20 January 2011

POLICE CUTS and stupid waste of resources....

From the Cop side: Some of my stories are things I’ve discussed with my Best Friend in a conversation. Today we somehow got onto the topic of law enforcement responding to really stupid stuff.


I think what a lot of good citizens don’t understand is that right now in California as well as most of the other states, we are facing some of the biggest cuts to government since the depression.

Citizens have to understand that when things get cut for a government agency that has things like police and fire services, that those emergency services will have to be cut to. What can good citizens do to help? Lots of things. So many things people do everyday that lead to an emergency response, where as if the citizen had been more careful, things would have been fine. There are always going to be “accidents”, but as we’re trained, for every traffic collision, there is a human at fault 99.99999 percent of the time. Yep. That’s true. In every single auto collision I have ever responded to in 32 years, the cause was one or more drivers, pedestrians, or other forms of humans, had violated one or more sections of our Vehicle Code. Usually unsafe speed for conditions. Many were DUI, and most were HUA.

But, where I used to work, I think some of the citizens there should have been given an award for stupid calls to the police (many on Nine friggen one one.) For example…the nut job lady who in one week had called our department 57 times. Each time she had some kind of complaint about one or more of her neighbors. Over a period of several years, she had called the PD over 350 times…where she’d left her name…and hundreds of more times where she didn’t want to give her name, but the dispatcher could recognize the dumbass’s voice.

One quiet Sunday, I was working the day shift out of patrol. (that was supposed to sound like Dragnet)…when the whiner called. Up to that day, I had somehow never been sent to a problem where she was the “reporting party” (RP). It was early, like about 7:30ish AM. I had not even had a chance to stop and pick up my morning coffee (note: if you call the cops before they’ve had coffee, be careful.)

I responded with a smile and “how can I help you mam” none the less…. What a bitch. I got to her front door and knocked…she answered with “make them stop that hammering!!!”

I didn’t hear any hammering, but I kept smiling and asked: “what hammering?” (I dropped the mam as soon as she showed her true self…and bitch.) …

She yelled: “can’t you hear it? There…did you hear that?”

I thought I heard a slight bang noise, but it was not very loud and sounded like it might have come from the house behind hers and up a hill. I drove up to investigate (that time of the morning on a Sunday, the drunks from the night before had not started to wake up yet, so it was slow.)

I found the offender. The neighbor’s pine tree was dropping pine cones on the wooden deck…at odd times. No crime, nothing I could do about it.

SO, I go back down to the whinerbitch and explain the noise is pine cones falling on the deck.

She told me to “Make it stop!!!”

I told her that I couldn’t make it stop unless they issued me a chain saw. She started yelling. I said “Have a nice day” and got into my patrol car and drove to the coffee shop.

We need to stop sending police officers to stupid calls like that. That’ll save the tax payers a lot of money.

The funny thing is, the city I live in, which is 25 miles from where I work....is all the times I've ever had to call the local cops, they almost always told me it'd be an hour wait.  Most of the time I'd go outside and take care of the problem myself..then call them back and say "never mind, I took care of it."  They don't respond to traffic accidents unless there are injuries or drunk drivers....they are too busy taking care of more important stuff with very few cops. 

The above story is where I used to work.  On an average day, I'd have a sergeant, 2 coporals/ detectives, 2 captains, and other admin pukes sitting in the office while only one or two of us cops were actually doing anything.  Another way to save money---cut the damn deskjockies! 


God I’m glad I can retire soon…. ONE ADAM 12, repond to the crazy lady complaining about pine cones falling.... respond code 3!!! 

7 comments:

newmagoo said...

Hee hee! Them pine trees are a darn nuisance!

On a related note, these are my fave 999 calls that have made it into the news:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7489457.stm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-11908583

And my hubs had one call, woman in distress, police go steaming over to discover... she was panicking cos she couldn't open her washing machine door :)

Anonymous said...

I think I told you about the critter call.

"ONE ADAM 12. Armadillo bandit in full body armor. Home invasion."
LOL

Coffeypot said...

Since I never use 911 and therefore paid no attention to the news concerning the calling of 911, I think they passed a law that can get you fined or the shit beat out of you or something for making prank or non-emergency calls in Georgia. Maybe she just needed a good ass-whooping.

Paxford said...

I am kind of amazed that you guys don't have "nusiance calls to emergency services" fines. We've got them over here (Australia) and the fines can be really steep depending on how blatently stupid the caller is

Pax

CI-Roller Dude said...

NM, some police departments in "rich" places, will tolerate a lot of crap from citizens.

WRX, I can see getting in pursuit of some of them desert critters...

CP, I really think we need to reserve asswhopin's for major crimes.

Pax, we do have laws like that...but when you work in a county full of rich crazy people...some bosses are hesitant to tell the citizens to stop calling.

I suggested that the Police dept have an unlisted phone number, or block calls from annoying people.

lorraine said...

Unfortunately citizens with dementia are still living on their own with access to telephones. Our local paper used to comb the police calls for the funniest ones - now they don't or people actually aren't calling with them. My personal favorite was a call about a guy walking down the hwy holding a "mouse" by the tail, putting it in his mouth and wagging the tail hanging out of his mouth at passing cars. As a professional law enforcement officer will you tell me what law this crazy dude was breaking? I too work in an industry that keeps taking useful people, nurses, resp. therapists etc and trading them in for useless crap running around telling us what to do with more crazy shit that doesn't matter at all to the patients.

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Funny Stuff....@4:00 AM.