Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!world!decwrl!hayes.ims.alaska.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: mpay@pacbell.com (Mike Payer) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: San Francisco P.D. and 911 Priorities Message-ID: <13220@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 9 Oct 90 17:17:33 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: Mike Payer Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA Lines: 34 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 726, Message 3 of 12 In article <13070@accuvax.nwu.edu> optilink!cramer@uunet.uu.net (Clayton Cramer) writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 714, Message 7 of 12 >A local news story yesterday gave a disturbing example of how San >Francisco Police Department sets the priorities on 911 calls. A young Clayton, I do a lot of work interfacing with law enforcement on 911 type calls. And I can tell you for a fact that when a call comes in from a coin phone the response of the dispatch centers in many cases is "Oh a coin phone, oh well". As a result of this I have told my family and friends that if they are at pay phone they would be much better off dialing "0" and just screaming for help. The operator will have the number you called from and the law enforcement people seem to take these call more seriously. This may sound strange but it seems to be the way it works. I believe part of the problem is the high amount of prank called by teenagers to 911 on coin telephones. It's not unusual to see someone work their way from one end of town to the other dialing 911 on pay phones. Don't construe this as an excuse for the S.F.P.D. it's not. It's just the way the system works. Michael S Payer Jr Administrator FAX 415-867-0344 Emergency Control Center pacbell!pbecc!msp pacbell!pbhya!mpay