Political Wrinkles - View Single Post - Action Taken Against 911 Officials Who Put Woman On Hold

crazyflamingos · #3 (**permalink**) 02-18-2008, 10:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by saltwn

A guy pulled out a gun and pointed it at me in traffic, then followed me around. I turned into the first business I saw open (it was early in the morning); he followed me into the parking lot. I called 911. It rang. I was put on hold. I was put on hold again. Never did get to report it. The guy finally disappeared, but I imagined all day I was seeing his pick up! That was Houston, Tex. in the 80's.
I don't know how many people they got working for them, but they need more operators!

I think 911 is broken everywhere. It seems to be here.

One of the police officers who used to come in my store regularly told me an interesting story a few years ago. He tried to call in a drunk driver on his day off. He stopped at a pay phone and called, identified himself as an off duty police officer, gave his name and badge number and told the woman what the emergency was. She would not let him finish but instead interrupted to demand his home address. He told her he was not AT home. She said she could not make a report until she got his home address.

Needless to say he had completely lost sight of the drunk by the time she let him get off the phone. He got the tag number but by the time they located the car, it was the next day and whoever was driving had sobered up. Somehow they had made it home without incident.

What prompted him to tell me this story was that I told him that I refuse to call 911. I had figured out that if I called 911 it took 10 to 15 minutes for a patrol car to arrive. If I called straight through to the police switchboard, it was 2 to 5 minutes. Since the only time I ever called them was for a fight breaking out or something like that, I really did not want to wait 15 minutes for help.