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Blind and deaf dog Teddy got lost in a neighbor’s yard. Police called to help him shot him dead
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 25 May 2024
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Something that sticks out to me as someone who works in 911 dispatch (rest assured, I think my cops are bastards) is that I didn't even hear him key up to give his dispatcher a heads-up first (I don't want to give him the benefit of the doubt but it's possible he did and I missed it, I had my volume on pretty low)
Luckily we haven't had any cop shooting dog incidents in my county while I was working, and the small handful I've heard of that happened on other shifts have been justified cases where a dog actually attacked someone, but what we do get is a whole lot of injured deer or other critters that have been hit by a car and need to be put down, and our cops always key up beforehand to let us know before they do it, if only so we're prepared if 30 seconds later we get a call about shots fired in the area. Ignoring how inappropriate his actions were in shooting the dog, this was definitely a situation where there was no immediate danger and he could have taken an extra minute to radio his dispatcher to give them a heads-up and let them send a message to the calltakers "in case of shots fired calls in the area, officer dickbag is putting down a potentially rabid dog."
Of course this douchenozzle has no respect for life, he doesn't even have basic courtesy towards the people he works with or the people in the neighborhood who might be startled by hearing gunshots. People are understandably very relieved when they call in terrified that they just heard gunshots and we can confidently tell them "an officer just had to put down an injured deer a couple blocks away, so that's probably what you heard" and it saves us from having to enter a call for it that they then have to acknowledge.
Side-note, it's mind-blowing to me how many people just ignore what they think are gunshots. I work in a pretty diverse county that has a little bit of everything, but for the most part it's just various flavors of suburbia, not exactly the hood where shootings are an everyday thing or the sticks where every other neighbor is hunting or target shooting in their back yard, gunshots should trigger some alarm bells for most people. It's wild how many people will mention off-handedly that they thought they heard gunshots but didn't call for some reason, or they wait until way after the fact to call about it. Now I'm also pretty sure 90% of them are probably misidentifying what they heard (we get so many people calling in shots fired for fireworks, cars backfiring, doors slamming, etc. sometimes I can hear the fireworks in the background whistling, sizzling, and crackling in very un-gunshot ways while my caller swears up and down that they "know what gunshots sound like,") but even still, that's one of those cases where you should probably err on the side of caution. I'm personally very willing to ignore a lot of things, but if I think I hear gunshots somewhere I shouldn't be hearing them, I'm calling 911 immediately.
Regarding the side note, people will stop calling in when they are asked “are you sure it wasn’t fireworks” nearly everytime. It is discouraging. From personal experience.
I generally avoid asking that except in 3 kinds cases
We already have multiple calls around the area for fireworks, and then one person calls in saying they think it's gunshots.
Cases like I mentioned where there's very obvious fireworks going on in the background that I can hear on the phone.
It's on or very near a holiday that you'd expect there to be fireworks, 4th of July, New Years, Diwali, etc.
Even in those cases, if you insist it's gunshots, I'm entering it as gunshots. Not my place to make that call and I don't want that liability on me if I make the wrong one. If our cops want to ignore it that can be on them. Some agencies are better about this than others, but my training was very clear that I should enter the call for whatever the caller is telling me is going on, not what I think is going on, they're there seeing or hearing it, I'm not.
I live in semi-rural suburbia, but honestly, there are so many different types of banging noises around here from people doing construction or repair work to cars running over temporary metal plates in the road that I wouldn't be able to tell you if one was someone target shooting in their back yard (or worse).
Nah, if I'm wrong I'll have to talk to a cop for no reason. If one of my neighbors turns up shot or missing the next day I'll mention it sure but if nothing comes of it no way. I don't want to be on their radar at all if possible. If someone was shot the damage is done me calling won't help them.
We had an incident one morning where a passerby called in someone laying on the sidewalk, appeared to be unconscious. Cops and EMS got out there, and it was a shooting victim, obviously deceased, had been there for hours.
Turns out that multiple people in the area had heard shots overnight but decided not to call.
I dont know the details about exactly what kind of injuries the victim sustained, they could have died instantly, or they might not have and if someone had called in the gunshots they might have been found and taken to a hospital and possibly could still be alive today.
Department policies and how individual officers use their discretion will of course vary, but in general unless they get out there and find actual evidence that something happened, most of the time they aren't going to give a shit about talking to you. They go out, drive around the area, maybe park and walk around a bit on foot, if anyone happens to be outside they'll ask if they heard anything, and unless you indicated that you want to speak with the cops, they'll be on their way.
Also, if you call from a cell phone, we usually don't automatically get your name or address (there's some exceptions with some types of WiFi calling, femtocells, and how much emergency info you've filled out on your phone, or if you've previously called and gave your info we can look that up,) just a location based on cell tower triangulation that isn't always super accurate. Yes, we can probably get the info from your phone company if needed, but unless they actually find an issue and need to follow up with you, no one involved on our end wants to go through that process.
Just give your nearest intersection, say what you heard, say you want to remain anonymous, and decline to provide your address. If you're really paranoid about it, if your phone has a physical sim card take it out, or call from an old phone without active service and we won't even get your phone number to look up. Just please for my sake don't be a dick about it, so many of my anonymous callers get really argumentative "well why do you need my name? Nah, I'm not giving that to you, you see this is why people don't call 911, why are you asking all these questions what if I was dying I could be dead" my dude, I get it, let me just move on to the next thing already so I can hang up and answer my next call (or you can just hang up at any time, that's also an option)
I'd be calling in almost every day for things that sounds like gunshots. Because too many assholes around me have modified their cars to intentionally sound like that. Hard to tell in the distance but very easy to identify when they are going by my house.