Well, he did the best he could.

[saddenedcitizen]

Tha flaws are in the 911 system itself -

Idahoemt - i know you didn't make the rules or create the system and this is certainly NOT aimed at you but -

all the call taker needed to dispatch the police right then was

- crime in progress
- location

and that's all.

The paperwork/fill-in-the-blanks time-wasting procedures can be caught up with and finished - LATER.

If I call with a gashed artery, and someone starts wanting to know my date of birth and my mothers second cousin's third wife's maiden name etc.- after all is said and done, someone ELSE is gonna bleed !!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is FAR too much time wasted on administrivia, that is NOT critical, need-to-know information when the clock is ticking.

 

[idahoemt]

You're right. The three critical pieces of information we need for an in-progress call are: Nature of the incident(Burg in Progress, Bank Alarm, Structure Fire), Priority (generally a 1 or 2, this dictates the response level with a "1" being immediate threat to life/property), and Location(hopefully something more than "My house!" )

Some of that "fill-in-the-blanks" stuff may not be critical but, if we can get it, it may help responders.

Believe me, I can relate to being frustrated with bureaucracy.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

He, by calling 911 and giving them the location by street number of a burglary in progress with ten to twelve minutes to work on it, gave the police the chance to wrap this up if they acted as they should have.

According to the Topeka police, Topeka has had 754 residential burglaries so far in 2006. That is roughly two per day and excludes all other crimes. Topeka employs 280 police officers or about 1 officer for every 452 residents.

Since not all of those officers will be on patrol at one moment, I expect at any given time, the ratio of officers to residents is more like 1 for every 904 or 1 per 1,356.

You seem to feel that the police should have arrived within 10-12 minutes and spared your friend the necessity of having to make a police report by catching them red-handed. I agree that it would be nice if it worked like that; but given the numbers, I don't think it is realistic to count on it.

I also don't see why your friend should expect any extra effort from officers when he isn't willing to give that effort himself. I can understand the impulse to protect your family; but realistically, if you aren't willing to testify, you can't really expect the police to be able to do much about the problem.

 

[jondar]

Well then, let's continue to blame the victim. After all it's easier that way.

 

[HankB]

Unbelievable - report of a burglary in progress and there's no response? Unless all the cops on duty were responding to fatal car wrecks, a 2-11 in progress, or something similar, there is no excuse for this, whether the cop-to-citizen ratio is 1-to-452 or 1-to-1,356. The cops in my little town (a noted speed-trap) outside Austin, TX, respond to complaints of barking dogs faster than these clowns did to a burglary.

The officer became somewhat irate, crumpled up the blank police report he was carrying and threw it on Bill's porch, got in his cruiser and drove off.

Sounds like a littering complaint is in order here.

+1 on the littering complaint. I would've let the blank report lie where the officer threw it, dialed the local police business number (not 911) and asked for either a supervisor or IA.

Probably would've called the local paper, too - they'd be real interested in the full story, if it went down just as described.

Hmmm . . . maybe instead of calling 911, "Bill" should've dialed the officers on duty directly . . . after all, the number for Krispy Kreme is usually in the book.

(On a more serious note, if ever reporting a crime in progress, mentioning that you "thought" you saw a gun may not be a bad idea.)

 

[The Drew]

Just another example where beaurocracy just gets in the way of things working smoothly... Had the call taker been able to dispatch officers with just the address and crime in progress info, the remaining info could've been gathered while the officers were in progress to the scene.

But I'm sure some bean counter or some lawyer has made the county or city enforce rules that make the call taker mine this ridiculous amount of data out of the caller because "it helps the officers"....

Ya know, it is possible that a neighbor doesn't know the last names of the people who are being burglarized... Maybe he only knows them by their first names.... Not all neighborhoods are buddy buddy...

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Well then, let's continue to blame the victim. After all it's easier that way.

Sorry, I thought you were interested in discussion. You said your buddy did the best he could and quite plainly, he did not. Neither did the cops in this instance. A lot of the time people in the world just aren't doing their best and you get mediocre results like this story.

Nobody is "blaming the victim" since the victim in this story hasn't even been mentioned. All I am saying is if you aren't going to do the stand up thing and fill out the police report, why even bother calling the police? Unless they happen to arrive while the crime is in progress (which is a pretty slim chance even with a better response time), the cops can't do anything unless citizens are willing to back them up by filling out the paperwork.

The downside of that is that burglars sometimes get away. The plus side of that is that you don't get dragged out of your house and off to jail because the cops show up and say "Somebody called us claiming to be your neighbor and said you were doing drugs, so we are arresting you."

 

[lance22]

Could have done more ...

The three perps are a block away from their vehicle? I would have been tempted to introduce their tires to my Benchmade NRA Gaucho. Let's see them drive off with four flats!

 

[Deanimator]

You're right. The three critical pieces of information we need for an in-progress call are: Nature of the incident(Burg in Progress, Bank Alarm, Structure Fire), Priority (generally a 1 or 2, this dictates the response level with a "1" being immediate threat to life/property), and Location(hopefully something more than "My house!" )

A few weeks ago, I called 911 about a guy passed out in the gutter in front of a bar in Lakewood, OH. As we were driving down the street, a friend saw a guy stumble (get pushed) out of a bar and collapse face down in the gutter. We pulled over and I called 911, who took basic info and passed me to Lakewood 911. I repeated the same information. I was very calm, with simple information, presented clearly. The Lakewood 911 operator then said, "He's in the gutter... He's on the roof?" After explaining that it would be somewhat problematical to be pushed out of the front door of a bar and somehow end up on the roof, I was asked to provide detailed information about myself, in fact in FAR more detail than about the actual subject of the call.

Of course when I was a kid in Chicago, late one night I saw a group of White kids break a window in the back of the drycleaners across the alley from my bedroom. The neighborhood had recently turned all Black. I woke my parents who called the police. When the Chicago PD showed up, I watched my father repeat my description of the incident. When the cops learned that the perpetrators were White, they got back in their police car and left, in the OPPOSITE direction the suspects took. At that point, my fantasy of "police protection" evaporated forever. Subsequent interaction with the police in college and later confirmed that judgement, from being told that they could do nothing about death threats unless somebody was actually harmed, to watching them show up at the wrong place after a burglary call, then watching them allow the suspect to climb out a back window, jump into his car and successfully escape by backing away from their "roadblock".

I have -ZERO- confidence in either the willingness OR ability of the police to "protect" me. I ALONE am responsible for that. I consider any other policy to amount to Russian roulette with five chambers out of six loaded.

 

[LAR-15]

Well since your friend did not want to fill out a police report or testify to what he saw, he should not have bothered to call 911.

 

[MechAg94]

I guess the neighbor wasn't that much of a friend if the guy is not willing to go ahead and file a police report. The neighbor would have a much easier time getting his insurance to pay up with a police report as well.

Any and all complaining after the fact is worthless if he won't go ahead and fill out the paperwork. The local politicians will just say that it obviously is not that important if he wouldn't help fill out a police report. Letting his decision be ruled by fear is pretty bad as well. He should have just packed up his stuff and gone to hide in his house until they left. Maybe he could have walked over there and told them he wouldn't call police if they would promise not to hurt him.


I guess I am being kind of harsh, but how many other people made the same decision allowing these guys to continue robbing houses. You can't just sit back and blame all this on the police.

 

[johnster999]

Gotta hit the PD for most of the blame on this one.

It's already been made clear "Bill" is no tactical tuffguy type. He's just a guy who thought the police would get there in time to catch the robbers in the act. They didn't. Robbers, 10 minutes. Police 30 minutes. Not even close. At least Bill did provide a description and tag number.

So he's fearful of reprisal and doesn't fill out a report? Not surprising since he just saw clearly that a gang like this could get to him about 3 times faster than the local police would.

999

 

[MechAg94]

I agree the police did no good at all, but if homeowners respond with inaction as well, the only people who win are the criminals.

 

[jondar]

"Nobody is "blaming the victim" in this story since the victim hasn't been mentioned."

Oh yes he has! His name is Bill. I have no idea what the house owner is called and he didn't even enter into this. Bill's perception was that the duty of trying to save his neighbor's belongings fell on him and he tried to take the necessary steps to get this done. The home owner isn't qualified to appear and identify and testify because he saw or heard nothing. And speaking of filling out a report, why couldn't that have been done on the spot. I have seen many many others filled out on the scene. As to you that say since he wasn't going to implicate himself further he shouldn't have phoned 911 in the first place, well I can tell you for sure that in the future he won't, and shouldn't. Rant is over.

 

[Deanimator]

I agree the police did no good at all, but if homeowners respond with inaction as well, the only people who win are the criminals.

I don't have a family and can afford to and do annoy bad people when it suits me, without fear of the innocent being harmed.

He clearly sees his situation as different, and given the indifference/inability of the police, I can certainly see why he'd be reluctant to throw the dice on the cops coming BEFORE somebody harms him and his family.

Why should he bring possible retribution on himself and his family when the original robbery was treated as such an inconsequential matter by the police themselves? Why should he believe that they'll either keep his identity secret OR protect him if they don't?

 

[pete f]

What do the police need? Do we need to put live traps for the crooks to get caught in the front yard. HAD the cops shown up in a timely manner, (Less than 15 minutes and I have been to Topeka and there aint nothing there you can not reach in 15 minutes) the only reports needing to be filled out would be arrest reports.

This is a reason people do not trust the cops. There are several LEO's who are on here and they make seem like they have sooo much to do. This was a burglary of a house, THE NUMBER ONE WAY private citizens get hurt by bad guys. This should have brought the entire day shift running. PERIOD. house burglars are almost always repeat offenders. Usually they are responsible for a multitude of break ins. I had a guy who worked for me for a while, he got arrested after a couple of weeks for 21 home burglaries. He had only taken the job from me to find more houses to rob.


This should be a letter to the editor of the local paper, with CC to all of the other news outlets. the city council and mayors office should be brought on the carpet for allowing a PD to become so lax...

This scenario has happened near us. I videotaped a guy stealing a boat from a neighbors, while wife called the cops, she said armed men. That got the cops attention. When the guys were arrested, my wife was asked where she saw the gun, she just said it looked like he was armed. That night she said, well if he did not have arms, how did he pick up the gas cans? Video in court was conclusive that they were trying to break the lock and steal the boat.

 

[torpid]

Monday morning a uniformed officer came to Bill's door and said they wanted him to come down to the police station and fill out a police report. Bill said no way. He had given them all the info, even the license number of the car and he didn't want those thieves driving past his house firing at him.

The officer became somewhat irate, crumpled up the blank police report he was carrying and threw it on Bill's porch, got in his cruiser and drove off.

 

[hvengel]

Although I agree that the cops should have responded quicker I think that they did make an effort to follow up. After all they actually sent someone out to do a follow up interview to gather more information. In fact sending someone out to do this follow up indicates to me that they thought that they might actually been able to catch the bad guys and make a case against them. In this case I think that had "Bill" been willing to work with them that they would have actually gotten the bad guys. Imagine how frustarting it must have been for the cop sent out to do the follow to find that this was now a dead end.

The sad part is that if the cops had responded more quickly (IE. 12 minute instead of 30 minutes), even if they were too late to catch the bad guys red handed, then perhaps "Bill" would have been more willing to do his part.

I was burgerized many years ago. When I called the cops they actually refused to send someone out to take the police report. I was litterly told that they were not interested and to not bother them. I did my own investigation and found the perps the next day and had them arrested. I personally beleive that it does not matter what the police do and that it is up to each of us to do what it takes to take care of ourselves and those near by. Sometimes calling the police is enough but many times it is not.

 

[KC&97TA]

I think you did a good job, and now that you have some hind sight, you may do it different if you're in the situation again.

There was a post earlier on page 1, "could have slashed the tires"

+1 from me, little criminal damage to property on the thugs car could have helped, they'd have probly still been there when the cops arrived. I wouldn't have admitted to slashing the tires though, to anyone.

I've called 911 for 2 different "attempted assults", never caught a burglry in the act... the first thing I tell them is whats going on and then "I fear that person is in danger of bodily harm", (this is a good step to justifiable homicide)... then I describe myself and that I'm armed and going to make a citizens arrest to prevent bodily injury or death. You won't believe how fast the LE's respond, not just the city PD either, CHP, Sherif, helicopter and I don't even know who else.

When the cops come and you are armed, they make you put your gun on the ground, (they don't care how much it cost) so bring out the cheap ones that are accurate.