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The first reason is organizational. 911 dispatch and law enforcement are two very different entities. Law enforcement pays 911 dispatch for a service (every tim

by lgbr 8y ago

The first reason is organizational. 911 dispatch and law enforcement are two very different entities. Law enforcement pays 911 dispatch for a service (every time they push that button on their radio they pay a fee). If you have 911 calls coming to the squad car, you're now circumventing 911 dispatch. Secondly, it's equipment. Most officers have a cell phone and a radio, which isn't really capable of taking calls from their cell-site simulators. Furthermore, they wouldn't be able to record your call, redirect it to fire or EMT, nor dispatch another officer in another jurisdiction.

MBCook 8y ago
The officers aren’t trained for it either. I imagine there are pretty important lists of questions that 911 operators ask in various situations to get the right information to pass on. The officers would have to wing it and hope Ts enough. Or we’d have to train every single officer to have the right skills all the time for something they’ll almost certainly never use.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Considering how many officers seem incapable of drawing a firearm without mag dumping with no regard for what's behind the target I don't think it's possible to train them to do yet another thing without a significant number forgetting most of that training when they happen to need it. (Less rare to draw a gun than get a difficult 911 call when operating a stingray but still not an annual occurrence for many individual officers.) Requiring a 911 dispatcher be on hand to field 911 calls intercepted by the stingray would probably work and in many cases it would have the side benefit of involving a person accountable to a different chain of command. Having an outside observer like that could slightly discourage stingray abuse (all use is abuse IMO) depending on how they're used in practice. Edit: It's interesting to see this bounce between positive an negative votes. Why do people disagree? I don't see why this isn't a reasonable opinion. Edit2: I think firearm usage is a good parallel to a non-911 operator fielding a 911 call while using a stingray. Cops get a scheduled training/test on weapons usage (monthly,annually or somewhere between) but there's still a chance that the situational details result in poor performance because you're not trained on the edge cases and you can't expect every officer to do everything perfectly. Likewise a 911 operator is a specialist job that most cops can probably do an ok job at in typical cases but the risks of poorly handling an edge cases are high enough to be unacceptable. It's much more practical to have a dedicated 911 operator on the job than it is to tell cops to just not get in situations where they have to draw a gun.
  - MBCook 8y ago
    Your edit: I don’t think your comment is very useful. It starts off as sort of a generic ‘cops are bad, so who cares’ screed. Cops behavior when using firearms isn’t really germane to the training required to handle 911 calls. Your second paragraph is a good comment. That’s probavly balancing out the downvotes from the first. I agree with you that would have the effect of discouraging Stingray use (especially since departments like to hide that they get used), but I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.
    - m1573rp34130dy 8y ago
      you have given an intelligent critique to this comment...thank you
- gowld 8y ago
  The only important questions are 1) where are you located? (critical) 2) what's your emergency? (optional) then a police car and fire truck and maybe EMT are dispatched.
  - sbarre 8y ago
    Have you ever called 911? That's not even close to how a call goes..
  - MBCook 8y ago
    What kind of fire? Are people still inside? Do you need instructions on how to provide CPR? What did they eat? Are they on any medications? That’s off the top of my head. I imagine a trained dispatcher could come up with WAY more.
    - PaulHoule 8y ago
      Yeah, if you call 911 and say a crazy person is breaking glass in your house they'll ask you if you have any firearms in your house, for instance.
  - mikestew 8y ago
    If you've ever called 911, or had any experience with dispatching in any capacity, you'll have discovered that trained, experienced professionals don't think that those are the only two important questions.
  - kevinmchugh 8y ago
    An answer to #2 might be "my friend is bleeding from the neck". The dispatcher needs to 1) give first aid advice (put pressure on the wound) 2) figure out if the police should respond. People in an emergency are not always forthcoming with details.

by lgbr 8y ago

MBCook 8y ago

The officers aren’t trained for it either. I imagine there are pretty important lists of questions that 911 operators ask in various situations to get the right information to pass on. The officers would have to wing it and hope Ts enough. Or we’d have to train every single officer to have the right skills all the time for something they’ll almost certainly never use.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
Considering how many officers seem incapable of drawing a firearm without mag dumping with no regard for what's behind the target I don't think it's possible to train them to do yet another thing without a significant number forgetting most of that training when they happen to need it. (Less rare to draw a gun than get a difficult 911 call when operating a stingray but still not an annual occurrence for many individual officers.) Requiring a 911 dispatcher be on hand to field 911 calls intercepted by the stingray would probably work and in many cases it would have the side benefit of involving a person accountable to a different chain of command. Having an outside observer like that could slightly discourage stingray abuse (all use is abuse IMO) depending on how they're used in practice. Edit: It's interesting to see this bounce between positive an negative votes. Why do people disagree? I don't see why this isn't a reasonable opinion. Edit2: I think firearm usage is a good parallel to a non-911 operator fielding a 911 call while using a stingray. Cops get a scheduled training/test on weapons usage (monthly,annually or somewhere between) but there's still a chance that the situational details result in poor performance because you're not trained on the edge cases and you can't expect every officer to do everything perfectly. Likewise a 911 operator is a specialist job that most cops can probably do an ok job at in typical cases but the risks of poorly handling an edge cases are high enough to be unacceptable. It's much more practical to have a dedicated 911 operator on the job than it is to tell cops to just not get in situations where they have to draw a gun.
- MBCook 8y ago
  Your edit: I don’t think your comment is very useful. It starts off as sort of a generic ‘cops are bad, so who cares’ screed. Cops behavior when using firearms isn’t really germane to the training required to handle 911 calls. Your second paragraph is a good comment. That’s probavly balancing out the downvotes from the first. I agree with you that would have the effect of discouraging Stingray use (especially since departments like to hide that they get used), but I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.
  - m1573rp34130dy 8y ago
    you have given an intelligent critique to this comment...thank you
gowld 8y ago
The only important questions are 1) where are you located? (critical) 2) what's your emergency? (optional) then a police car and fire truck and maybe EMT are dispatched.
- sbarre 8y ago
  Have you ever called 911? That's not even close to how a call goes..
- MBCook 8y ago
  What kind of fire? Are people still inside? Do you need instructions on how to provide CPR? What did they eat? Are they on any medications? That’s off the top of my head. I imagine a trained dispatcher could come up with WAY more.
  - PaulHoule 8y ago
    Yeah, if you call 911 and say a crazy person is breaking glass in your house they'll ask you if you have any firearms in your house, for instance.
- mikestew 8y ago
  If you've ever called 911, or had any experience with dispatching in any capacity, you'll have discovered that trained, experienced professionals don't think that those are the only two important questions.
- kevinmchugh 8y ago
  An answer to #2 might be "my friend is bleeding from the neck". The dispatcher needs to 1) give first aid advice (put pressure on the wound) 2) figure out if the police should respond. People in an emergency are not always forthcoming with details.