Does this seem excessive to you?

[explcdt8]

Does this seem like an excessive number of inaccurate 911 calls? In the past week alone, we have had:

2 Domestics that were actually MVA's
1 MVA with "Serious Injuries" that turned out to be a fender-bender
1 MVA involving 2 cars and entrapment that turned out to be a 1 car MVA with injuries. Plus, it was announced as "Intersection of A Road and B Road, it turned out to be "Intersection of A Road and C Road, over 1000 feet away.

Not knowing the extent of injuries/entrapment I understand; but confusing a woman screaming at a spouse; with one screaming in pain after a car accident?? Or not knowing how many cars are involved??

[Samuel]

Nope. Call volume and types of calls are going to vary (a lot) from place to place. Some places could Easily field All those calls you listed in Half a Shift.

Also, what you see is not always what you get - you shouldn't always expect every call to be exactly what is sent to you in your car. Sometimes the people taking the calls don't get all the info or make a mistake. Most often, the people making the calls don't give good info, give a very biased version of the situation, or intentionally lie. And quite often things change before you get there as well...

[Johninaustin]

It's been particulary bad for us of late. Lots of mis-categorized calls, calls sent to the wrong sectors, etc. Worse, FD sent to ROBBERY alarms.:eek:

It's embarrassing to have the FD call us and ask when we are going to send an officer out. Twice I've been out and about and found FD at an incident scene we were never told occurred.

we have a bunch of new dispatchers as of late and a new dispatch system. I hope we grow out of this mess quickly.

[explcdt8]

Thanks. I guess it just seemed excessive because that is the first time I have ever heard that amount of "inaccurate" calls. I'm sure as I get more involved in LE, I will be hearing a lot more.

[MrJim911]

I am just going to ditto Samuel. You never know whhat you have even if you ask the right questions and get answers for all of them. We are only asgood as the info the callers give us. And since we don't judge their integrity, we accept it as truth. Until the officer gets on scene and finds it to be the polar opposite of what they were sent on..... lol

[shugs]

Some dispatchers and call takers are better than others at drawing information out of people. Of course, people don't always know where they are or otherwise give inaccurate information. One of the things that i have done is get patched through to the caller and get the information myself.
By this time the person has calmed down and I can ask questions such as what building they are next to, or what landscape they see, in order to determine accurate location. For me, this is one of the greatest issues. Driving around for 20 minutes trying to find someone when a 30 second phone call can solve the problem. Or better yet, the person has left or otherwise changed their mind about needing a police officer.

[falcon four]

That's not excessive at all, Unless you live in a village with say 50 residents...

At my internship, we had numerous calls a day come in miscategorized. The one that sticks out in my mind was a shooting that came over the radio as something completely different. When we got there and found blood everywhere, about ten .45 caliber shell casings on the ground, and two sets of skid marks, it was obviously something much more serious than what the call came in as. To make things more interesting, a parking lot full of people "didn't hear no gunshots"

The detectives came out and processed the crime scene... We had no shooter and no victim, until dispatch called in saying that a multiple GS wound victim arrived at a doctors office over twenty five miles away asking to be stitched up...