911 Dispatcher Reprimanded Over Wisecrack

[-Cp]

Even though I think this is friggin hilarious, I do agree with the dispatcher being reprimanded:

WATAUGA, Texas Apr 13, 2005 — A 911 dispatcher was reprimanded for responding to a mother's plea for help with an unruly child by saying: "OK. Do you want us to come over to shoot her?"

"I admit what I did. It was stupid, it was inexcusable and I'm sorry," said dispatcher Mike Forbess.

The woman, identified only as Lori in Wednesday's Fort Worth Star-Telegram, said she recently phoned authorities after coming home to find her daughters fighting. She told the dispatcher that her 12-year-old had kicked a hole in the door.

After Forbess' comment, the woman fell silent for about five seconds.

"Are you there?" Forbess asked.

"Excuse me?" the woman asked.

Forbess, a dispatcher for five years at the Watauga Department of Public Safety, told her he was joking and apologized. But the woman was offended, and Forbess immediately told his supervisor what happened.

"This type of response cannot be tolerated, and this letter shall serve as notice that any future unprofessional responses while answering the 911 line will be cause for termination," Police Chief David Van Laar wrote to Forbess.

Watauga is a Fort Worth suburb of about 22,100 residents.



http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=667181

 

[freeandfun1]

When I was in first grade I lived on Perdido Drive in Watauga.... There sure as hell wasn't 22,000 people living there then....

 

[Merlin1047]

The next thing that should happen is you send mommy a fine for being so incredibly damn stupid as to tie up city emergency resources for something like that. Then you send in social services and take the kids out of the house and send them somewhere where they will get the appropriate discipline that they are obviously lacking. Then you take mommy to court and sentence her to attend parenting classes - at her own expense - for a year. If she completes the course, she gets the little monsters back.

 

[dmp]

The mom who would call 911 because she cannot control her child is the kind of person who would be offended, and likely she'll try to sue for emotional distress.

 

[Merlin1047]

The mom who would call 911 because she cannot control her child is the kind of person who would be offended, and likely she'll try to sue for emotional distress.

Did you listen to the E-911 tape of the stupid bitch who wanted the cops sent to the local Burger King because they kept getting her order wrong?

There is only one cure for people who are THAT stupid - it has to cost them money. They need to be fined big time for dumbass stunts like this.

 

[5stringJeff]

Frankly, the 911 dispatcher should have ascertained taht the kids were not threatening any harm to anything outside that house. Then he should have said "Woman, learn how to take care of your own damn kids!" and hung up.

 

[Nienna]

Did you listen to the E-911 tape of the stupid bitch who wanted the cops sent to the local Burger King because they kept getting her order wrong?

There is only one cure for people who are THAT stupid - it has to cost them money. They need to be fined big time for dumbass stunts like this.

What is wrong with people, that they could get that agitated over a wrong order that, in their minds, it justifies calling 911???????

As for the mom, what is wrong with people that they don't understand when they have a child, it is their job to raise him, not the government's?????

 

[Avatar4321]

This is so wrong. That guy shouldn't have been fired. The guy had ever right to not be kind to that woman. She was illegally tying up emergency lines because she wouldnt discipline her own dang kids.

I don't see any reason why we should require 911 dispatcher's to be nice to people who waste the cities time. This is such a travesty of justice that a man lost his job because some woman is too incompetant to raise her own kids.

 

[Mr. P]

I heard the tape of this call... LMAO!
I'll bet Chief David Van Laar probably laughed as well...But had to write a letter..cya thing.

 

[no1tovote4]

I believe that there should be laws against using 911 unless life is immediately threatened. Calls like this tie up the lines in some places such as NYC so that people with real emergencies cannot get through when they need to.

Serious fines should be levied on people who make such frivolous calls as this one, as well as education efforts to inform people of what constitutes an emergency call and what the non-emergency number to the police station is.

A hole in the wall is not reason to call 911 ever.

 

[Mr. P]

....
A hole in the wall is not reason to call 911 ever.

Hey! It matched the hole in her head!

 

[-Cp]

The mom who would call 911 because she cannot control her child is the kind of person who would be offended, and likely she'll try to sue for emotional distress.

How much you want to bet she's a lib?

 

[Merlin1047]

How much you want to bet she's a lib?

Blonde.

 

[-Cp]

I believe that there should be laws against using 911 unless life is immediately threatened. Calls like this tie up the lines in some places such as NYC so that people with real emergencies cannot get through when they need to.

Serious fines should be levied on people who make such frivolous calls as this one, as well as education efforts to inform people of what constitutes an emergency call and what the non-emergency number to the police station is.

A hole in the wall is not reason to call 911 ever.

The deal is that 911 is not just for emergency anymore - I have a buddy who's a cop who adds:

911 is no longer considered "emergency only" in my county, and hasn't been for years--we get dispatched to everything via 911 now--when the dispatcher answers the phone, first words out of their mouth are "Emergency, or Non Emergency?". If it's a non-emergency, you immediately get transferred out of the emergency queue and into another line. Works pretty well I guess, and avoids having to staff a Police Department 24 hours a day for someone to answer the phones. Of course we still have the rocket scientists who classify EVERYTHING as an emergency when they call, and it ties things up for a minute or so until the dispatcher figures out what they've got--sadly, this process seems to be the wave of the future. What with statistics, data gathering, and other features that 911 calls provide for records and computer aided dispatch, unless you live in B.F.E. and don't have a real dispatch center for your emergency services, in the not-too-distant future your police department will probably no longer accept calls for service directly from citizens. Hardly any of them that I know of do anymore, and all the police chiefs I know like it that way just fine.

 

[no1tovote4]

The deal is that 911 is not just for emergency anymore - I have a buddy who's a cop who adds:

911 is no longer considered "emergency only" in my county, and hasn't been for years--we get dispatched to everything via 911 now--when the dispatcher answers the phone, first words out of their mouth are "Emergency, or Non Emergency?". If it's a non-emergency, you immediately get transferred out of the emergency queue and into another line. Works pretty well I guess, and avoids having to staff a Police Department 24 hours a day for someone to answer the phones. Of course we still have the rocket scientists who classify EVERYTHING as an emergency when they call, and it ties things up for a minute or so until the dispatcher figures out what they've got--sadly, this process seems to be the wave of the future. What with statistics, data gathering, and other features that 911 calls provide for records and computer aided dispatch, unless you live in B.F.E. and don't have a real dispatch center for your emergency services, in the not-too-distant future your police department will probably no longer accept calls for service directly from citizens. Hardly any of them that I know of do anymore, and all the police chiefs I know like it that way just fine.

This would work too, so long as the emergency line isn't taken up by the woman who is afraid of worms. (Saw a show on TV that had tapes of actual 911 calls, a woman was deathly afraid of worms and had one in her house, called 911 to get the cops to come.)

 

[Jimmyeatworld]

The next thing that should happen is you send mommy a fine for being so incredibly damn stupid as to tie up city emergency resources for something like that. Then you send in social services and take the kids out of the house and send them somewhere where they will get the appropriate discipline that they are obviously lacking. Then you take mommy to court and sentence her to attend parenting classes - at her own expense - for a year. If she completes the course, she gets the little monsters back.

That's along the lines I was thnking. I saw something on this yesterday and everyone seemed to be skimming over the fact that this woman called 911 because her kids were fighting. Yeah, it wasn't the smartest thing for a city employee to say, but how weak of a parent is she? One of them kicked a hole in the wall...oh no. When I was growing up, me and my cousin would destroy half the house, and as long as nobody drew blood or broke anything expensive, they'd just let us fight it out.

 

[Jimmyeatworld]

The deal is that 911 is not just for emergency anymore - I have a buddy who's a cop who adds:

911 is no longer considered "emergency only" in my county, and hasn't been for years--we get dispatched to everything via 911 now--when the dispatcher answers the phone, first words out of their mouth are "Emergency, or Non Emergency?". If it's a non-emergency, you immediately get transferred out of the emergency queue and into another line. Works pretty well I guess, and avoids having to staff a Police Department 24 hours a day for someone to answer the phones. Of course we still have the rocket scientists who classify EVERYTHING as an emergency when they call, and it ties things up for a minute or so until the dispatcher figures out what they've got--sadly, this process seems to be the wave of the future. What with statistics, data gathering, and other features that 911 calls provide for records and computer aided dispatch, unless you live in B.F.E. and don't have a real dispatch center for your emergency services, in the not-too-distant future your police department will probably no longer accept calls for service directly from citizens. Hardly any of them that I know of do anymore, and all the police chiefs I know like it that way just fine.

I guess that's just reality. It's unfortunate, but it's to the point that things have to be changed to satisfy the stupid, the selfish, or the just plain lazy.

 

[Annie]

This would work too, so long as the emergency line isn't taken up by the woman who is afraid of worms. (Saw a show on TV that had tapes of actual 911 calls, a woman was deathly afraid of worms and had one in her house, called 911 to get the cops to come.)

I thought that was the fire department's job.

 

[Mr. P]

I thought that was the fire department's job.

Well yeahhhhhhhh!! You can bet your ass the animal control folks won't respond...Their busy.. :wank:
LOL