Taking 911 Calls Can Jump from Hearing a Complaint to Saving a Life

When you’re answering 911 calls, you can quickly enter another world — one that may sound chaotic, dangerous, and sometimes impossible to clearly understand. That urgent emergency call may have followed several calls about routine situations like a loud party next door or how the caller wants to challenge their unfair parking ticket.

Things can change just like that. The 911 caller might hang up and won’t answer when you call back. You wonder if they’re still alive.

The 911 caller may be telling you about what for them is the truth but is actually far from the truth. Perhaps they’re living in an imaginary world caused by the serious drugs they’ve taken or the psychological disorder they live with every day. Then there’s the person who’s lying to you, and it’s obvious from the very beginning.

But the lying many times is being done for a very desperate reason: they’re afraid they or someone they love might be severely injured or killed if they tell the truth. They need the officers to come out and protect them from something quite horrible that could happen. The caller may be on the line to save her daughter’s life from her angry and drugged-out ex who’s hovering over them with a weapon, and telling lies on 911 is all she has left.

An experienced call taker can turn that around, telling the caller they’ll be asked questions that can be answered with a ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ One of the first questions might be something like: ‘Are you in danger right now?’

The pressure is so intense for call takers and radio dispatchers that you wouldn’t believe it until you’ve experienced it a few times. If a call taker acts rude and unprofessional, that taped call could end up in court and on Youtube. The rudeness and impatience might come after a few stressful, troubling calls that came in earlier.

What would Dr. Drew say about it?

I saw that recently at work during a training class on dispatching. A taped segment from Dr. Drew Pinsky’s TV show, Dr. Drew On Call, was shown in class, where he played a recorded 911 call. The call taker was being extremely impatient and occasionally rude with the caller, and that caller was in a dangerous emergency situation. After listening to the emergency call, Dr. Drew and his guests completely condemned the call taker. Anyone listening to the call knows it shouldn’t have happened that way, but it was quite humbling and troubling to watch it. You, the call taker, could be having an awful day and snap at a caller. Then you’re in court testifying about it, and later hearing it on TV.

I’ve heard it’s common to have to show up in court at least once during your career as a public safety dispatcher to testify about a call you mishandled. It’s also possible to lose your house or savings over it, though our instructors said that’s fortunately never happened to any of them. They had to testify honestly and be accountable for what they could have done better, and all of them have been called into the court room at least once.

I was recently cut from the training program at a Sheriff’s Department in California — seven months into it. I wasn’t hitting the marks on written tests, taking calls the way I’m supposed to, and not always getting to my shift early enough to be ready to roll at the beginning of the hour. So I was let go, which of course, was sad and humbling.

Living with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been part of the challenge for me in retaining all that information and always reacting in a calm and centered way; but it’s certainly not been easy for any of the other people who’ve been in my training academy class. We were encouraged to be honest about it, and our instructors were very good about telling us their own stories and how they got through tough times.

No mistakes allowed — someone could die over it

The agency does have a level of performance evaluation that’s quite high to meet, and they will explain the heaviness of the job in great detail. Giving the radio dispatchers and officers what they need to know from the caller within a minute or so after answering is absolutely necessary for call takers to accomplish. Of course you can stay on the call longer if more details are needed, but you’ve got to hit the send button to get out the essentials quickly. And if you make mistakes — such as sending Sheriff’s deputies to the wrong address — somebody could die over it.

I was in training with them and around the phones long enough to have received an inside look at the world of law enforcement and emergency services. It’s a very challenging time for anyone working in the field these days with tensions between law enforcement and the black community, homelessness, addiction and mental health issues, active shooters, and an increasingly violent environment in many communities. For those answering those phone calls and for the radio dispatchers sending officers out, the pressure is intense.

If you’ve ever had to call 911, you probably had been in a very bad situation and you needed help immediately. Why call 911 otherwise? However, there are non-911 numbers to call a law enforcement agency for non-emergency reasons such as getting help for a busted fire hydrant or that someone is blocking your driveway with their car. Either way, you want rapid response and will probably get irritated and angry if you’re waiting on hold for that call taker to get back to you.

My experience years ago opened me up to why we must have 911 and rapid response. I’d been warned about a cousin of mine being in the neighborhood, and that he been struggling with drugs and mental health issues for years. He was usually staying away from drug treatment and was going off his medications for mental illness. Well, that was exactly what happened. Our first visit was very nice and I was glad to see he was doing better; but everything changed with his next visit and it was everything my family had warned me about. I wouldn’t let my cousin in my house again, and he threatened — quite convincingly — to kick my ass.

Getting my cousin to take it seriously

Calling 911 did help me reduce my stress a couple of notches, and to get guidance on what I was going to need to do. I did take those actions, and before long had court papers served on him, which he ignored. The judge did issue a two-year, 100-foot restraining order. I was able to tell my cousin about it when he saw me walking down by the beach a few weeks later. He didn’t like what I was telling him, but he got that he would be arrested if he violated the judge’s ruling. If nothing else, I was able to tell him that he had to be accountable for what he’d done and it’s not ok to threaten someone with harm. Even my older cousin has to grow up some day.

My life experience has been quite different than for many of my former work colleagues. As a white male in my 50s, it was quite interesting to go through an academy training with much younger women and many of them Hispanic. There was one other male in the class of 19 of us, and he was able to banter and joke about it in class a few times — which did lighten things up.

When you do this kind of work, you have live in a military-style organization. If you have to work the graveyard shift, then you show up and work the graveyard shift. If you’re running late due to traffic, you have to call well ahead of time and report it to the shift lead.

Remember that you’re always being recorded. I had to find that out again during training when I raised my voice to the trainer and gave her a ‘talk to the hand’ display. I got written up, and I had to sign the statement at the beginning of the next shift. Someone told me something very helpful and obvious about it — make sure I put my phone on mute if I need to speak with others around me. I hadn’t been handling the stress and pressure of that day very well.

It became clear to me that you have to learn how to listen differently. That woman may not be saying much but the drama going on around her starts becoming more clear. And you eventually begin seeing things — as much as you can when it’s just a phone call you’re listening to — from a broader view. You want the deputy to know everything that he or she must know. Are there weapons there? Are any of them drunk or on drugs? Anything else they should know such as a dog that may run out and bite them?

Some of these calls quickly go sideways, and you have to send them as much information as possible — the need to know. Or we’re told by the officers what’s happening such as domestic violence that they’ve been called out to several times before; or a drug lab and packing facility set up in somebody’s house and garage. There will probably be more than one man carrying a handgun or semi-automatic rifle to protect the product at these increasingly popular business locations.

If a deputy gets taken down, everyone on the shift will be riveted to what’s taking place. The officer could be injured or killed by being shot, or in a vehicle collision, or for some other reason. The call takers and dispatchers will work closely together to make sure medical aid gets there, and whatever else needs to be done. People in this profession talk about being part of a family, and it comes out clearly on those days.

Stories to tell about active shooters

They have stories to tell. Two of them were about active shooters — one being a former LAPD officer who was dismissed from the agency and swore he would bring vengeance to every law enforcement officer he encountered. He, unfortunately, had been keeping his word.

Then there was the radical Muslim couple who took a lot of lives at a holiday party in a government building where the boyfriend had worked. That ended with a violent, lethal confrontation with police on the street near where the couple lived.

Can active shooters be stopped before they start shooting? It’s a very tough question, and it hasn’t been looking good for people in law enforcement who want to prevent it from happening ever again.

We’ve all heard a lot about these shooters in recent years, usually troubled young men.

However, well beyond the active shooters it is a mistake to lump people together in one group — thinking of them all as mentally ill. Many times I heard calls about someone with a condition such as autism, Aspergers Syndrome, ADHD, ADD, and being bi-polar, that might not be accurately perceived and responded to. Typically they’re living with family members. The caller is asked if they’re not taking their prescription medications at the right time and dose, or even at all. While this may be a factor in why that man or woman has been acting that way on that day, it would be a good idea to go deeper into the training and understanding so that these calls are handled well.

These can be turbulent times, with violent crimes in the news nearly every day. Police departments are under pressure to justify their use of force, and to make sure everyone is treated fairly and equally — as dictated by law.

But don’t forget those who have to pull over and walk up to the car; or question a suspect on the street; or who knock on a front door after being called in to bring safety to a domestic violence situation. The peace officers have to go through fear and uncertainty, just like everyone else. Everybody is hoping it will end up being resolved safely and peacefully.

Jon LeSage

Writer and former dispatcher. Email me at jlesage378@gmail.com