Why you should have a gun. . .

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nico

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I just had my gun ownership reinforced. As I was coming home a couple hours ago I saw a guy who had been weaving back and forth swerve into a parked car. I called 911 and got a message to wait for the next available dispatcher. After a couple minutes on hold I decided it wasn't that important and hung up. Probably 10 minutes later, I got a call saying they had a hang up a few minutes ago and asking if there was an emergency. I explained what happened to the dispatcher and she took my name and phone number.

This was a pretty sobering reminder of what could happen if you're not prepared for home invaders and the like. If I had been in danger, in the total of 15 minutes between the time I first dialed 911 and actually talked to a dispatcher, I'd have been in big trouble.

On a related note, there's got to be a better way to things than to have people be put on hold when they dial 911. I was joking with my parents about how they should outsource it like they do computer tech support so they can afford enough operators. But, after thinking about it a little more, i wonder if that'd work. . .
 
It takes little IMO to realize yet again - that our safety - is our responsibility - and ours only.

With all due deference to LE - thay cannot be protectors - their best will usually be chalk lines and body bags and hopefully tracking down the BG - if he is alive.

That is one reason why MD Carry must somehow be gotten thru - every law abiding citizen has the RIGHT to have a means of self defence! PERIOD!
 
Isnt it insane? you call an EMERGENCY line that your tax dollars pay for..... and you get put on hold? :cuss: :cuss: :cuss: They really need to figure out a better system... its total BS... when the 911 thing first came out they made it sound perfect... its far from it...

and as Chris put it, "our safety - is our responsibility - and ours only."
 
Accept if folks, despite the fine job the the police do in 99.999% of the calls they respond to, in the end taking care of your well being is YOUR job, not theirs. In the end, the cops are there to document and take the paperwork, for their use and yours.

Being placed on Hold, and having a call back from 911 is just another manifestation of this fact.
 
The police don't prevent or stop crimes. They write crime reports after the criminals finish with their victims. Sometimes they catch criminals. They watch the courts turn them loose to victimize more people.
 
Police do not even have to respond to a 911 call if they don't want to. Not alot of people know that. The police' main job is to investigate crimes after they've occurred. They are not legally obligated to respond to a 911 call if they're busy with something else, or just flat out elect not to respond.
It is our responsibility to protect ourselves, not to rely on someone else to do it for us.
 
Hm....

'Tis apocryphal at this point, but before 911 service made it to Reno NV, the PD there had an autoattendant that would answer with what amounted to a long "commercial" for the PD, followed by things like "if you are being murdered, please press '1' now."....

Or so I'm told....

:neener:

The funny thing is that I'm spoiled - the local PD, assuming you don't call during shift change, has excellent response times. One-man cars, and a lot of them, make for good service. But you can't count on that, and you can't count on the 911 call taker getting the right info to prioritize the call either.

Locally, the PD checks almost all 911 calls, eventually. This can introduce some complacency - especially when your house is known to have a four-year-old who likes to play with phone. That's not going to help the response time if you really need it....

As others have said, don't count on 911....

911 story: The former day job's phone system was set up to require "91" be dialed before getting an "outside line". Way before we had 911 service here, brought home the address book file from there and installed it on my PC to be able to get some numbers I needed. I told it to dial a favorite BBS, a LD number, and it obediently dialed "91 1 330 555 1212" or whatever the number was. The office phone system absorbed the "91" leadoff, but not the local Telco when dialing from home. This was at about 0300.... I realized what had happened and dumped the call. About fifteen seconds later the Telco Operator called.... It was their procedure at that time to call and check.... Today, I'd have a black & white in my driveway in ten minutes or less or the pizza would be free.... :D

(Well, no pizza, but....)

I normally wear a cellphone on my belt, and use a desk chair with arms. My StarTAC got sick, and the cellular carrier loaned me a candy-bar style Nokia. I programmed a few numbers into it so I'd have them, including the PD's non-emergency number. I was talking to a client when the cellphone rang: "Is everything OK? This is the Police. We figured that it was 'cause you seemed to be talking to somebody on another line, but...." The chair arm had been leaning on the #1 button, which, when held, speed-dialed the first speed dial number. The PD.... :)

(Which is why I don't put "911" into a speed dialer. You can get fined for that....)

Regards,
 
Police do not even have to respond to a 911 call if they don't want to. Not alot of people know that. The police' main job is to investigate crimes after they've occurred. They are not legally obligated to respond to a 911 call if they're busy with something else, or just flat out elect not to respond.
It is our responsibility to protect ourselves, not to rely on someone else to do it for us.
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I don't believe this is true.

I was an EMT for 12 years in Virginia Beach. When I was off duty, I had no responsibility to stop and render assistance at say, a traffic accident.

When I was ON duty however, I did. The basis for negligence was:

1. Having a duty to act (being on duty)

2. Failure to comply with that duty

Dispatchers prioritize calls, so a drunk driver call may be over-ruled by a "man with a gun call" but I don't think that a LEO can elect not to respond to a call he/she is dispatched to.
 
MarkDido: really? When off-duty, you had no responsibility to render aid?

Not being an EMT, I'm certainly not going to claim that you do, but I find it odd. My gf is a nurse, and part of her licensure is a legal duty to render aid at the scene of an accident if emergency services have not yet arrived. This just came up a couple weeks ago, in fact; she stopped at an accident while driving down the freeway, since there were no emergency personnel there (and since I was following her in a separate car, all I saw was a horrible accident, a smoking wreck, and her car...but heart attacks aren't the issue, here). I can't believe she, as an oncology nurse without specific EMT training, has a duty to stop, but trained EMTs don't. I'm guessing this varies from state to state, then?

Either way, though, I have no trouble believing that police don't have a duty to respond to 911 calls - for one thing, there's a difference in my mind between having a duty to respond if you're on the scene, and having a duty to respond to a phone call. Particularly given the number of accidental/bogus 911 calls. Just as a matter of practicality, I can understand why a department can't be held legally liable for not responding.

Responding at some point to every call is good policy, IMHO, but that doesn't mean it is or even should be law.
 
FWIW, response time in my neighborhood seems pretty good. On Saturday morning, we had a door-to-door scam artist ... er, "solicitor" ... ring the bell. In my community, you need a permit to do DTD solicitation. I'd seen this scam before. They use immigrant kids posing as college students, complete with college baseball caps, t-shirts and note pads, who go into a huge pitch about needing a place to stay while doing "research" in your area. If you let them get all the way through it, you find that they are looking for: (1) names and personal info of neighbors; and (2) money. They want #1 because they then go to that house and give your name as the person who "referred" them, making it more likely the entire pitch will be listened to.

I interrupted this girl several times demanding to know what she wanted. She kept evading the question and returning to her script. I then asked to see her permit. She gave me a blank look and said, "I need a permit?" I told her she did, and I was calling the Sheriff. I also told her to get off my porch. I closed the door and went for the phone.

I called the County Sheriff non-emergency number, and a dispatcher answered immediately. I reported the incident. As I was talking to the dispatcher, I watched the girl walk up the street in front of my house to the corner, still talking on the cell. I went outside (cordless phone!) and followed her so I would be able to see the vehicle that picked her up. While still on the phone with the Sheriff's office, I saw her get picked up by a man in a tan Ford Ranger with Texas plates. I gave a description of the vehicle and occupants, and its location and direction of travel to the dispatcher.

Ten minutes later I had two Sheriff's cars in front of my house. They had already located, stopped, questioned and "run off" the solicitors, and just wanted to make sure I hadn't been threatened. I assured them I hadn't been, and they thanked me for reporting the incident.

This was about as non-emergency of a situation as can be imagined. It's only the second time I have ever had to call the police in six years, and both times they were Johnny-on-the-spot. I don't relate this incident to suggest that people don't need to be prepared to defend themselves, but to counter all the horror stories that get told about answering machines at 9-1-1 and slow police response. I still carry regularly, and I am always prepared to defend myself, my family and my home. Still, I have confidence that the police will come quickly if I alert them -- quickly enough, anyway, that the goblin who tries to hurt my family will still be twitching when the black-and-whites pull up.

Maybe I live in an unusal community, but I don't necessarily think so. My town only has 10,000 residents, but we are a suburb to a major metro area (Memphis). We don't have our own police department. Our only police protection comes from the state highway patrol, which I've never seen in the area, and the County Sheriff. The County (Shelby County, TN) is huge, and we're a tiny little piece of it. Still, there always seem to be deputies close by.
 
I have heard (yes, internet legend) that typical response time for police in the US is four minutes. That's four minutes from end of phone call to cops showing up. Next time you're at home, imagine you are in bed and hear someone smash a door or window and enter your house. Start a clock, and see just how long four minutes really is.

Tim
 
Not to hijack the thread

I agree with MarkDido...as a former EMT I had no duty to respond when off duty. He is exactly right as to the rationale, off duty, no duty to act.

Nurses, doctors are licensed. EMTs, paramedics are certified. There is a distinction there. Doctors and nurses operate under their own authority, EMTs operate under a doctors suprevision.
 
Police do not even have to respond to a 911 call if they don't want to.
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I call BS on this.
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Well, I'm not sure it goes that far that they can pick and choose when they want to respond, but there have been several cases that set the precedent that the police don't have an obligation to respond to 911 calls and aren't liable for bad things that result from their lack of a response.

http://hematite.com/dragon/policeprot.html

Ruth Brunell called the police on 20 different occasions to plead for protection from her husband. He was arrested only one time. One evening Mr. Brunell telephoned his wife and told her he was coming over to kill her. When she called the police, they refused her request that they come to protect her. They told her to call back when he got there. Mr. Brunell stabbed his wife to death before she could call the police to tell them that he was there. The court held that the San Jose police were not liable for ignoring Mrs. Brunell's pleas for help. Hartzler v. City of San Jose, 46 Cal. App. 3d 6 (1st Dist. 1975).
Click to expand...

I'm not going to copy and paste everything from that link, but the jist of it is unless you have a "special relationship" with the police (which means you are basically in government custody) they have no duty to protect you.
 
Quote:
Police do not even have to respond to a 911 call if they don't want to.

I call BS on this.
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See Warren v. District of Columbia

The duty to provide public services is owed to the public at large, and, absent a special relationship between the police and an individual, no specific legal duty exists
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Yep, I'll take 1911 over 911. As has been said, police are investigators after the fact. Their job ain't to stop criminal acts as much as it is to stop criminals after they act.

I wouldn't have it any other way my ownself. I don't want a cop on every corner watching every citizen's actions.
 
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