Deanimator
Member
911 is a communications system of variable effectiveness, not a matter transporter that instantly deposits an armed policeman between you and an assailant.
Totally ignore any issues of police willingness to protect individuals.
Totally ignore any issues of police ability to protect individuals.
Instead, look at the basic competence of 911.
In Detroit a woman called to report that her husband had just shot her. The 911 operator demanded that she put her husband, THE MAN WHO JUST SHOT HER, on the phone.
Last summer, I was on my way to a chicken wing cook-off with a friend and his wife. As he drove past a bar, he saw someone staggering (or being pushed) out of the front door of the bar. The man fell face first into the gutter and remained motionless. My friend stopped to render aid. His wife, an ex-nurse, examined the man while I called 911. I first got central 911 and calmly described the situation in detail. The central 911 operator passed me off to the Lakewood, Ohio dispatcher. I repeated the same description of a man unconscious and unresponsive in the gutter in front of "xxxxxx's" bar. The female 911 operator then said to me, "He's in the gutter? He's on the roof?" I then spent the next 5-10 minutes explaining the difference between a gutter on the roof of a structure and the gutters in the street, and the relative likelihood of finding an unconscious man in either. She then said to me, "He's in the storm drain?" I continued to try to explain what a "gutter" was. She then expressed far more interest in my identity and where I lived than the actual condition and location of the victim in question. Lakewood Fire/Rescue eventually arrived. Imagine what the result would have been if I'd reported that a man was sitting on the chest of a man lying in the gutter, stabbing him over and over.
If you think that 911 OR the police are going to protect you from the immediate threat of lethal force, explain to me why they didn't "protect" my godsister from being stabbed to death by her boyfriend. If you don't want to explain it to me, explain it to her orphaned child.
Totally ignore any issues of police willingness to protect individuals.
Totally ignore any issues of police ability to protect individuals.
Instead, look at the basic competence of 911.
In Detroit a woman called to report that her husband had just shot her. The 911 operator demanded that she put her husband, THE MAN WHO JUST SHOT HER, on the phone.
Last summer, I was on my way to a chicken wing cook-off with a friend and his wife. As he drove past a bar, he saw someone staggering (or being pushed) out of the front door of the bar. The man fell face first into the gutter and remained motionless. My friend stopped to render aid. His wife, an ex-nurse, examined the man while I called 911. I first got central 911 and calmly described the situation in detail. The central 911 operator passed me off to the Lakewood, Ohio dispatcher. I repeated the same description of a man unconscious and unresponsive in the gutter in front of "xxxxxx's" bar. The female 911 operator then said to me, "He's in the gutter? He's on the roof?" I then spent the next 5-10 minutes explaining the difference between a gutter on the roof of a structure and the gutters in the street, and the relative likelihood of finding an unconscious man in either. She then said to me, "He's in the storm drain?" I continued to try to explain what a "gutter" was. She then expressed far more interest in my identity and where I lived than the actual condition and location of the victim in question. Lakewood Fire/Rescue eventually arrived. Imagine what the result would have been if I'd reported that a man was sitting on the chest of a man lying in the gutter, stabbing him over and over.
If you think that 911 OR the police are going to protect you from the immediate threat of lethal force, explain to me why they didn't "protect" my godsister from being stabbed to death by her boyfriend. If you don't want to explain it to me, explain it to her orphaned child.
