Must know about *77

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CooperThunder

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Dear THR-ers...If this is the wrong section of this forum I wrote this on too, please let me know...thanks...

This morning I received an email about dialing the above *77 from your cellphone. I am just wondering how true this is...and if this is true, it will be of help to many women (and men) who got stopped in the sticks. The email goes on to say as follows...

MUST KNOW ABOUT *77


I knew about the red light on cars, but not the *77.

It was about 1:00 p.m. in the afternoon, and Lauren was driving to visit a friend. An UNMARKED police car pulled up behind her and put his lights on. Lauren's parents have always told her never to pull over for an unmarked car on the side of the road, but rather to wait until they get to a gas station, etc

Lauren had actually listened to her parents advice, and promptly called* 77on her cell phone to tell the police dispatcher that she would not pull over right away.

She proceeded to tell the dispatcher that there was an unmarked police car with a flashing red light on his rooftop behind her. The dispatcher checked to see if there were police cars where she was and there weren't, and he told her to keep driving, remain calm and that he had back up already on the way.

Ten minutes later 4 cop cars surrounded her and the unmarked car behind her. One policeman went to her side and the others surrounded the car behind.. They pulled the guy from the car and tackled him to the ground. The man was a convicted rapist and wanted for other crimes.

I never knew about the *77 Cell Phone Feature, but especially for a woman alone in a car, you should not pull over for an unmarked car. Apparently police have to respect your right to keep going to a safe & quiet place. You obviously need to make some signals that you acknowledge them (I.e. put on your hazard lights) or call *77 like Lauren did.

Too bad the cell phone companies don't generally give you this little bit of wonderful information.

*Speaking to a service representative at ** Bell ** Mobility confirmed that *77 was a direct link to state trooper info.
 
This is an apocryphal story, and a pretty well known chain email. While this may have worked at one point in time, in one state, it is not generally true. The suggested method is just to call 911, turn on your hazard lights, and continue to a safe area while talking to the dispatcher.

You can read up on this more here. Also, if you're ever worried about your safety, you can always just barely crack your window to allow yourself to be heard by the police officer when you request to see his badge and ID and to pass your information through.
 
I always check out snopes.com re. things like this that might be urban legends. Their page on this story is at:

http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/fakecop.asp

In short, they say that:

o This particular story can't be verified, and is circulating the internet in various forms.

o Bad guys DO impersonate officers like this.

o Whereas LEOs recommend keeping your doors locked, insisting on photo ID and calling 911 to confirm, this will only work against true LEOs -- criminals will simply break your window, etc.

o There is no one code you can use across the nation: speed dial codes vary from state to state and some states don't have one at all.

o Here's a map of states and their highway patrol speed dial codes:

http://www.911dispatch.com/911/mobilenumbers.html

As so often the case, this seems to me like another real problem with no clean solution.
 
Ha, looks like we all hit up Snopes at the same time. It's generally a good site to check stuff like this.
 
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