[Protocol] Dealing with 911 Call Protocol [R&U]

Patrol Division (OCPD)
Dealing with 911 Call Protocol

Taking a call

The police are here to provide a quality service to the public. When someone calls upon the police they expect a quality response.

So bear in mind: when you respond to a call (whether urgent/emergency or not) you take on a responsibility to investigate that call and to ascertain why it was made and if there's a problem to be dealt with by police.

Flying to the location with lights and sirens going, having a quick drive around then blowing it off is NOT a good enough response. Just because you can't see anything going on, doesn't mean it's time to go back to patrolling. Most of the time, not all of the time I admit.

This is how you are to respond to a call. Please try to make every response a professional and structured one. I know we get silly calls, but keep yourself right.

1. Attend in the first instance at the location police assistance/attendance was requested - Easy enough to understand, get yourself over to wherever the call claimed something was going on (exception would be someone kidnapped etc, then you'd skip to making contact) and have to search about.

2. Make initial enquiries (at the scene) - Once you've had a look around, get your backside out of the car and speak to people in the area. Get some details. See what the story is. See if anyone saw or heard anything. And remember to LISTEN. Try not to lead people into answers, by that I mean don't run up to people and ask right away "DID YOU SEE A SHOOTOUT?" instead ask general questions, "Did you see anything happen here in the last 5 minutes?". The problem should make itself known to you, if not you need to do some more ground work.

REMEMBER your investigative techniques, that's a whole other subject but in short get basic details from people involved, details of any suspects, cars, what they've done, etc so you can build up a picture of what happened and who did what and more importantly, a case if need be.

3. Contact the caller/complainer (further enquiries) - If you cannot determine what the problem is, you need to find out whether or not there's still a problem and, if the person(s) still needs assistance. So, get the number of the caller/complainer and give them a call. Tell them who you are and the reason for contacting them, ask them about the call and whether or not there is still a need for the police, ask where. At this point you will also be using your initiative to figure out whether or not the person has misused the 911 system. If the problem is still on-going, you will be able to get updates from the caller/complainer and get it dealt with.

4. Write-off/conclusion - By now you will have a good overview of what happened and you will have taken appropriate action to solve whatever problem(s) made themselves clear to you. Whether that be warning someone, making an arrest, charging someone with misuse, gathering information and submitting to the FDI or whatever it may be. By this point you have done enough to be able to write-off the call as no further police involvement required OR forwarded to FDI for investigation etc. So finally call in the 10-99, e.g. "10-99 on the assault in the business district, resuming Code 4, over."