Tweet
The Cellular 911 system in CA... More reasons for SI CCW
Most (if not, all) who have a cell phone here in CA have had to dial 911 for one reason or another. During the beginning of the Cell phone boom of the mid 90s, it was relatively easy for your call to get answered by a 911 operator, and whatever the case was, whether it was a collision on the freeway needing immediate attention or a person chasing another, the California Highway Patrol answered cell 911 calls, and it wasn't as busy during that time with cell 911 responses as they are today.
Now if you dial 911, you might get a Police or Sheriff agency, even if you are still on the freeway. There are still flaws to work out of this system, and there will still always be.
It was the time (in June, 2005) when I witnessed a motorcycle with rider & passenger collide in front of me. When I dialed 911 on my cell phone, I got a busy signal. I never even tried twice to get the CHP on because I knew I would be beating a dead horse. I had a local Police department's emergency phone number stored in my phone at the time, and when I used that number, I was told "This is CHP's call, hold on". The rider & his passenger (both wearing helmets) ended up not surviving the crash, but it wasn't specifically because of the lack of response time, because an ambulance happened to be in the area just after I got off the phone with CHP (after the local Police dept patched me through to them).
Last night, I had to get hold of the San Jose PD because of a traffic incident that was "in progress". Instead of calling the "CHP", I called the SJPD on their main non-emergency line. Instead of getting through to a dispatcher, I ended up having to listen to an entire series of recorded messages telling me to press this and press that. Finally I got to the right option, and then every other message said "Please hold for the next operator. If this a life threatening emergency, please hang up and dial 911. It had been maybe 10 minutes, and I finally hung up. I knew after 1-2 minutes that it was no longer of any use asking for the SJPD to respond to the issue I was calling about, but I figured I would stay with them to at least tell them what was up, but I finally gave up because it wasn't worth it.
The people designing this system had to be thinking at one point along the way that this system is a complete joke, and it's going to make violent criminals very happy knowing that they will have lots of time to commit their crimes.
The cell phone 911 system in CA is a joke because even if the lines are not busy, you still get a recorded message saying "you have reached the California Highway Patrol 911 cellular emergency, please press any key or say 1 now", and then you get another recorded message in English & Spanish. While someone is on the phone with 911, they could be getting stabbed, shot, beaten with a deadly weapon, stomped on, kicked, rammed with a vehicle, or you name any other possibility.
While all this is going on and the bad guys get away, you are still on hold, and dead. By the time the dispatcher finally picks up, there is no response.
There will be an effort to get into contact with a person not responding, and with some of the new systems in place, there should potentially be a way to get to that person, but by the time that is done, it's likely too late.
If someone could, I would like them to cite a similar incident where a woman tried to call the Police on her cell phone, and the call had to be rerouted to the "right agency". When the law enforcement found her, it was too late, and she was dead from gunshot wounds. Correct me if I'm wrong on that, please.
I've talked with different CHP dispatchers about this problem. They say that around 75 percent of the calls are to be re-routed to local law enforcement agencies. A few of those calls are because of silly problems like fast food screw ups, nails (pedicure/manicure) not being done right, computer hard drive failures ("my computer crashed"), and other dumb issues.
Some areas that put the public in a very precarious position are:
These are all reasons why CCW in California NEEDS to become SHALL ISSUE. All of these issues constitute good cause for a CCW permit in CA, but obviously a CLEA or Sheriff won't look at it that way.
Erik.
Now if you dial 911, you might get a Police or Sheriff agency, even if you are still on the freeway. There are still flaws to work out of this system, and there will still always be.
It was the time (in June, 2005) when I witnessed a motorcycle with rider & passenger collide in front of me. When I dialed 911 on my cell phone, I got a busy signal. I never even tried twice to get the CHP on because I knew I would be beating a dead horse. I had a local Police department's emergency phone number stored in my phone at the time, and when I used that number, I was told "This is CHP's call, hold on". The rider & his passenger (both wearing helmets) ended up not surviving the crash, but it wasn't specifically because of the lack of response time, because an ambulance happened to be in the area just after I got off the phone with CHP (after the local Police dept patched me through to them).
Last night, I had to get hold of the San Jose PD because of a traffic incident that was "in progress". Instead of calling the "CHP", I called the SJPD on their main non-emergency line. Instead of getting through to a dispatcher, I ended up having to listen to an entire series of recorded messages telling me to press this and press that. Finally I got to the right option, and then every other message said "Please hold for the next operator. If this a life threatening emergency, please hang up and dial 911. It had been maybe 10 minutes, and I finally hung up. I knew after 1-2 minutes that it was no longer of any use asking for the SJPD to respond to the issue I was calling about, but I figured I would stay with them to at least tell them what was up, but I finally gave up because it wasn't worth it.
The people designing this system had to be thinking at one point along the way that this system is a complete joke, and it's going to make violent criminals very happy knowing that they will have lots of time to commit their crimes.
The cell phone 911 system in CA is a joke because even if the lines are not busy, you still get a recorded message saying "you have reached the California Highway Patrol 911 cellular emergency, please press any key or say 1 now", and then you get another recorded message in English & Spanish. While someone is on the phone with 911, they could be getting stabbed, shot, beaten with a deadly weapon, stomped on, kicked, rammed with a vehicle, or you name any other possibility.
While all this is going on and the bad guys get away, you are still on hold, and dead. By the time the dispatcher finally picks up, there is no response.
There will be an effort to get into contact with a person not responding, and with some of the new systems in place, there should potentially be a way to get to that person, but by the time that is done, it's likely too late.
If someone could, I would like them to cite a similar incident where a woman tried to call the Police on her cell phone, and the call had to be rerouted to the "right agency". When the law enforcement found her, it was too late, and she was dead from gunshot wounds. Correct me if I'm wrong on that, please.
I've talked with different CHP dispatchers about this problem. They say that around 75 percent of the calls are to be re-routed to local law enforcement agencies. A few of those calls are because of silly problems like fast food screw ups, nails (pedicure/manicure) not being done right, computer hard drive failures ("my computer crashed"), and other dumb issues.
Some areas that put the public in a very precarious position are:
- Cell phone 911 calls are in some cases not returned if the caller hangs up, especially when it's too busy. I know this because I have given up on 911 after 10 minutes on hold.
- Hold time anywhere within the state of California with a higher population can be as long as 15 minutes today.
- The Cellular 911 system starts out with a recorded message telling the caller to press any key or "say 1 now". Following these instructions might not always be possible for a victim calling from his/her cell phone.
- The CHP has a "special allied line" in some areas where only LEO personnel can call. If anyone public calls, they are told not to call that number again.
- This special number is answered immediately by dispatchers in direct contact with CHP Officers.
- Many calls to CHP 911 are no longer calls of an "emergency nature", they could be calls such as a drive through fast food restaurant getting their order wrong, or a nail salon getting one's nails wrong.
- If the call to 911 requires a transfer, the CHP dispatcher is required to stay on the line with the caller "UNTIL" the caller is actually transfered to the right agency.
- The CHP in many cases, will get calls that are truly emergencies, but the emergency is already 10-15 minutes cold.
- A larger percentage of the American population are no longer using "land line telephones". The cell phone is their "primary" phone, so if they are at home and have to call 911 because their house is being broken into, they will get placed on hold more than likely.
- There is not much of an effort to educate the public about having the local Police/Sheriff Dept stored in their cell phones.
- Even if that is the case, a connection might not always be available, or service might be interrupted, causing any phone number to be un-dialable except for "911". At least with a land line phone with service cut off, dialing 911 gets through to the Police or Sheriff department in most cases, right away.
- If a person is able to dial the local Police/Sheriff department's emergency number with their cell phone, sometimes that line is also busy, so the CHP is not the only agency having this issue.
- Some LEO agencies don't have an actual emergency line that leads directly to a dispatcher.
These are all reasons why CCW in California NEEDS to become SHALL ISSUE. All of these issues constitute good cause for a CCW permit in CA, but obviously a CLEA or Sheriff won't look at it that way.
Erik.
Comment