![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sniffnoySo, a few weeks ago some crazy guy attacked me on the street, basically across the street from where I live. Ran at me out of nowhere, hit me, knocked me down. Thankfully he stopped at that. Anyway, I'm OK -- got some nasty bruises and scrapes but that's it. (Really annoyingly, the one other guy in view did absolutely nothing when I shouted for help -- just kept on walking!) Well -- when I went back later, the guy was still there, so me and Alex were able to get some pictures of him.
Anyway, when I reported this to the police, a thing the officer who took the report asked me was, why didn't you call 911?
I found this pretty baffling. Of course I didn't call 911, because at no point that I could have called 911 was there an active emergency! (Well, that's not true -- actually there was one such point, when I was on the ground but before the guy left. But I didn't think of it then.)
Ever since I was a kid, it's always been, remember, 911 is for emergencies only, you'll get in big trouble if you call 911 for non-emergencies! And "emergency" to my mind means, y'know, one where failure to act will plausibly result in death or permanent injury, right? Or something like that. Go read Wikipedia on emergencies.
But no, apparently according to the police here, 911 is just the number to call for any situation where you urgently need a police officer to show up, even if it's not an emergency as normally construed. So instead of Alex and I getting pictures of the guy, we should have called 911 to get a police officer to show up and arrest him -- even though by that point any active emergency was well over! I dunno, I feel like I'd be kind of embarrassed to call 911 in a situation like that.
This isn't the first time this has come up. Sometime maybe last year or so, there was some drunk-seeming guy outside being really loud and annoying late at night. Usually with people being too loud I don't bother doing anything and just wait them out; on occasion I'll go confront them myself; but sometimes, yeah, I call 311 and make a noise complaint. Calling 311 is such a pain -- there's such a long unskippable message before you even get to the menu. It's so bad!
Anyway, in this case, I tried to make a noise complaint, but the dispatcher said, so this isn't due to a party or a car but rather to a disorderly individual? That's a 911 call, let me transfer you. Um! Yeah ultimately I didn't go through with it and did nothing because y'know I hardly wanted to call 911 on this poor guy! I mean obviously this is in no way an emergency. I just wanted a police officer to come by and tell him to knock it off or he'd get arrested -- not to come in with gun drawn or anything, which is what I imagine when I think of 911! And yet that is what the city requires you to do??
I really don't like this. None of these situations are emergencies, 911 is supposed to be for emergencies, I would not feel comfortable calling 911 in these situations (although obviously I would now call 911 if some crazy guy attacked me again because I'd consider letting him get away with it to be worse). They should change 311 to handle these things, IMO -- and also, y'know, make 311 usable by not having that long fricking preamble and menu system!
(I guess they could introduce an intermediate -- "I need a police officer urgently but it's not an emergency" -- but I don't really expect most people to remember 3 different levels and phone numbers like that, so I don't think that's really viable.)
I want to complain about this, but I'm not sure to who. Is this just a New York thing or is this how things are divided more generally in the US? And if it is a city thing, I'm not sure whether it's city council I would talk to or what...
Anyway, when I reported this to the police, a thing the officer who took the report asked me was, why didn't you call 911?
I found this pretty baffling. Of course I didn't call 911, because at no point that I could have called 911 was there an active emergency! (Well, that's not true -- actually there was one such point, when I was on the ground but before the guy left. But I didn't think of it then.)
Ever since I was a kid, it's always been, remember, 911 is for emergencies only, you'll get in big trouble if you call 911 for non-emergencies! And "emergency" to my mind means, y'know, one where failure to act will plausibly result in death or permanent injury, right? Or something like that. Go read Wikipedia on emergencies.
But no, apparently according to the police here, 911 is just the number to call for any situation where you urgently need a police officer to show up, even if it's not an emergency as normally construed. So instead of Alex and I getting pictures of the guy, we should have called 911 to get a police officer to show up and arrest him -- even though by that point any active emergency was well over! I dunno, I feel like I'd be kind of embarrassed to call 911 in a situation like that.
This isn't the first time this has come up. Sometime maybe last year or so, there was some drunk-seeming guy outside being really loud and annoying late at night. Usually with people being too loud I don't bother doing anything and just wait them out; on occasion I'll go confront them myself; but sometimes, yeah, I call 311 and make a noise complaint. Calling 311 is such a pain -- there's such a long unskippable message before you even get to the menu. It's so bad!
Anyway, in this case, I tried to make a noise complaint, but the dispatcher said, so this isn't due to a party or a car but rather to a disorderly individual? That's a 911 call, let me transfer you. Um! Yeah ultimately I didn't go through with it and did nothing because y'know I hardly wanted to call 911 on this poor guy! I mean obviously this is in no way an emergency. I just wanted a police officer to come by and tell him to knock it off or he'd get arrested -- not to come in with gun drawn or anything, which is what I imagine when I think of 911! And yet that is what the city requires you to do??
I really don't like this. None of these situations are emergencies, 911 is supposed to be for emergencies, I would not feel comfortable calling 911 in these situations (although obviously I would now call 911 if some crazy guy attacked me again because I'd consider letting him get away with it to be worse). They should change 311 to handle these things, IMO -- and also, y'know, make 311 usable by not having that long fricking preamble and menu system!
(I guess they could introduce an intermediate -- "I need a police officer urgently but it's not an emergency" -- but I don't really expect most people to remember 3 different levels and phone numbers like that, so I don't think that's really viable.)
I want to complain about this, but I'm not sure to who. Is this just a New York thing or is this how things are divided more generally in the US? And if it is a city thing, I'm not sure whether it's city council I would talk to or what...
no subject
Date: 2024-10-02 10:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-02 10:42 pm (UTC)