So get up get, get get down
One of the things my close friends will tell you is that my life often enough has a very surreal quality to it. Weird shit just happens to me. I can’t explain it. This is one such tale.
Last weekend, me and the family went for a walk in the neighborhood with the dog. A whole other surreal story aside, they went one way and me and the dog went another. Walking up the street and I hear one of the house’s fire alarms going off. Doing the right thing, I walk up to the house and ring the bell. No answer. Bang on the door. No answer. Look around and see several neighbors outside and none of them are acting remotely alarmed. I realize it’s probably nothing but I’d hate to be that guy who just walked by and a family of four burned to death. So, I dial 911. The dispatcher answers and we have this conversation:
Dispatcher: 911, what’s your emergency?
Me: Probably nothing. But one of the houses in my neighborhood’s fire alarm is going off.
Dispatcher: Fire or burglar?
Me: Sounds like my fire alarm. Going with fire.
Dispatcher: What’s your location?
Me: I’m at 2112 ABC street.
Dispatcher: Sir, we show you at XYZ street.
Me: Could be. I always get these two street names confused.
It then occurred to me that they can either track my location or, based on my mention of the address, deduced which street I meant. We continue
Dispatcher: Sir, we’re sending a unit your way. Do you mind staying put to show the officer where to go?
Me: Not at all. Will do.
Dispatcher: Thank you, sir.
At this point, me and the family have plans for a 5 o’clock movie and time is getting close. I call the Mrs. to tell her what just happened and that I would be a while. She asks me if I want her to come get the dog since him and staying in place is painful for all around. I say yes.
So, I wait.
And wait.
I start pacing the street.
And wait.
Suddenly, I see Junior whiz by the other street on her electric scooter. I assume she’s coming to get the dog but she just zipped by. I whistled loudly and she didn’t hear. I step up to the street she was going down to see her pulled over by one of The City (My The City)’s* finest. I watch. He pulls away and he’s the unit coming to the house that may or may not be on fire. I wave him down and point to the house. He pulls up, gets out of the car and we have this conversation.
Officer friendly: Are you the one who called 911?
Me: Yes, sir.
Officer friendly: And this is the house?
Me: Yes.
*he walks toward the house, gets his light out and knocks on the door. And starts looking in the windows.
Me: So, did you give my daughter a ticket?
Officer friendly: That was your daughter?
Me: Yes.
Officer friendly: We’ll talk about that later.
Me: Well, I probably called for no reason but I’d hate to have been wrong.
Officer friendly: Sir, did you look in the windows?
Me: No. I’m wearing a black hoodie and I figure me looking in windows would not be looked upon positively. As I said, it’s probably nothing
Officer friendly: Sir, there’s a body on the couch.
Me: The fuck?
Officer friendly: *gets police talky on his walky talky* I did hear him say he thought there was a body in the house.
Me: Be over here if you need me.
Officer friendly: *bangs on doors, rings bell, bangs on windows, and generally makes a lot of noise and his backup shows up*
Turns out, the alarm was going off for no discernible reason and the 90 year old women who lived there fell asleep on the couch and was also mostly deaf. She turned her hearing aid off and didn’t hear the alarm.
Officer friendly: *explains to me what happened and that all is OK* Then says: So, that was your daughter?
Me: Yes.
Officer friendly: Well, she needs to be 16 and have a license to have a scooter on the street.
Me: Really?
Officer friendly: Yes, sir. She’s not licensed and, more importantly, a driver in a car might not see her and hurt her.
Me: Well, OK. Fair enough.
Officer friendly: Thanks for calling in, sir. We appreciate that.
And he drives off.
So, I’m sitting here realizing I called the cops on my daughter and doubting the illegality of her scooter on the street. And she got her first warning from the police (a family tradition, btw). Go home and talk to Junior who tells me he made her walk the scooter home and to stay off the street.
The next day, my wife is upset about the whole thing and calls her friend in the local police department. Turns out, that license thing only applies to gas operated vehicles. Told Junior to go ride her scooter all she wanted.
What weird day.
* Never used that in the possessive, so I’m going with that.
November 14th, 2013 at 11:35 pm
They sent a cop to answer a call for a fire alarm?
That is some strange dispatch policy there.
Way to go Dad on starting your daughters criminal record. 😉
November 15th, 2013 at 1:39 am
How nice of the officer to take time out of his response to a potential fire/burglary situation to reprimand a child for a very minor traffic violation that actually wasn’t.
November 15th, 2013 at 1:54 am
“Sorry your house burned down and you died in it, but we *just had* to stop and give this child a warning.”
November 15th, 2013 at 8:59 am
I agree with Lance & Ken, the officer’s priorities are way off.
So which scooter does your daughter have? I’m considering getting one for my kids for Christmas. Had it long? Held up well? Holds a good charge?
November 15th, 2013 at 9:06 am
This is what you get for calling 911 for other people’s problems. No good deed goes…
November 15th, 2013 at 10:28 am
Might be worthwhile to track down which method they used to determine your location. Could be there’s no 2112 ABC street, but the geodata in their call taking/dispatch system identified 2112 XYZ street as a potential nearby address and the call taker figured it out.. If that’s what it is, no biggie.
If, on the other hand, they’re analyzing the GPS position of your phone from data transmitted with the call, it’s time to get a burner phone if you ever need to call 911 again.
Then again, since reporting a fire alarm produces cops who hassle your family members, maybe they’re trying to tell you to not bother them again. Just STFU next time. If it was serious, it’ll be in the papers the next day.
November 15th, 2013 at 10:53 am
It used to be that police saw their role as helping people who needed it, whatever it was. Now, it seems their role is adversarial–they’re enforcing the rules, and nothing more, and stop wasting their time with petty stuff. Not that they didn’t enforce the rules before, but it seems like all they do, now. And they seem to be doing it with more of an air of arrogance than before. I’m not a cop-hater, but I’ve had way too many negative experiences with cops lately (and heard too many other similar stories) to think it’s not the result of a cultural change within law enforcement.
November 15th, 2013 at 11:00 am
It’s actually not that uncommon when the nature and validity of the alarm is questionable, and there’s no other sign of smoke or fire. Especially when there is a possibility it’s a burglar alarm – they don’t want the firefighters walking in to that thinking it’s a fire alarm.
Ditto. WTF was he thinking?
November 15th, 2013 at 11:12 am
@Alien
FCC mandated using GPS, Triangulation and WiFi info.
http://www.ehow.com/facts_7775262_fcc-cell-phone-gps-tracking.html
I seem to recall a law being passed requiring GPS in cell phones after some kids drove into a lake and couldn’t specify where they were in the 911 call. My details might be muddled, though.
November 15th, 2013 at 11:34 am
My town has a Fire Chief’s car (basically a police car with Fire Dept logos). In these situations, they send somebody out in the car to check it out – and he doesn’t issue citations on the way.
November 15th, 2013 at 12:01 pm
If officer friendly’s head wasn’t jammed in his nether regions, he’d have known the law and not wasted your daughter’s time. He’s probably a control freak.
November 15th, 2013 at 12:39 pm
Every call to 911 from a cell phone has GPS coordinates available. In normal circumstances, the initial call comes through to the dispatcher with the coordinates of the tower and one of the three sides of the tower the call is on. Somewhere within 30 seconds later, a Mobile Positioning Center (usually provided by the carrier or more likely, a 3rd party service) has queried your phone and the GPS coordinates of your phone are available. Typically, the 911 center’s dispatch controller and software will re-query for coordinates every 6 seconds or so. So even if you’re traveling in a vehicle, your GPS coordinates are being sent near continuously and in near realtime for the duration of the 911 call.
November 15th, 2013 at 1:19 pm
The moral of this story is, once again, don’t call the cops unless you need them to come and make a report so you don’t end up as a suspect.
They always make things worse nowadays. Always.
November 15th, 2013 at 1:34 pm
Unc, you were much nicer than I would be. Anything under 50cc’s don’t require a license. The electric thing is a new one to me. I guess your daughter can drive a Nissan Leaf.
November 15th, 2013 at 1:39 pm
Cops are dummies. Uniformity of dress leads to uniformity of thought in exactly the same way the digestive process leads to uniformity of food.
Junior has an electric scooter?
November 15th, 2013 at 3:10 pm
they don’t want the firefighters walking in to that thinking it’s a fire alarm
We’re not lemmings. If there isn’t any sign of smoke by peering in the windows, we don’t go in. The city frowns on buying new doors and windows for a malfuncioning noise maker.
November 15th, 2013 at 3:35 pm
“So which scooter does your daughter have?” Seconded.
November 15th, 2013 at 6:30 pm
Her scooter is this one.
November 15th, 2013 at 6:57 pm
Just be glad she didn’t have a partially-loaded magazine with her… 😉
November 15th, 2013 at 7:51 pm
So, Junior now has street cred. punk.
November 15th, 2013 at 9:18 pm
Thanks, Bill. I suspected that’s what it was.
But….WTF is it with cops these days? Are they trying to make themselves our enemies? Do any of them have the first clue what the changes in our attitudes are toward them with that sort of behavior? Can any of them do math? (800K cops, 80 million gun owners). If it ever reaches the tipping point, neither group will like what comes next, but one group will like it a lot less.
November 15th, 2013 at 9:45 pm
Yep, you DO get some strange ones Unc… 🙂 Glad it wasn’t a real fire, the lady would’ve been dead…
November 16th, 2013 at 5:37 am
“But….WTF is it with cops these days? Are they trying to make themselves our enemies?”
Yes, but unwittingly. They fail to grasp that by treating the public as their enemy they make it so.
November 16th, 2013 at 3:20 pm
And guess what? There was no sign of smoke according to the call, so they sent a cop first.
Speaking as an EMS provider, if it is a burglar alarm, then close enough to look in the windows and verify “no sign of smoke” is closer than we should be.
November 17th, 2013 at 9:39 pm
BTW, the 50cc thing isn’t a universal. In AL, those “49.5” scooters are still motorcycles. Not sure about the electric deal, I’ll have to do some more research.
November 17th, 2013 at 11:52 pm
http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/07/never-call-the-cops-unless-you-want-some