Police address high volume of accidental 911 calls

Emergency call logs given to News Channel 3 show that local police departments get a high number of accidental 911 calls, which they say are a waste of local police resources.

News Channel 3′ s Madison Weil spoke with police and dispatchers who say the calls can keep them from focusing on real emergencies.

” We answer it 911 what is your emergency? And there’s no response back…you can hear the static and you can tell it’s in their pocket, ” said Klarrisa Vera, a part-time 911 dispatcher .
local police — sharing their 911 call logs with us…showing the frequency of ” wireless hangups ”

” It is a huge issue because of the drain of time, energy, resources, manpower on these 911 hangups or pocket dials, ” said Chief Dale Mondary , Desert Hot Springs Police Dept.

If dispatch cannot confirm a call was an accident, they use GPS technology to send officers to that scene. ” We do because we don’t know if it’s accidental or even a covert type of call ”

Police and dispatch say they respond to every call because in certain cases a person might be unable to communicate with them verbally. ” Sometimes there could be an attack…someone had their phone taken away from them…they were tied up…in a moving car, ” said Lt. William Hutchinson, Palm Springs Police Dept.

” If we’re able to get a location we’ll send somebody out. Because the one time you don’t send somebody out is the one time they could need help, ” said Vera.

Police also say people often think there will be consequences for the misdial, so they don’t pick up the phone if dispatch tries to call back. But if you or a child has accidentally called 911, police say, ” The best thing to do is to call back and let us know everything is okay and that will be it […] that’s gonna save us a ton of time and allow the officers to go on to do proactive patrol and go where they’re really needed, ” said Deputy Chief Jim Henson, Desert Hot Springs Police Dept.