Indeed, the "suspicious coat guy" I called in to 911 since it was the only number I knew and was routed to non-emergency. The non-emergency guy asked questions including description, location, what seemed weird and he said they would send a car by. It's just an area with a lot of criminal activity. I have no idea what happened after that but that's all I can do.
Other calls I've made about "a suspicious blue van" parked behind the building making what looks like hand to hand drug deals daily, also reported via a non-911 route, yielded results. That van turned out to be part of a larger investigation and in the last week, they've been cleaned out, no more blue van, no more obvious drug dealing behind my office. My local LE could be irritated with me but I'm not walking by drug dealers at work anymore. Seems safer to me. And all the LE treated me with respect and thanked me for the info.
Heard back from local LE: He said report anything in progress to 911 or anything I feel threatens my safety. He said for suspicious stuff, only if it's a pattern and I can call him directly since it's his beat. I'm gonna go with that since this is how local LE wants to handle it. Thanks all.
