: oh man. it's on commercial now. if you'd been watching you'd know. you'd know. we are going to make cinematic history...cinematic history.

From time to time she'd repeat a phrase like that for emphasis. She sounded very intelligent. She had a strong vocabulary and she used little rhetorical strategies like repetition and even pitch changes and interesting sentence construction to emphasize her point.

The trouble was her point was so disjointed that it was frustrating her to try and get it across and it was confounding to anyone trying to draw a linear conclusion from it--other than "o what a noble mind is here o'er thrown."

her: Here's the thing the character that comes in at the end is so sublte that...well let's just say that the people who know what I'm talking about are probably laughing their heads off right now. Cinematic History.

In the end, paramedics and officers arrived and I stayed on the phone with her until she was satisfied that the people knocking on her front door were the police and not someone pretending to be the police. Not, perhaps, my best call, that one was also a CIT call a couple months back, but, still a good one.