Locally, the Township PD will send a car on just about any 911 call.
Once in a while they won't bother, but you pretty much have to be the Chief of Police to not get a visit.
There is one other possible exception - some "teenage hangout" pay phones (and some pay phones in our Mall) don't get a car anymore. Management at the "hangout" or the Mall Security folks are asked to have a look first.
Most of the bogus calls seem to be accidental - either just a flat out mis-dial or somebody trying to dial internationally. Or somebody's little one....
I did it twice.... Sort of.... A year or so before the 911 system turned on here, the telco operators would grab 911 calls and do what they could. Generally, it involved a transfer to the local PD, but don't forget that dialing "0" ("Operator") generally
was the "911 System" in many areas many years ago. Anyway, I brought a communications program home from the office, and tried to dial something using the program's "phone book". The number was Long Distance, so it was preceded by a "1". "1 - 216 - xxx - xxxx". NBD.... However, the office phone system was set up so that it was necessary to dial "91" in order to access an "outside line". That, of course, generated "911".... I noticed it about five seconds after it dialed, and dumped the call. The Operator called back about 30 seconds after that....
Also NBD 'cause in those days a car wouldn't be dispatched unless you asked, but it was about 0330 on the "family" phone line. Which rang in the bedroom too.... (The wife thinks 2130 is late....)
Some years later I was given a "candy bar" style cellphone as a loaner. I programmed the local PD's "regular" number into "number 1". The phone is the type that will auto-dial whatever's in the first nine memory slots if you just lean on the button. Clipped it on my belt and forgot about it.
I'm sitting in the chair at my desk ("armchair" type) yakking on the landline phone with a friend and the cellphone rings. It's the PD! "We wondered if you had a problem. We could hear you talking in the background, but...." Stupid chair arm was leaning on the "1".... I thanked the Dispatcher and pulled their number out of the phone. Problem was that I had always (and still have) a "clamshell" phone where you can't do that. The "candy bar" type have no button covers.... You can set 'em to "lock", but it's usually a PITA.:banghead:
(My daughter's "candy bar" calls me and her friends regularly when she bumps it in her purse or pocket.... Can't get her to lock it either. Good thing we got a zillion minutes on the plan....
)
Never got a car, though, unless you count the time a kid at the local BP mis-read a license plate and the PD showed up here wondering about a "drive-off". The car in question was parked at the body shop, and the license plate (we'd just gotten new ones) was in my trunk. Ooops.... Funny thing is that I usually have a scanner on, but for some reason didn't that Sunday morning....
Regards,
Firing her is the first thing that comes to mind after negligent homicide or manslaughter charges come about. Why would they think keeping her as an operator would be a good idea? She let a little boys mother die a death that was probably preventable had she not been an uptight idiot.
