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Date of birth seems to be the new "must have" information that police want these days. I hear it all the time on scanner feeds I listen to. "Reporting party is John Smith DOB xx/xx/xxxx." Just the government collecting more worthless information on people, for the sake of it.
Exactly. What I found most troubling was her admission that she had been instructed to get as complete a profile as possible on every caller so that it could be entered into a permanent database. "We need to put that information into our database in case you ever have contact with a police officer in the future." That is extreme government overreach. What she was saying is that if I ever have any contact with a police officer in the future - pulled over for speeding, stopped and asked why I'm in a certain neighborhood, report a stolen item or other crime - when the officer runs my ID, there will be a record that I once called 911 about a dead deer in the road.
Why? What possible relevance does that have? Why would any government or law enforcement agency need to have a permanent record that I once called 911 about a dead deer in the road? This data collection orgy is going way, way too far.
Last edited by Mr. In-Between; 09-07-2015 at 12:43 PM..
I spoke with a few police officers in the interim. All have said I did the right thing; and that the dispatchers don't really need the information they are requesting.
I just referred to this situation of 911 operators focusing on bureaucracy than crime prevention and hazard removal in the "Walmart employee" thread (link to post).
I made the same call for a ladder in the middle of the interstate, though in that case I called the highway patrol rather than 911.
I would have done that had I had the number for the poice in Upper Dunnerston, VT. Mobile 911 goes to a dispatcher who refers the call to the appropriate police department.
Here in Oregon, they want you to call one of ODOT's regional dispatch centers to report road hazards, not 911. Different numbers for different parts of the state. I don't know how they expect you to know which one to call.
Anyway I probably wouldn't call 911 to report a ladder on the road, unless it was on the interstate. For one thing, around here it can take the Oregon State Police over 30 minutes to respond to major accidents. That would probably be too late to prevent an accident. The people around here just remove stuff like that from the roads ourselves. When trees fall on the road, somebody with a chainsaw will cut it up and move it, before the state police or the DOT will even know about it.
I called 911 once when my car died on the interstate. It died just before an off-ramp, so I coasted down the ramp, then called. I said I wasn't sure if it was proper to call 911 for a stalled car, but it was -30F with a windchill of -60, so while it may not be a true emergency now, it would escalate to one pretty quickly without a car heater. The dispatcher said it sounded like an emergency to her, and she sent out a tow truck.
The only other time I called 911 was when my wife died. I heard her moan and ran upstairs to see if there was something wrong. I found her comatose on the bed so immediately made the call. The operator asked me to stay on the line while she dispatched police and ambulance, which took a few seconds, she then told me to turn on my outside light and open the door, which I did, and then she wanted more. I told her I was trying to save my wife's life, and if she wanted to be on the line, fine, but I wasn't going to hold the phone while attempting CPR. Police showed up within 30 seconds, ambulance a couple minutes later.
The only other time I called 911 was when my wife died. I heard her moan and ran upstairs to see if there was something wrong. I found her comatose on the bed so immediately made the call. The operator asked me to stay on the line while she dispatched police and ambulance, which took a few seconds, she then told me to turn on my outside light and open the door, which I did, and then she wanted more. I told her I was trying to save my wife's life, and if she wanted to be on the line, fine, but I wasn't going to hold the phone while attempting CPR. Police showed up within 30 seconds, ambulance a couple minutes later.
The reason they ask for your info is they can call you back if you get disconnected or something. The call goes into a database just like every call, and they already have your phone number, so telling your name doesn't really give them any info that they can't get, it's just for convenience.
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