Last time you called the Police

[tyson127]

I am a LEO, and even I end up calling non-emergency about once a year for one reason or another.

To answer a question a few posts above: here in Fla the FWC responds to bear calls. Locals generally have no responsibility to respond and receive no training on the issue. Now, my SGT may have one or two units go to the scene (if we aren't running call to call ) to keep the crowd controlled and make sure nobody starts harassing the animal or creating an unsafe condition. Other than bears and the occassional loose dog, we refer to FWC.

 

[maxiesmom]

Just a couple of weeks ago. While I was at work someone stole my catalytic converter off of my car.

 

[christineann]

Last month someone used my debit card number to buy a fast food gift certificate on line for $50. I called the bank and canceled the debit card, etc. and then called the non-emergency number and filled out a report, because the fast food business gave me the thief's email address and other information.

I called the police (also non-emergency number) several years ago to ask them to check on a vehicle parked on the side of the road across the street from my house. There was a man sitting by himself in the vehicle, and according to a neighbor, he had been there about an hour. We live on a cul de sac with several children. The police were there within 3 minutes. I think the guy was doing surveillance on a woman down the street in a family court matter. The police told him to move on.

Several years ago, my son (LEO) responded to a 911 robbery call from a woman who then informed him that the robbery involved her son - she loaned him some money, and he wouldn't pay her back. She wanted the police to find him and arrest him. Really.

 

[ronandannette]

The post seemed kind of unusual since most local law enforcement wouldn't be trained to deal with wildlife. Maybe someone calls them, but they'll typically refer them to a county or state agency with that responsibility. That being said, there's been some really weird stuff over the years, including the San Francisco Police gunning down an escaped tiger.

LOL - I guess that depends on the locale. We get anything from deer to bobcats to badgers here in the city fairly routinely...I'd likely try the local RCMP detachment (the Mounties) before the City Police Department but I'm sure either of them would be able to respond.

 

[ronandannette]

Last month someone used my debit card number to buy a fast food gift certificate on line for $50. I called the bank and canceled the debit card, etc. and then called the non-emergency number and filled out a report, because the fast food business gave me the thief's email address and other information.

I called the police (also non-emergency number) several years ago to ask them to check on a vehicle parked on the side of the road across the street from my house. There was a man sitting by himself in the vehicle, and according to a neighbor, he had been there about an hour. We live on a cul de sac with several children. The police were there within 3 minutes. I think the guy was doing surveillance on a woman down the street in a family court matter. The police told him to move on.

Several years ago, my son (LEO) responded to a 911 robbery call from a woman who then informed him that the robbery involved her son - she loaned him some money, and he wouldn't pay her back. She wanted the police to find him and arrest him. Really.

Just curious...is this illegal where you live?

 

[Goofy_Disney_Dad]

Just curious...is this illegal where you live?

I'd imagine they could use the very hard to define "loitering" laws for this type of thing. So yes, it could be considered illegal any place that has anti loitering laws.

 

[slo]

A month ago

17yr old DD took the garbage out to find an elderly man in our backyard - FREAKED HER OUT!!!!!

I could tell by talking with him that he was confused and probably had Alzheimers (my dad just passed away from Alzheimers in March) so I have a pretty good idea of how people are with this disease.

So I told him to stay in my yard and I called the police and told them that he was in my yard - no threat - and to please have someone come get him.

When the officer came he knew exactly who he was and that I was correct about him having Alzheimers. So he put him in his squad car and drove him home.

It took my DD awhile to get her heartrate down - she wasn't expecting a strange man in the backyard at 3pm.

 

[rszdtrvl]

I think it was when we were getting gas in the car, and a MVA (motor vehicle accident) happened in the road right in front of the station. I believe I called, as well as another person. It was quite the fender bender. I believe one person, a guy, was transported with neck pain to the hospital.

And before that it was when DH went into the recycle bin to look for a box and came upon someone in the recycle bin. He didn't know if they were alive or dead, so he called it in so the EMT's could check on him. We have a major issue with homeless sleeping in the recycle bins - he has come upon one in almost every bin he looks through before 11am.

 

[bcla]

LOL - I guess that depends on the locale. We get anything from deer to bobcats to badgers here in the city fairly routinely...I'd likely try the local RCMP detachment (the Mounties) before the City Police Department but I'm sure either of them would be able to respond.

I wouldn't say it doesn't happen around here, but city police and county sheriff's departments really aren't that well equipped to handle wildlife. We don't have badgers, but deer and bobcats live in our area. And turkeys. Lots of turkeys. I'd also estimate that half of all mountain lion sightings in residential areas end up with said lion being shot.

There was outrage when Oakland Police made a call and ended up shooting a deer.

http://abclocal.go.com/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=7420987

 

[tvguy]

The post seemed kind of unusual since most local law enforcement wouldn't be trained to deal with wildlife. Maybe someone calls them, but they'll typically refer them to a county or state agency with that responsibility. That being said, there's been some really weird stuff over the years, including the San Francisco Police gunning down an escaped tiger.

Fire and law enforcement "first responders" on just about everything because they are 24/7 365. Fish and game doesn't staff over night, it's all on a call out basis. They only respond after hours when the request comes from a first responder who has eyes on the bear.

 

[tvguy]

Wasn't Verizon one of the regional Bell companies?

However, I remember the first time I'd heard about the MicroTAC. I was in college, and I saw a story in the business section of a newspaper. And what stood out was the $2000 price tag. I kind of wondered who would spend so much money on something that looked really easy to lose. In about 4 years it was the best selling phone on the market, and you could probably buy one for $200 without a contract. I don't think reduced price contract phones were legal in California until the late 90s. I visited NYC in the early 90s, and my host explained why the prices were so low - that they came attached with a contract.

I don't know. Pactel cellular was owned by one of the regional Bells, Pacific Telephone. Pacific Telephone sold it to Airtouch because they were concerns that the regional bells were going to be forced to get out of the cellular business. Airtouch sold out to Verizon. It appears if Verizon has only been around since 2000, as a merger of several companies.

 

[Wendy31]

About seven or eight years ago...

It was January and it was minus 20 degrees out. I looked out my window and a teenage boy was walking by with just slippers, pj bottoms and a tshirt on and he was kind of limping. I opened my door and called out to him, but he just kept going. He was heading towards the forest across the road. I grabbed the phone and called the police and tried to follow him, but by the time I got my coat and boots on, and got out the door I had lost him. Anyways, thankfully, the police found him in the forest and he was okay.

I called the police about a year or so ago for almost this exact same reason.

DH & I were watching TV ("The Walking Dead" of all things) very, very late one night (between 1:00 & 2:00 am) when our dog suddenly went crazy, running back & forth between the front door & the front living room window & barking - not his "there's a cat out there" bark but his "there's a stranger out there!" bark.

Across the street from us, there are two houses w/ a small wooded plot in between the houses - the wooded area is straight in front of our house, & a truck was parked in front of this small area. As we watched, a young-ish guy (older teens maybe?) got out of the truck & just kind of stood there while someone else took a couple of cardboard boxes out the back of the truck & tossed them on the ground beside the guy. The truck then drove off, leaving the guy standing there w/ the boxes.

The guy stood beside the boxes for a couple of minutes & then started walking, leaving the boxes. He walked down to the street corner & stopped at the stop sign & then just stood there.

We figured he'd been just dumped there by someone, & I was worried because it was freezing outside. DH was going to go to talk to him, but I also didn't want DH to get in the middle of some drug deal or something. So, anyway, I called the non-emergency police number, & they sent a patrol car.

After I called & while we were waiting on the police to show up, the guy walked back to the boxes, pulled out a red hoodie & put it on, & then walked back to the stop sign. He waited there another a few minutes & then took off walking down the street further into our subdivision. The "center" of our subdivision is heavily wooded. DH & I were worried that the guy was going to try to set up camp or something in the woods, & and it was freezing outside. DH, at this point, did go outside & tried to find him in the woods behind our house. But it was like he had disappeared when he went around the curve in the street.

When I first called the police, I had given them a description of what the guy was wearing, so I called back to give them an updated description. LOL! "Now, he's wearing a red hoodie! And he's not standing at the stop sign any longer!"

Anyway, the police got there & looked through the boxes before putting them in their car & then drove through the neighborhood looking for the guy. As they drove back by our house, they stopped & told DH it looked like the guy had been dumped there, but they couldn't find him. They then went to one of the houses across the street from us & talked to the older lady who lives there & gave her the boxes. Apparently, the guy was a former boyfriend of the lady's teenaged granddaughter. And the police were familiar w/ him & his contacts.

 

[tvguy]

I was trying to figure out what the counties recommend. Here's El Dorado County:

https://www.edcgov.us/AnimalServices/Loose_Animals.aspx

For mountain lion or bear problems, contact the California Department of Fish and Game at (916) 358-2888. In any animal emergency, call 911. For additional information on how to avoid wildlife problems, see the Agriculture Department’s website.​

I suspect they don't have to worry a whole lot about bears in El Dorado Hills, but they supposedly become an issue around the foothills and up into the Sierra.

The whole south and half the western side of Lake Tahoe are in El Dorado County. Bears are a frequent issue for law enforcement there. No, they don't catch the bears, they are the ones that call out fish and game in the middle of the night, or if a threat, dispatch the bear. But that usually only happens in extreme cases.

http://www.news10.net/story/news/local/2015/03/14/bears-lake-tahoe-drought-league/70320286/

 

[christineann]

Illegal? Not exactly, but worthy of proactive police work/investigation on a cul de sac with small children playing in their front yards. The man was not arrested.

 

[HelenePA]

My next door neighbor slept with one of his friends wives... the husband (now former friend) came over and almost ran my neighbor over with his car in my neighbors driveway... my 6 yr old saw the whole thing.. it was pretty bad.

 

[Arkansan]

More than 5 years ago. I was driving and stopped at a red light. The cross street was green and, before I got to the corner, something happened between another car and a man on a bicycle. I didn't see what happened between them, just the aftermath. The person driving got out of his car and appeared to go after the man on the bike. I was stuck at the light with my kids in the car, so I called 911 to report the fight. They were yelling at each other and it appeared that it was going to turn physical. When the light turned green, I got out of there. My kids still remember this incident and bring it up every so often (the oldest was 9 or so at the time) so I know they were scared.

 

[christineann]

I just thought of another time that I recently called the police. I stopped by a convenience store to buy a lottery ticket, and the man standing behind me in line struck up a conversation and told me he really liked my outfit and asked me what I did for a living and stuff like that. I thought it was kind of odd but was polite and thought he looked familiar. I got into my car, and he got into another car nearby, and I thought he was kind of creepy so I wrote down his license plate. That night I saw his mugshot on the news - he was wanted for attempted murder/CDV, and the public was being warned that he carried a large knife and was extremely dangerous. The man with him called him by his name, so I knew it was the same guy. I called a detective suggested by my son, and the detective gave me an update a week later that they had gotten him and he was not getting bond this time. Trust your gut and be observant!

 

[Judique]

I got my Oki bag phone in February 1990. $550. I am in the second cellular prefix in my area code. My cell phone is one of the first 20,000 in the area code. Anytime I go into Verizon they comment on how old my number, and my account are. Actually, I was a Pactel Cellular customer, they sold out to Airtouch, who sold out to Verizon. My account with Verizon goes back 10 years before Verizon even existed.

I got my first car phone in 1990.

Still have my original number also. I had that phone hardwired into 3 cars before I finally bought a portable cell phone.

Also, I miss that phone still. It was like talking on a landline phone in your living room!

Verizon doesn't get to comment to me. I ditched them a few years back, but kept the number.

Oh, and I recently called police when I was rearended at a stop sign.

Plus, I call regularly from work for something or other - part of the job.

 

[aprilgail]

The last time I called the police it was sort of second hand calling. My daughter and I were driving on the parkway at 7am and there was a lady with a "church hat" on clutching her pocketbook sort of wandering very close to the lanes of traffic, there was no car on the side of the road near her so it wasn't that she had broken down. There are no pedestrians on parkways here but I didn't call because of that, she looked confused and scared and by the time it registered I was to far past her to pull over so I just told my daughter to call 911 and they transferred her to the state police and they went and picked her up. The only reason I know they got her is because I posted about seeing the woman on facebook later that day and a friend of mine passed and saw her being put into the state troopers car a short while after I saw her.

 

[tvguy]

I got my first car phone in 1990.

Still have my original number also. I had that phone hardwired into 3 cars before I finally bought a portable cell phone.

Also, I miss that phone still. It was like talking on a landline phone in your living room!

Verizon doesn't get to comment to me. I ditched them a few years back, but kept the number.

I have my same number from 1990 and my wife the same number from 1991. Small portable phones are nice, but 6-10ths of a watt digital can't compete for clarity with the old 3 watt analog phones. My wife called from her car....when it was still legal to use a phone while driving with her old 3 watt analog bag phone to tell her boss she was going to be late because she was stuck in traffic. Boss thought she overslept and was calling from the home landline because the call was so clear.