When Strangers Show Up

[dmccarty]

Curt,

What did you kids tell dispatch? The response to a call is often up to how the dispatcher handles the call. If you kids told dispatch that they where home alone and two prowlers where outside trying to rob the place I would expect a lights and siren response from the agency.

Are you in a big county with few officers?

Later,
Dan

 

[Bird]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I wonder if it would make sense to call in a house fire in the case of a break-in? )</font>

Probably get you arrested for making a false report. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[Sigarms]

With all the "negative" responses per "response time" thought of a recent incident worth sharing.

On the phone with my dad who lives in a "small town" up in Pa. I was at work, he called me on my cell phone. I was busy, told him I'd call him back in 2 minutes. Got VERY busy, ended up calling him back in a half hour. Phone line was busy. Phone was busy for the next hour. I was getting worried, dad never talks that long on the phone, he's in his mid 70's and alone now.

What gets interesting is depending on who your phone line carrier is, somtimes they cannot "intervene" on the line to make sure someone is talking on the phone. Got very aggrivated, and after 3 or 4 different phone numbers that was given to me to call, finally got somone who could "check the phone line" my dad was on. They told me that the phone was in use (busy), but no one was on it. Now I'm worried, live 8 hours away and not sure what to do at that time. Figure I'd call the local ambulance crew who is located about 4 miles from him. Called, told them the situation, and they told me they would go check at the house. Got a call back in 10 minutes, apparently the phone lines were down for some work (bad timing on my part).

I was impressed and happy that the local ambulance crew would take the time and go check on a worried son's father, and get back to me so quickly.

 

[dooleysm]

Perhaps, but in the case of our children, I think we'd all spend a night in jail to ensure their safety.

If someone's breaking into my home I'd rather have 15 volunteer firemen show up in 5 minutes than a sheriff show up in 45.

 

[Bird]

I wouldn't have thought about the ambulance crew doing that, but way back when I was a patrolman, it wasn't unusual at all for the police department to get such calls and we'd go check on the person. I've done it many times.

 

[Sigarms]

You borught up an interesting point.

Usually we hold the officers in question personally responsible.

I would like to think that most people on this forum are law abiding (sp?) citizens who actually respect the law.

Try being on the other end being a LE. You have to deal with the "scum" of the earth, people lie, people steal, people do all sorts of bad things and YOU"RE the one that has to deal with it on a regular basis. You could not pay me enough money to "police" the some of the "idiots" who live within our society.

We're lucky, we have a "run in" with a bad person once or twice in our lifetime, it makes an impression. Try dealing with those "low lifes" EVERY day as a job, then go home to a "regular life".

Like anything else in this world, you have good people and bad people (just like LE). Don't group them all together.

No thank you.

 

[Iowachild]

<font color="blue"> Firearms: I'm a strong 2nd ammendment supporter but am uncomfortable arming my kids.
</font>
Could not agree more with this statement Curt!! My kids grew up with guns, but never without adult supervision until they were at least 16. The guns and ammo were locked in separate areas until all children were out of the house. Of course now I have grandchildren, so the rule still applies.

You should be proud of the way your kids handled the situation.

"Lucky parents who have fine children usually have lucky children who have fine parents." /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[deere755]

I think one of the problems with rural areas is funding for the sheriffs office. I believe our sheriff would love to have more deputies patroling but the money isn't there. A property tax increase would never pass so they are limited on what they can do. I think there should be more help though.

 

[LMTC]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( but never without adult supervision until they were at least 16. )</font>

First let me say that I 100% support you having the right to make that decision regarding your children.

Now...what is magical about 16? What is magical about adult supervision?

Do you lock up the knives? Everything else someone could use as a weapon against another person? What it really comes down to is that we all draw our line at different places, and that is fine with me.....but it doesn't seem as well tolerated by those who need to make their points with absolute statements and multiple exclamations.

 

[BlueRidge]

<font color="blue"> The police are NOT there to protect you. Wow, sounds kind of insulting to men and women of law enforcement. I personally take exception to that statement. </font>

You can take all the exception you want and it won't change the fact. As Bob pointed out, they get to the scene much too late to do any protecting. And that is also the LEGAL reality. Many PDs have been sued because they didn't respond quickly enough to prevent an injury or death, and invariably, the courts have held that police have no legal duty to protect any individual.


<font color="blue"> As far as response time goes in Baltimore County Maryland response time is usually around 10-15 minutes or less. Even calls to the country response time is no where near 45 minutes. </font>

Good for you! Are you under the impression that your experience represents the whole country? Response time varies greatly across jurisdictions. In Los Angeles on a Friday night, it's not unusual to wait 30 minutes JUST FOR A 911 OPERATOR TO PICK UP THE PHONE.

10-15 minutes is enough time for you to be beaten to death and your wife and daughter raped.

NOWHERE are they instantaneous. NOWHERE are they fast enough to save your bacon if you have an intruder intent on doing harm. You will have SECONDS to do the right thing, not minutes. Depend on the police and you are defenseless.

Protecting you is not their job, and even if it were, they couldn't do it. There aren't enough of them. They can't be everywhere all the time.

And none of this has anything to do with the dedication, courage, or ability of any police officer.

It's just reality.

 

[LMTC]

Ditto on what you said.

And the reality here too is that every single one of us is very very glad the original poster's children were not harmed. Certainly don't want to lose that sentiment in all the differing views about how to address potentially dangerous situations.

 

[monkeymonk]

Where i live it's about a 2 hour response time the best would be an hour and a half if a sheriff was over the hill somewhere?? or even on duty somewhere?? Not many anyways.
WE all look out for each other all 250 of us. Never much trouble or theft round these parts anyways.But i would surely call our local fire and rescue, its all locals dispatched from central via repeater way outa town and all fire and rescue folks have a beeper/com unit.Even if we dont call dispatch hours away and call just one fire and rescue member all near are notified coming from all directions on our 3 ways in 3 ways out road CB's blazing. It would be worse to run into fire and rescue than the sheriff if someone was in physical danger. Now if i were in town there may be fines for that.Here you would most likely be commened for a job well done. As has happened in the past

Sure is a scary situation, predators on your property lurking about.

 

[turnkey4099]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I think in that situation, 45 minutes is horrible and you should raise a ruckus about it. There is every reason to believe your children could have been in immediate danger. Around here dispatch is centralized and towns work together to provide immediate assistance in times of emergency. It works and I can't imagine a 911 system that is set up to allow such a delay in response as you experienced. )</font>

This is a very delayed respons and it isn't directed at you so much as just an add-on to the discussion.

I was a dispatcher for this very rural, sparsely populated and large county in WA (Whitman). Coverage for the county was a hopeful 2 officers per shift plus 1 or 2 state patrol. Everyone went off-duty at 2 a.m. We aimed for a 30 minute response but it wasn't unusual to catch the only deputy on at one end of the county when he was needed at the other. My worst case was 3 a.m. Homeowner holding 3 burglars at gunpoint just as far awy as one could get in the county. Had to call out two officer's with 45 miles to drive over crooked narrow roads. My fall back method was to ask the neighboring county for assistance (much closer to the scene). Nope, they were off-duty also.

As others have said - it is not uncommon to have long delalys. It is also an upleasant truth that cops are not there to "protect you". Multiple court rulings have made the clear. It is also impossible to supply LE coverage at a level that one would feel "safe" in at a reasonable cost.

Even living in town, quick response is not a "protection" thing. They still will arrive after the fact even if it is a matter of minutes.

It is up to the person to handle the situation however he decides until LE arrives be that by weaponry or hiding in a closet.

Harry K

 

[BlueRidge]

Aye, there's the OTHER part of the equation - the dispatchers. Harry, I'm sure you know that dispatchers span a wide variety of people.

I've done quite a bit of work verifying E911 call routing to make sure when you dial 911 on your cellphone you get connected to the correct PSAP. I've done it in several states, from California to Tennesee. 911 operators run the gamut from good, sharp, dedicated people to brain dead twits who care only about the next coffee break, or worse, their own (erroneous) sense of importance.