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!!!
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
A Dispatcher Walks into a Dumb Question...
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.
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.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
A Little Jealous
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.
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.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Reasons (stupid) People Call 911
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.
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.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Romeo and Juliet
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
"A 'Flop House' I think it's called?"
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."
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Week of Nov 14, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Tricks O' the Trade
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.
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.
Friday, November 6, 2009
We Don't Do That Here
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.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Week of October 30th, 2009
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.
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