stupidity is universal

I've been reading other dispatcher/911 operator's blogs the past week and one thing I've come to realize...stupidity is universal. Some of the things I've read, I can easily say, I've heard before. Now you might not think that getting a call for an officer to come unlock someone's sex play handcuffs would be that common, but believe me, it apparently is! Along with an elderly woman calling the police to report her electricity being out (she could'nt turn on the light to look up the number to the power company you see), 3 calls in one night about parents coming home to find their innocent little darling messing about with an older boy and wanting to file rape charges against the obvious sexual deviant and many more.

I've read a few blogs that operators have written and laughed till I cried when reading things that I mistakenly assumed only happen in my city. Let's see if I can add to the list. For background info, while I do take calls on occasion, I work for a mid-sized agency that has some taking calls, some dispatching and most of the time I'm on the dispatch side of things, so alot of what I talk about occurs on the radio between dispatch and officers.

It was early in the morning on a weekday, somewhere around 0500 when I got a domestic with a weapon on my screen. It's never a good thing when as soon as a call hits the screen you also get a message from the calltaker saying "sorry". By now you'd think that I'd learn to read the call before starting to give it on the radio, that the "sorry" would give me a clue but...no. I keyed up, called for the primary officer and one to back, gave the address and the callers name. Ok, so normal up to now you must be saying to yourself. I then keyed up to give the info on the call..."Caller advises he is having a fight with his wife who is hitting him with a knick-knack" and in the background a co-worker says under her breath "paddywhack". I started laughing so hard I couldn't breathe, the private lines directly to the dispatch consoles started ringing, messages started coming in from the officers laptops and eventually I was able to squeak out the rest of the call. Aside from embarrassing myself on the radio, we all had a good laugh - well except for the guy getting hit by his wife of course.

Another of my favorite radio bloopers is from a brand new officer who was still in field training. This officer had come to us from another agency and was having some difficulty getting used to our 10 codes and phonetics. He went on a traffic stop, gave his location and the rest of it went something like this..."show me out with uh, David Breaker Breaker, uh I mean David Baker Baker..." I couldn't resist, I had to acknowledge in kind "10-4 good buddy, can I have a car to back?" When all I got was static from too many officers trying to come on the radio at once I finally heard from the field "Breaker 1-9, I'm already behind him, all others can keep on truckin!" Who says you can't have fun at work!

Last but not least for today I'll mention a call that I had received that qualifies in the "What kind of drugs are you on?" category.

Friday night, about 2330 hrs or so, I get a "check on wellbeing" call on my screen. Unfortunately I didn't have the chance to look at it immediately cuz "my boys" were kickin my butt (50 of them, one of me on this channel). An undercover officer has just gone in foot pursuit of a guy that bailed from a car, another holds radio traffic cuz he has a suspect resisting and they're both down on the ground fighting and just as soon as that is done, we get an armed robbery. After resuming normal radio traffic, everyone is pretty quiet cuz they're all busy. My fellow dispatchers have left me alone knowing I had heavy radio traffic, but I got a minute to breathe, answer questions that I didn't have time to listen to let alone answer and I started to look through the calls that have come in for dispatch.

Ok at this point, I'm hyped. All this has occurred in about 15 minutes time and like I said, the boys were giving me a workout keeping up with them. I'm focused on who is left to give calls to, sorting through the calls and deciding which is in immediate need of dispatch and which can hold when I look at the "check on wellbeing". A concerned citizen called in, wanting officers to check on the helicopter that was circling her house repeatedly because the noise and lights were disturbing her. What?? Like an officer is gonna be able to check on a helicopter in the sky? This isn't Back To The Future lady, we don't have hoverboards! Call the FAA if you have a complaint, sheesh! What kind of drugs are you on anyway?

Ok ok, after I calmed down I checked on our helicopter which was showing to be 10-8, in service. Turns out, they were on the undercover officer's foot pursuit (without telling me) and they were circling the woman's house cuz the suspect was in her backyard underneath some bushes! So now I feel dumb.

So you see...stupidity is, in my opinion, universal...and none of us are immune, most especially myself!