[Chat] Suspicious Person

[SLG2700 at cs.com]

Judy:

It seems that the lack of response time to the 911 call was a result of a 
number of factors that need improvement.  If we give the 911 Operator our 
location and phone number and say that we want to speak to the officer that 
will speed things up.  The officer answered the call in 5 minutes but did not 
have an address or phone number for the caller.  So that is one of the 
reasons why the officer did not find you or your neighbor.  The other reason is 
because the officer did not call the dispatcher back and get the call back 
number from the 911 operator, which she could have done.  I told him the Deputy 
Major that we would continue to advise residents to provide detailed 
information when making 911 calls and he promised to remind the patrol officers to 
do more to locate 911 callers.

Here is what Deputy Major Worley just told me:

Sharon:

The call was dispatched and the officer gave it a code which indicated that 
she was unable to locate the victim or reporting person. It looks like the 
call came in from the cell phone tower at 1 University Parkway and was 
dispatched to 3000 Vineyard. The officer arrived in he area within 5 minutes of 
the call being dispatched and was unable to locate the caller or the 
suspicious person. It seems the problem was with the wording in the call. The text 
said that the caller was "willing" to speak to the officer but it did not 
give a location where the caller could be located. The officer could have done 
more by asking for a call back number to speak to the caller.

It seems to be a breakdown in communication that we can fix easily. The 
caller has to tell the dispatcher they "want" to speak to the officer and if 
they are using a cell phone they will need to give a location where the 
officer can locate them. On our end, we will give the officers training at roll 
call about using call back numbers. I know this is something technical but 
with people wanting to remain anonymous and privacy laws the officer may err on 
the side of caution. 

I think as we correct these things and move on the lines of communication 
will improve. We need all the help we can get and I hope this incident 
doesn't discourage anyone from calling 911. 

It is a work in progress but the biggest step is we have people calling. We 
can always do better on our end and we will. It's encouraging that the 
people not only care enough to call but they also care enough to send an email 
to bring our attention to issues as they arise. We can fix them and get 
better with every call and every email. Communication is the key to success and 
we are definitely moving in the right direction.

Thanks for your help,
Deputy Major Worley 
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