Ever wonder why 911 was busy?

For those of you who have ever had to be put on hold or wait a while to connect to a 911 dispatcher, this 45 year old guy might have had a lot to do with it (I say this sarcastically). I was flabbergasted reading it last night and I'm still amazed at it. He made 27 thousand prank calls to 911 on his cell phone since last May!

I love the last quote in the article:

His explanation for all those calls?

Triplette told police, "Because it's free."

I try not to call 911, my dad was a fireman & first aid captain, for 41-years, he drummed into my head the local phone numbers to the police dispatchers in the area. I have them programmed into my cell phone. You can cut off 5-min response time by going to them instead of calling 911. I live in a suburb of Toledo, last summer I was fishing on the shore east of Toledo, (Maumee Bay State Park) there was a 7 or 8 year old girl that fell and got what looked like a broken ankle. They called 911, and got the 911 operator for Detroit Mi (60-milles north of Toledo, across the lake.) it was ½ hr before the life squad came. It was a long time for a scared, in pain kid to wait. What if it had been a heart attack, I think about this having had one a few months ago.

The 911 system and the concept of one number that works everyplace is a great idea as everyone (even kids) know how to get help and when traveling its great. But if you take the time to learn the local numbers you can get better response with the direct number. I’m not trying to tare down the 911 system as I’m sure it’s saved numerous lives and will continue to do so. Just pointing out how to possibly get a quicker response to your emergency.

Man we get it non stop. There are few codes in NYC that you never want to hear on the radio: one is 10-13 and the other is 10-85. First one is an unconfirmed call: member of service in trouble such us off duty cop in accident or reqest for help. Later, 10-85 is when stuff really hits the fan: violent out of control perp, confirmed accident, chase with weapons drawn and assault on member of service while on duty. Any of those codes come in on the radio and you just go. No questions, no ifs and buts just go. I personally called it only once when some coke raging lunatic decided to explode on me and my partner was nowhere to be found and 100 lbs medical student was praying to be back in Pakistan. But anyone can sort of initiate it by placing a right sounding phone call such us: "i'm an off duty officer and I have been shot at this address". Dispatcher puts the code out and we roll to find nothing. It's so freaking easy to do with cellphoens now since even if they are not working with regular phone service they still can be used to place 911 phonecall. We constantly respond to 10-13s in projects or shady areas just to find nothing. After responding to a "a shot paramedic crew under the bridge" one of the Lous made a nice observation and said: this would be a perfect way to measure quality, time and strength of the response to an incident. We laughed at the paranoid one but later on after some thought got put into it than it made sense. You want to set something off in NYC but measuring our response time and who shows up you can pretty much figure out how much time do you have to do what you got to do. But belive me I would love to get my hands on that someone who is doing them prank calls and than promptly transport him to a trauma center.

Sounds like something out of Die Hard 3

But this guy apologized...

So kill him anyway. He's wasting valuable oxygen.

And I'll bet he won't stop. Anyone making that number of calls is having way too much fun. Where's Dirty Harry when you really need him?

Sue

Yeah. This isn't just some kid who is discovering the new thrill of making prank calls to 911 and doesn't realize the consequences. I guess HAM's or CBer's and other radio folks have had to deal with jerks like this forever, too. What are they thinking?

The police should probably check out this guy's buddie's phones too. This sounds like he was going for some kind of record. I bet this guy's friends are just as moronic. Some idiots run in packs.

Also, in this case, the punishment does not fit the crime. I think a year or two in jail might help this mutt sort out his priorities.

Thanks for the post Arney. Just when you thought you had heard it all...

and what's the BEST thing to hear on the scanner or radio after a 10-13

"All units, slow it down, slow it down"

I agree with BobS about calling emergency agencies direct rather than wasting time with 911. My experiences with 911 have not been very positive. The conversation usually goes like this:

"911 What's your emergency?"
"Please connect me with the Jonesfield Police, I need to report an accident."
"You need to report an accident?"
"Yes, please connect me with the Jonesfield Police."
"Where is the accident?"
"At the intersection of X and Y street in Jonesfield."
"It's at the intersection of X and Y street?
"Yes, in Jonesfield."
"Are there any injuries?"
"No"
"Are your sure there are no injuries?"
"There are no injuries."
"Is the road blocked?"
"No the road is not blocked."
"There are no cars blocking the intersection?"
"NO!!"
"Please hold while I connect you with the Jonesfield Police."

Of course, I then repeat everything I've already told the 911 operator to the Jonesfield PD dispatcher.

I'm sure the 911 operators are following a protocol, but it is infuriating to go through their procedures when all I need to do is talk to the police dispatcher. I finally gave up and just entered all the local emergency numbers in my cell phone.

911 abuse is the modern version of pulling those old red fire
alarm boxs you would see on the streets..

"I guess HAM's or CBer's and other radio folks have had to deal with jerks like this forever, too."

I don't know about the new HAMs, but the old ones were said not to put up with it. Some of the guys in each group had other electronic equipment, like for triangulating in on bozos like this. Three HAMs would get in their cars and pinpoint where the offender was and, depending on their natures, would either 'physically encourage' him to cease and desist, and/or they would wreck his radio.

Too bad, so sad.

Sue

Right, I've heard/read anecdotal stories like that, too. Just meant that radio folks have had to deal with such selfishness and stupidity in hogging up a shared resource for more years than the newer 911-system folks have.

My wife was once a cellular 911 dispatcher, in a center that received over 40,000 911 calls a month, with never more than three or four dispatchers to handle them, along with landline calls. A bit overpowering...

Ham radio do have a way to deal with abuse. I was part of the local LIC “Local Interference Committee” for several years. We used radio direction finding, transmitter fingerprinting and a few other things to hunt down people that abused the radio frequencies of amateur radio and police & fire frequencies. We would use base station beam antennas to get a rough idea of locations and then 3 or 4 of us would go out and park in the areas at the times the interference was normally going on (stupid people would usually do it roughly the same time every day) with Yagie (sp?), quads or doper antennas mounted on our cars and hunt down & document what we found. We would listen on the frequency the interference was happened and talk to each other on 220 MHz as most scanners don’t receive 220 and even if they did, it’s a very low use band, so no one was listening to us. We had copies of the databases of info on our laptops from the 9/11 building computers. It allowed us access to some interesting info that we probably really should not have had. But it allowed us to cross check things and get to the problem faster. When we would call the police dispatchers, higher up officials or other agencies, they seemed surprised we had the phone number to get a hold of them, sometimes asking how we got the number as it was very private.

It was like being a computer hacker & hunter at the same time. It was kinda fun to do; lots of serious things were happening, but still fun and rewarding knowing you are stopping a guy that is interfering with the police or fire departments.

911 shouldn't be used to report accidents where there are obviously no injuries. 911 is a life emergency system.

I remember responding to a 911 hang-up. When I arrived, the resident told me that the emergency was that she was unable to sleep because the neighbor's dog was barking. I explained that that was not an emergency. Her response was, "It was to me".

Because people are unwilling to look up non-emergency numbers or contact Information Services (411), real emergencies become delayed. If you ever have to dial 911 for an emergency and find yourself on hold, remember that you may be queued up behind a barking dog call.

Traffic accidents on interstates at highway speeds (55+) should always be reported. The forces involved are just too high. Also the danger to other drivers is high also.

What is interesting to see after the number of times I've called 911 is to see how dispatchers take the control away from me. I know what to say, how to say it, and what information is important, but some of them just won't let me talk!

"Connecticut State Police What is your emergency?"

"I-95 Northbound from Exit 9. Vehicle nearly hit the center divider. Still failing to maintain his lane. His speed has dropped to 35 (normal is 70+ at night). Vehicle description is as follows: blah blah. New York tag. Vehicle now in the right lane approaching exit 10."

"Thank you. (click)"

"She hung up on me!"

Part of the problem might be A) you didn't identify why this was important info, or B) didn't ID yourself.

2 ways I get around the 911 problem: "This is MDINANA, I'm an off-duty EMT..." which ususally works well when it comes to patching me through to the correct department quickly. Additionally, I've been known to just call 411 and ask for the dispatch center for the local agency- they don't ask nearly as many questions. Like others have said, the 7-digit number is often less busy than 911.

hung up because she all the info she needed???..

Well after tour 3 one night I'm going home around 1 am and see a van plowed into park cars. Guy goes thru the windshield and lands on the pavement. Few of his buddies from nearby house who were hanging out on the porch run up, scoop the guy of the pavement and leave the car in the middle of the block. I call 911 and tell them that off duty paramedic witnesed the accident, giving them plate number, house number and extend of damage/possible injuries. I leave, go home, go to sleep. About 3 am I get a phone call from dispatcher: Hi this is CRO so and so and I have a unit on scene and there is nothing there. Well if it takes you 2 hrs to respond than what do you expect.

Above is almost an accident. No confirmed injuries. Just reckless driving. It could be a drunk, it could be someone dropping burger on his lap or a ciggarete butt or somebody not feeling well. Chances of state trooper catching it are slim and benefits of catching a wreckless driver are far less important than danger trooper gets put in going lights and sirens to the location which is not even steady since car keeps moving. Calls like that are so common most of the time they don't even make it on the air. It may be insensitve but that's the way it is.

Maybe if it had been a heart attack they would have used lights and siren to get there quicker. Yeah, 1/2 hour is a long time for a 7 year old with a broken ankle, but is it really worth the life of some paramedic trying to get there 15 minutes sooner?

I'm not familiar with the location but if it was in a state park, how far away was the nearest ambulance service? Half an hour to respond to a suspected broken ankle seems pretty fast to me.

Some of the comments posted in response to this story (on the sfgate site, not here) asked how come it took authorities so long to track this guy down.

There was a rash of prank 911 calls in Alberta recently - eventually, a number of high school kids were arrested. I don't think it's all that easy to track down a 911 call.

Anyone know just how difficult it was for the authorities to catch this guy? I presume the cell phone number showed up on the 911 operator's screen, so if the phone was registered in his name, they could have tracked him down fairly easily.

On the other hand, I believe that cell phone companies are required by law to accept 911 calls even on cell phones that don't have a plan. Would he have been using a stolen cell phone or something?

Any ideas why it took 27,000 prank calls to identify the guy?

Follow-up to my post:

"Because the number did not have current subscriber information, it couldn't be tracked to subscriber records, according to [Police Lt. Christine]Orrey."

http://origin.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_8266504

Edit: oops, Aardwolfe beat me to it while I was typing out my treatise...

He was using a T-mobile phone with an expired calling plan. I don't know if it was originally his phone or someone else's. Anyway, so this phone doesn't have its own phone number, so the 911 operators wouldn't say, "Ah, look, it's xxx-xxx-xxxx calling again." And since it's not on a calling plan, there's no address associated with it. So, when he calls 911 and doesn't speak, but makes weird noises, the protocols that the operators use require them to spend time listening and trying to assess the situation.

I remember back when cell phones were first getting really popular, there would be many thousands of accidental calls to 911 because on many Nokias or Motorolas (I forget which) if the #9 key is held down, it would speed dial 911 in your pocket or purse. In California, where the CHP took all cell calls to 911 back then (and still do, in most areas), because of their protocol, the operators would need to sit there with each and every accidentally dialed call and try and figure out if it was a misdial or someone really in trouble, but who couldn't speak. I remember that my non-flip Nokia would allow 911 to be dialed even with the keypad "lock" feature turned on--in case someone unfamiliar with your phone needed to call 911. I once pulled it out of my pocket with "915" on the screen, so that was a close call (ugh, no pun intended)

So, basically all you can do is wait till he calls, track down the cell tower, and then send (in this case, an FCC crew) out to that area while he is on the phone and track down his signal. Alas, it's not like on the TV show 24 where you can triangulate a cell call from a computer in about 30 seconds and then send Jack Bauer to retrieve the guy's phone.

"What is interesting to see after the number of times I've called 911 is to see how dispatchers take the control away from me. I know what to say, how to say it, and what information is important, but some of them just won't let me talk!"

When I speak to my dispatchers, they have to ask questions in a particular order, as they're typing it into a form on the computer. I wonder if that's what they're doing to you?

Or you're so organized they think it's a prank call. Maybe they're not used to that...

Sue