When to Call 911 vs. the Non-Emergency Line: Tips from a Real Dispatcher

Listen to Dispatch Supervisor, Glenna, inform us on:

- When to call 911 versus the non-emergency line

- Handling suspicious situations

- Providing tips for effective communication with law enforcement

Glenna emphasizes the importance of using 911 for situations involving imminent threats to life or significant property loss. The topic of reporting harm to pets is discussed as well as the distinction between felonies and misdemeanors.

Glenna provides insights into the dispatch process and encourages callers to be proactive in saving the correct police department number in their phones. They discuss anonymous reporting and more.

The episode concludes with a role-play scenario where Mandi calls 911 to report a car accident, highlighting how a dispatcher may respond in order to gather information and ensure caller safety.

RESOURCES

WeTip.com: A resource for reporting information anonymously. It allows individuals to provide information about crimes without revealing their identity. (Note: Some limitations were discussed.)

Connect with Mandi:

• Website: WomenAwareAndPrepared.com
• Take the Free Intuition Quiz WomenAwareAndPrepared.com/Quiz
• Instagram: @WomenAwareAndPrepared
• LinkedIn: Mandi Pratt

The primary purpose of the Women Aware and Prepared Podcast is to educate and inform. This podcast series does not constitute advice or services. Please use common sense for your own situation.

Transcript

 Hey, welcome in. So last week we had talked about bystander intervention. I had Kelly on, and we gave you guys some amazing ideas, some brainstorm things to do, things to say, because when you're in the moment and you need to intervene and you don't know what to say or do, we gave you some highly actionable tips.

So go back and listen to that. One of the tips was. If it gets super gnarly in the situation you're in and you need to call 9 1 1, it's best to either call 9 1 1 yourself or to point to somebody specific and say, you call 9 1 1. So it made me remember that we had done a really, really great episode with a dispatch supervisor and she shared with us all about calling 9 1 1 versus calling the non-emergency police line and how it works with cell phones.

Now, such good information and we even do a role play of what it's like to actually call the police and what do you expect? So I am super excited to bring this back to you and have you get some actionable help this way too. So listen in and share with somebody you love. 

 Hey, brave one. Welcome to the Aware and Prepared Podcast. I'm your host, Mandy Pratt, trauma-informed, resilient speaker, domestic violence victim advocate, and narcissistic abuse survivor. Here we keep it real with true crime stories and real world strategies to prevent emotional and physical harm. My guests and I share a mix of insight and survivor grit, all to help you feel safer, trust yourself more deeply.

And live with greater peace and power. Let's trade fear for freedom and step into the peace that you deserve.  ​

I'm super excited to have Glenna with us today. So Glenna works at my local police department and she. Works in dispatch. And so I thought today that we would have kind of some fun on a heavy topic still.

So Glenna, tell us a little bit about yourself. 

Hello. So I am Glenna. I do work here, uh, for your local police department.

I'm the, 911 dispatch center supervisor. So I'm so excited to be here today to talk with you and I can't wait to do those scenarios with you. It's going to be so much fun.

I think so too. Thank you so much for your time and thank you for what you do. So yeah, 911 or non emergency. I think a lot of people get caught up in that and You know, we don't know, like, when do we call 9 1 1 or when do we call non emergency? And if we call 9 1 1 and it's wrong, are we like taken away from somebody else?

Or if we call non emergency and it really isn't an emergency, what happens? So how would you answer that? 

Uh, that it's a very good question. We try and start with our little kindergartners to explain it to them. And we give the same message to kindergartners as we do the senior community, as we do the general public.

If you think that there is. A imminent threat or a potential threat to anybody's life or significant property. Perhaps somebody is breaking into a house. That's that's significant threat to property. And if somebody is in the house, that could be a significant threat to life.

Any type of accident, any type of injury that is all a call for 911. Now, when we talk about suspicious people or suspicious activity, you really have to go with your gut. So I am old school. And I would rather you call 911 for something that is not an emergency than have you be afraid and have it become an emergency because you don't want to call.

So if you're on the fence, use your best judgment. Here in the city we're going to answer the phone, um, pretty quickly, no matter what line it is, bigger agencies like, you know, LAPD or, um, Chicago Police Department, San Diego Police Department, these huge agencies, they really have to prioritize their 911 calls, so it may take a little longer if you dial, uh, a non emergency line.

So in your opinion, if you feel that by not getting somebody there quickly that somebody's life is going to either end or be significantly harmed, or there's a some type of significant property loss like a car or property from a house or anything like that, anything that we would deem a felony, then call 9 1 1.

Okay. And just a side question. Pets are considered property. What happens like if you see, of course, both you and I think of them as way more than property, but 

I'm like, no, they're not property 

family. Come on now. But, um, if somebody is harming a pet, did they, who did they call? 

So if somebody's harming a pet, I want you dialing 911.

It's still a significant event. There's an imminent threat to that animal. So an imminent, imminent threat to life. I go, uh, in my mind, I go off of misdemeanors versus felonies. If you're going to call in a call, I'm going to categorize it in my mind as one of two things. A felony, we can do certain things.

A misdemeanor, we can do certain things. Rolling to an animal is a felony. So if you were to look up the penal code, it details, what would constitute a felony and any type of cruelty to an animal as a felony. So you, you go ahead and dial 9 1 1. And if there's any dispatchers out there that are cursing me now, just blame it on me.

When you call say, I've listened to this podcast nine times out of 10, it's not going to be an issue unless of course there's, you know, we've had a shooting or we've had a robbery that ended up in a pursuit. We wouldn't physically be able to get to that call if there was another call that is just as high in priority, but it's a human life.

And so the dispatcher may be frustrated that we couldn't handle it right away. And so you may hear that. But it doesn't mean you shouldn't call 911. 

Okay. 

And if they say, well, this is not our life or death emergency, don't disagree with them. Just apologize and say, okay, well, what number should I call? And then they should give you a secondary number.

But I, I don't know as if imminent threats to animals. I don't know as if, if anybody's ever not taken that phone call on 

911. Yeah. Okay, cool. That's a good point. So non emergency number. So people would look in their phone and look up their local police department, see the number and hopefully save it to their phone.

Right. So they could use that if they need to call. So what are some examples of like a non emergency that they would use that for? 

Let me, let me just go back to where you said they would save the phone number. So if you were to look up our local police department, I think it would probably give you the administrative line that goes through the, um, the, the voices, dial one for this, dial two for that.

And that doesn't go directly to dispatch. So be proactive in your approach. If you're going to put your phone number, the police department phone number in the phone. Proactively make sure that it's the correct number. You can call that administrative number. You can ask for the dispatch center. You can ask them for a non emergency call, which numbers should they be calling and they should be giving it to you.

Oh, cool. 

They're super busy. They're just going to put you on hold. It's a non emergency number, but that way you have it so that if you're like, no, this isn't an emergency, but then, oh my gosh, as I'm looking at it, it's becoming one. You don't have to worry about trying to get, you know, should I call 9 1 1 now or should I call the, or should I hang up and call 9 1 

1?

Does that make sense? 

Yeah. So in the smaller departments, like not San Diego or Chicago or New York or LA, it's all the same center that's answering all the calls. Right. And then you determine where it goes. 

Yes and no. So there's, there's departments like Laguna Beach, their records department answers all non emergency calls.

So if you call an emergency on a non emergency line, they'll transfer you to dispatch. Dispatch only answers 9 1 1 calls. That's not the case here. That's not the case in L. A. But it is the case in some agencies. So the main point is you just want to be able to get a hold of a live person right away, whether it's an emergency or non emergency so that you can just advise what the complaint is.

And then it's the dispatcher who has the expertise that is going to go. Okay, let me route this where it needs to go. 

So we don't have to worry so much. It's your job to figure out what it is. Um, so some examples of non emergencies might be like an abandoned vehicle without signs of foul play, right? Like a loud house party that's not Having like fights or anything.

Yes, exactly. Perfect. So any type of nuisance call which would be like the loud party is a nuisance call any type of public nuisance like the abandoned vehicle. Um, if you see a person that's drunk in public. That's can be a non emergency call because that's still against the law, but they're in a parking lot and they're just sitting there versus a person that's drunk that's walking down the middle of the street.

That's an emergency. That's a 911 call. He could get hit by a car. She could get hit by a car, any type of suspicious activity. You think this person is just walking down the street, looking into cars, looking into houses. They're not touching anything. They're not breaking the law. But it sure looks like they want to 

right 

now.

That's different. I don't I don't want anybody calling the police department emergency or non emergency just because they don't quote unquote belong in the neighborhood. And that's something that we do have to educate on when we get those calls. This is the United States. This is Southern California.

All different races live in our city. So just because this person, you don't know this person, but just because they're Hispanic or white, I, we have a very strong Asian community here. And I had a lady call because there was a white guy walking down her street. I'm not saying that he wasn't doing anything wrong, but that's not a reason for us to be able to send the point.

Yeah. 

You have to articulate what it is that's wrong and just the color of their skin doesn't make them doing something 

right. Doesn't make them suspicious. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for pointing that out. I'm glad too that you differentiated that saving the police number in your phone, making sure that it's a number where you get a live person.

So I receive emails from my My city police, and it said, literally they caught somebody who had like all kinds of stuff on like a gun and drugs and all, and they simply had called them in because they were peeking into parked vehicles. 

Yes. 

And I'm like, yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about.

Like, don't rationalize. If you see something fishy, I think you said this last time I talked to you. If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it is. Yes. So, and I remember, too, with Neighborhood Watch, the police had said, like, You pay tax dollars for us. If you see something suspicious, please call us.

Like, we would rather come when it's just beginning rather than, having the car already been broken into or something like that. A lot of times we think, like, Oh, we don't want to, like, bother you because you guys are busy.

We are literally here.

So when you see those things, you can say something. It is literally 100 percent of our job. We have no authority to respond to calls for service until you as the public and as the community give us that authority. And you give us that authority to be able to respond by articulating a reason giving us that reason.

Now if we can go into the questioning part about that, dispatchers will start asking questions. I want everybody out there to know it's not because we're nosy. But because we want to be able to give that officer the authority to take action, should he or she need to when they get on scene.

So if you tell me, well, he just doesn't belong in the neighborhood. There is no law in in the state of California or in the United States that says you can't be in any neighborhood that you want as long as it's in public, so I can't send an officer for that, 

right? 

But if you tell me that they're peeking into vehicles, or they're walking up to windows, that's suspicious, that's not normal behavior, gives the officers authority to contact and investigate.

And 

in your case. Come up with the crime. The crime was they had all kinds of stolen property on them, and they were looking to steal more property is what it sounds like. 

Right. 

That caller gave that officer the authority to be able to do that. Or if the officer observes it. Then that gives the officer the authority to go ahead and contact that person.

Interesting. And now, can people call in anonymously? 

So, let me preface it by saying, in the city that I work in, We're here for you. Our mission statement says providing excellent service with dignity and respect.

I don't want to say anything bad about like LAPD or anything like that, but they are a billion times bigger than we are. So if you call in a loud party, I'm going to send an officer to tell them that they need to quiet down. However, if they refuse to quiet down, We can't be victims of that noise complaint.

You have to be so to take enforcement action. We would need to know who you are. But in our city and in a lot of cities, you call in a noise complaint and you want to be anonymous because your neighbor is a gang member and you're afraid of retaliation or because they've in the past said, Hey, stop calling the police on me.

Then, of course, we're going to keep you anonymous. But anything like drug activity, suspicious people, you're Anything that you witness or anything that you feel is just, uh, just something is off and something is not right. And you can articulate it to us 100%. You can stay anonymous. I am more concerned about making sure that the community is safe than getting any of your information.

So when you call, you would just say, and I prefer to be anonymous. 

Yeah, you give an address. We need to make sure that we have the address. If you don't feel comfortable giving your home address, you can give us cross streets or a hundred block here in our city. Central Avenue is one of our main streets.

It's a five digit address. So if you were to say the one 2300 block of central, I know my officers know exactly where that is. We know exactly what the cross street is. The dispatcher would be able to ask you, Oh, okay. Are they near, uh, yeah. Are they near the Wienerschnitzel? I think that's 11 800, but are they near the Starbucks?

Are they near the El Pollo Loco? They'd be able to say that, so we don't necessarily need to have an exact address. But let's say there's a suspicious vehicle parked in front of your house. You give, the address, but then say, oh, I want to be anonymous. I don't have to necessarily even put your address in the call.

I can put the 120 300 block of whatever. And then I can say the vehicle is parked on the street east of whatever cross street it is, or west of, or north of, or south of. The more detailed information we can give the officer, the easier it is for them to respond. But again, we want to keep you as safe as we keep the rest of the public.

Just because you're reporting something doesn't mean that you need to put yourself at risk. 

Right. What do you think about the WeTip line? What is it? WeTip. com? 

we tip.com

we get our calls from, we Tip 

Uhhuh . 

But it's much better for you to speak with the dispatcher in that agency when something is happening and where they can ask you direct questions,

they are trained to take the information, anything that you're willing to give. But I don't know as if they're trained to ask specific questions. So. Giving me a license plate on a vehicle is great for follow up, but it's not great in an emergency because my officer is not going to look for a plate before he looks for a color of a vehicle.

So if you're sitting at an intersection and I tell them the suspect vehicle is a red two door, he's going to be able to see a red two door before he would ever see a plate. So, uh, we have, um, people that can email anonymously to, like, a code enforcement line and things like that. And they leave some information out.

And so, sometimes the call can't be as effective as it would be if we were able to ask questions. But the only thing that I would say is if you are too scared to call your police department for whatever reason, every police department is not created equal, use something like WeTip. Get the information out there as best that you can.

A lot of people will call child protective services or adult protective services instead of calling the police department because they're so scared of what may happen. And we'll take what we can get and we'll do the best that we can to investigate whatever it is that you're telling us. Just if there's not enough information, the officer legally cannot respond.

Got it. Okay. That makes sense.

Let's continue with the role play call.

The one thing I do want to say about this is this is not rehearsed.

Yes, good. 

So your response, I don't know what your responses are going to be. 

Okay. 

I want everybody. 

We're putting you in a hot seat. 

Yes, and I want everybody to understand that, that this is, this is the job of a dispatcher to respond to anything that's on the other end of that line. So they can take it, even though it's a scenario, they can take it.

At face value that. This dispatcher is going to be able to help them, but don't scare me. Don't scare me. 

It won't be that bad. I promise. 

Okay. 

All right. Okay. So I'm going to pretend like I'm calling into the 911. Um, and just a little background real quick. So a couple, a year or two ago, um, we had a drunk driver, um, hit the curb.

As literally smack into the curb right in front of our condo front door, and it was so loud. I thought that it was hitting the actual building, but here's what happened. Okay, so I'm calling 911. 

Ring, ring, ring 911. What's the address of your emergency? 

It's at my house. Somebody just ran into the curb in front of my 

house.

What is your address? 

It's 123 Main Street. 

Okay. 123 Main Street. Okay. You said somebody ran into the curb with a vehicle or something else 

with a vehicle. He was coming around the curve and he went too fast and I don't know. I'm scared. 

Okay. Okay. Are you safe where you are? 

Yes, I'm inside. 

Okay. Okay. Do you know if there's any injuries?

Uh, I can't tell. I don't know. It just looks like one driver. 

Okay. We have officers and paramedics on the way. We're going to see what's going on. Can you give me a description of the vehicle? 

Yes. It's a blue four door Ford. 

A blue four door Ford. Okay, perfect. Can you give me any kind of description of the driver?

A male or a female? 

Um, it's it's dark, so it's kind of hard to see. Um, 

okay. Is there anybody else around the vehicle? 

No, it's just the person. Oh, I see him. He's getting out. He's 

okay. Give me a description of him. Is he white, black, hispanic and 

he's a hispanic male. 

Okay. And you're sure it's a male, correct?

Yeah. 

Okay. And what's he doing right now? 

He's getting out of the car and he's looking at the car and where he is. 

Does he appear injured at all? 

Uh, not that I can tell. 

Okay. Uh, does he appear like he's under the influence of any drugs or alcohol? Is he staggering? Is he doing anything, yelling? Doing anything that may be not normal?

Uh, I can't, I don't think so. But, um, he's on the phone now. 

Okay. So he's on the phone. Okay, he may be calling us. So that's, that's good. We can get this information from him. Is there anything else that you see? 

I just see, um, he's basically up in front of my front door and the grass is all chewed up from his tires and there's some damage to the car.

Okay. The important thing is, is that you're safe. So we're going to go ahead and disconnect now, but if anything changes, I need you to give me a call back. The police and the paramedics are on the way. 

Okay. All right. Thank you. 

All 

right. So that was the first part. All right. And so now what really happened was something that I learned about.

I learned a very important lesson. So, um, a lot of times when this happens and somebody is driving drunk and they get into an accident, they'll call a friend or family member and have them come in as a body double basically. So when the police show up, um, the police test them for drunk driving instead of.

The actual person perpetrator, so, um, that's actually what happened. So now I'm going to call back because the situation changed, right? And the police still aren't here yet. So this is making me nervous. So I'm going to call back. Ring, ring, ring 

911. What's the address of your emergency? 

Uh, 1, 2, 3, main street.

Okay, you called about the driver or the vehicle that is in your front yard? 

Yes, uh huh, yeah. 

Okay, what's going on now? 

This person, um, they just, they were on the phone and now somebody else is driving up and getting in their car. 

Okay, so somebody else is driving up and getting into the vehicle that crashed?

Yes. 

Okay, are they getting into the vehicle to like get stuff out or what are they? Where are they sitting? 

They're sitting in the driver's seat 

in the driver's seat. Okay, so like they're they're the driver. They're pretending. They're the driver. 

Yeah, 

okay Give me a description of that person Hispanic Asian 

Hispanic female 

Hispanic female.

Okay. Could you tell about how old she might be? 

Maybe in her 40s 50s 40s, 

50s. Okay, what color shirt was she wearing? 

A white shirt. 

White shirt. What color pants or skirt or shorts? 

I, I can't tell because I don't know. She's sitting in it. 

Okay, that's okay. That's, that's perfectly okay. What kind of vehicle does she show up and what color was it?

I think it was a minivan. I can't see it now. It's parked somewhere else. 

Okay, do you think it drove off or do you think it's just parked and out of your sight? 

I'm not sure. It might have drove off. 

Where's the guy? 

He's sitting on the curb down the street. Down 

the street. When you say down the street, 123 Main Street is a north south street.

So would he be north of the accident or south of the accident? 

South. 

South of the accident. Okay. And about how far away from the accident is he sitting? Maybe 100 feet? 200 feet? Could you tell? 

Um, I don't know. I'm bad at figuring that. Sorry. Like half 

a block. That's okay. But you can still see him from where you are, correct?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. For now. 

Okay. Because the situation has changed and because it may continue to change, the officers are right down the street from you. I see them about a block and a half away on my map. I'm just going to stay on the phone with you. Can you tell me what the female is doing now? 

Um, how do I know he's not going to come knock on my front door?

What do I do if he knocks on my front door? 

Who, the officer or the subject? The 

suspect. The 

suspect? 

Yeah. 

You know, there's no way for us to know if he's going to knock on your door. That's why I'm staying on the phone with you. 

Okay. 

So that I can know right away if he comes to your front door. Okay. 

Okay.

Okay. So before you said that you didn't know if he had been drinking or anything. Has anything changed where you could tell if he's been drinking or he's under the influence of any alcohol or drugs? 

I just assumed it since he smashed up against a curb like that coming around the curb too fast. 

It's not necessarily normal behavior for somebody.

Oh yeah, I can, I can see that. Okay, let's go back to the female. What is she doing right now? 

Um, she's sitting in the car. She's on the phone. 

Okay, she's on the phone. Okay. Has she done or made any gesture towards the, the male subject that was in the car previously? 

No. 

Okay. So it looks like officers are there with the paramedics.

I've let the officer know that the subject down the street is involved here. They're going to contact them first and then they're going to contact the female. They do need to check the vehicle for any other people or injuries or anything like that. Is it okay if we contact you or do you want to stay anonymous?

Yeah, that's fine. 

Okay. Can I get your name and phone number? 

Uh huh. Yeah. Mandy Pratt. 9 10. 

Wow. That's a lot of numbers. Okay. The officers are going to need to contact you with the property information and all of that, but I need to make sure that you tell them what you saw as far as the male subject getting out and then the female getting into the driver's seat.

Okay. 

Okay. 

Okay. Great. Thank you very much for calling. We appreciate it. 

Sure. Thank you. 

Bye. Just so you know, I get in trouble for my partners when I say thank you for calling. We appreciate it. They laugh at me. 

That's funny. 

But I do. I appreciate you handing that call to me on a silver platter. You, your statements are literally going to put that man in jail.

So we're good. 

Yeah. Uh, and just so listeners know what actually happened, the, the person who actually was in the driver's seat who had the accident actually was responsible with the police. So he talked to the police. So that made me feel better. But yeah, that was pretty sketchy because that was the loudest smack I've ever heard.

And I thought it came into the building. So yeah, and then the police did come to our house and I was fine with that because obviously the guy crashed into our front. Steps almost. So of course I'm going to call the police. So yeah, they came, quite a few of them came inside. And by then I had woken up my husband, poor guy was like, what, what's happening?

Um, so yeah, they were helpful and you know, it all was taken care of and all of that.



 



A lesson that I learned actually, even before that phone call, but back 20 years ago when I had my crazy story and I had to call nine on one quite a few times, unfortunately, um, when my former husband, um, who was abusive and who didn't listen to my restraining order, I had to call them quite a few times.

And when I first. How to call them. I had never done this before. So I just was telling them everything and, they just needed to know the facts for this instance.

So they could be efficient and be the best help for this moment. So I had to learn that, and not, take it personally or whatever, like they're trying to help me, but they need cutting 

me off. They're being rude to me, all of that, but, 

but, but I got it that they just needed the facts so that they could be as efficient as they could and handle this.

The best that they could. 

Yes. 

Yeah. 

Yes. So dispatchers are trained to ask questions in a specific order based on priority and in a specific way. So we train them to do something called active listening. So the first questions that we're going to ask are called closed ended questions. One or two words or one short sentence.

What is your address? Now, if you notice when somebody says, well, where are you? Well, I'm in the city of Ventura. Okay, great. 

That's not specific. 

Yeah. Where are you at my house? Where are you in the bedroom? If we keep asking the same question, we're going to keep getting the same answers. So the dispatcher is trying to say, okay, what is your address?

Because we need something specific. What color shirt? You're just gonna give a one word answer. Um, it's not until we get the five or six or seven basic questions answered that we're going to allow you to even elaborate. Um, so if you notice when you were giving me the calls, I could tell that you were nervous or Or scared, it appeared like I would cut you off a few times, but all I'm trying to do is just keep you on track and focused with your train of thought to keep that conversation going.

So if you had been extremely upset, I couldn't understand you or you're crying or yelling or anything like that. I would have talked in a lower voice. A lot of times people will start yelling back into the phone because they want to get their attention. It is a technique that's used. I don't know how effective it is when somebody's not listening, but also the first thing I'll do is get your name because I don't like calling people ma'am or sir and yelling into phone, ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, listen to me, listen to me, calm down.

Anybody ever tells me to calm down if I'm not going to give them a flick to the nose or something like I do my dogs when they're being bad, it doesn't help anybody. So we are specifically trained to ask questions in a certain way. Please don't ever take it personal. We have, uh, in our city, we have a survey that goes out to people after the call for service.

How was our service? And the majority of the time I get, well, the dispatcher was rude. And so I'll have to listen to the call because if the dispatcher is rude, she's in trouble or he's in trouble because there's never a reason to be rude and so far 100 percent of the time 100 percent of the time without fail, they're not being rude.

They're they're steering the conversation. They're taking control of the conversation. One person called and she she had had a something horrific happened to her. She was involved in a hit and run. The people got out were yelling and screaming at her. Some big guy. She's this little four foot eight female alone in the middle of the night and some huge, uh, gang member looking person, you know, gets out, starts yelling and screaming at her, threatens to kill her.

Of course she's going to be upset. 

Oh my gosh. 

So the dispatcher was trying to calm her down without saying calm down, and was trying to get her name and she kept saying, who cares what my name is, get me help. So the dispatcher said, I can't until I know where you are. So in the spider review, she wrote, she was extremely rude.

She just kept demanding to know where I am. So I mean, if you, if that's okay, if you thought she was rude, as long as you're safe now, and as long as you, you got what needed, what needed to be done. We got the officers over there right away. The dispatcher felt bad. She goes, I didn't mean to yell at her. I just needed to get her address.

I was so scared that something was going to happen to her. 

And 

even though we do have latitude and longitude addresses from cell phones, it could be a couple meters off. It could be a half a mile off. So we want to know exactly where you are. 

Okay, cool. And when, so that's a good question too, is you can see where we're calling from, right?

About 90 percent of our calls for service, especially on 9 1 1, I'd even say probably more, like 95, 98 percent now, are from cell phones. The majority of the cell phones have GPS location capability. We also have enhanced data, um, programs. They're called, one's called Rapid SOS, another one is called Rapid Deploy, that take the information through the cell phone tower and pinpoint a location on our maps that we're utilizing in the center.



Wow, that's helpful. 

Yeah, so technology has come a long way. But remember, we're going to confirm whatever the technology is telling us. 



You have, you have a voiceover internet protocol. So if you're, if your phone service comes through your internet, wherever you have your internet registered to is where it's going to call 9 1 

1.

So if you have it registered in Pennsylvania, but you're on vacation in California, your cell phone is through the internet, It's going to give us a Pennsylvania address and you're going to get the 911 center in Pennsylvania. 

Oh. 

Yeah, and if you do get the 911 center here in California, on the screen it will pop up with the Pennsylvania address.

Yeah, 

so you need to make sure that you're always verifying your location, you're always making sure that people know where you are. 

Right, and even if you don't know the street name you can give landmarks. Different things like that. Yeah, 

we have a rape victim in our city that had no idea where she was because she was taken to the location.

Right. 

So we had to say, what do you see? She says, I can't see anything. What do you hear? She heard some electrical wires. So normally when you're walking down the street, you don't hear a lot of them, but she could hear it really loud. And she kept saying, I just, I don't know where I am.

Am I like in an electrical plant? Yeah. Sure enough, yes, she was. So we found her based off what she heard. 

Wow. 

Yeah. , It took a while and something that horrific, you're not necessarily in your right mind, you have no idea where you are, and this person is like, I can't help you till you give me an address, well, okay, great, let me just lay here, but that was probably 15, 20 years ago, she was on a cell phone, so maybe it was like 15 years ago, I mean, It would give you a general location, 

right?

Huh? Wow. That's super helpful to have such specific location. 

Yes. 

Awesome. 

 Are there any last tips that you might like to give us on supporting people on how best to call 9 1 1 or. What you might suggest that way. 

I think we covered a lot of the calling 911s. When you and I spoke last time, we were talking specifically about domestic violence.

And I was thrilled to read about some new laws that came about in 2024. That states that police agencies have to release reports. To domestic violence victims, including stalking, domestic violence, spousal rape, et cetera, et cetera.

There's a very specific penal codes that this new law falls under and that with the reports, the victim is allowed to have the 911 calls the pictures. the reports, everything that normally is not available to them. 

Wow. 

And all of this is at no charge and has to be completed within five days of the request.

We all know domestic violence is very prevalent in the world. And if you are a survivor of domestic violence or you're going through it, it's just life draining, but like the women that have had children and then have more children, you forget the pains of childbirth.

Because you want something so bad, you rationalize that childbirth pain wasn't so bad when really at the time, it's the worst pain you've ever felt, 

right? 

It's the same in domestic violence and toxic relationships and unhealthy environments. You want to have everybody. They want and they deserve loving, secure relationships.

Yeah. 

So you meet a new person and they have those red flags coming up. You're like, I'm going to ignore those red flags because this could be the one, this could be the relationship. And then one time this person gets drunk and they smack you because. You were in the way or something.

Oh, you know what? I just I walked into that. They start the rationalization and we all know that that's what happens. 

Yeah. 

Or they get into a relationship. They don't have the financial means to get out of it, etc, etc. The way that I'm relating this back to those reports. A domestic violence having copies of this report two years down the road, six months down the road when that person gets out of jail or prison, I want them looking at how horrific their pictures are.

I want them hearing the fear in their voice when they called 911 because that's just raw emotion right there. There's no acting, no faking it. And I want them to remember how far they've come by getting out of that situation and using all of this as a reminder that they don't have to go back there.

That it's not going to resolve itself. You and I already talked about it. Domestic violence, if not taken care of, can lead to death. 

And 

there have been case after case after case where either law enforcement didn't take it seriously, the victim didn't take it seriously, and now we're dealing with a homicide.

And These pictures, those phone calls, those reports are constant reminders at women and men can do the hard things. They can be on their own. They can survive. They can move forward from the worst possible moments of their life. And having that visual reminder, I just think is so important. So I'm thrilled that this is one of the new laws and I want everybody out there to know that that's a law.

So if you get a law enforcement agency that says no, I'm not giving it to you or no, it's going to cost you money. That's in California. That's simply not true anymore. 

Wow. Thank you so much for sharing that that's great for like in the courtroom. You have, you know, documentation, documentation, but you pointed out, I think even more important is documentation for yourself.

Yes. 

Yeah. That's so good. I'm, I was not aware of that new law, so I'm really glad that you educated us about that. So thank you. 

Oh, you're welcome. I just have such a heart for victims of crimes that move on and just excel at life. 

You 

know, I just, I love to see it. I love to support it. I love to just watch these people bloom, men and women.

It's just, it's one of my greatest joys in this environment to see something like that. 

Yeah, I bet. That's amazing. 

Yeah. 







Yes. And  You have a voice, 

so 

you don't have to be afraid of, if, if this law enforcement agency isn't helping you, you go up the chain, you go up to Department of Justice, get them to help you, call the DA's office, get them to help you, do what needs to be done, be your, your best advocate, your own advocate.

Exactly. Thank you so much. I'm going to end with that because that's leaving us with words of wisdom. So thank you, Glenna. We appreciate your time with us today and we appreciate All that you do  so thank you. 

Thank you, Mandy. Have a good day.

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