Let's Talk about the Calgary Police Service

[Huntingwhale]

I saw that too. The one great thing about those comments requiring a Facebook login, is that you can actually put a real name and face to certain idiots who think these things.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Another officer charged with assault. Limited details and obviously innocent until proven guilty, but it's still crazy to me that the alleged incident happened a year and a half ago and, presumably, the officer has been on the job potentially abusing his power.
https://calgaryherald.com/news/crime...7-b267f37d3cce


This is while the trial for Const. Trevor Lindsay is going on, who just happened to have forgot to mention that he punched the victim in the head three times before slamming him face first into the ground while the victim was handcuffed.

https://calgarysun.com/news/crime/de...lleged-assault

Police association president Kaminski must be pissed.... He's going to have some competition for the next election.

[Rutuu]

Pretty interesting they've asked for two new choppersat acost of $11m to replace the 14yr old airframes of the existing ones. The unlimited police budget continues...

[MBates]

Originally Posted by Rutuu

Pretty interesting they've asked for two new choppersat acost of $11m to replace the 14yr old airframes of the existing ones. The unlimited police budget continues...

Speaking from experience the HAWCS helicopter video footage will essentially on its own result in guilty pleas to some pretty serious stuff, and has also been instrumental in capturing incidents of police misconduct.

I have also watched a number of videos that allowed a suspect vehicle to be followed in complete safety rather than via high speed chase from ground units.

Add search and rescue assistance, officer protection while pursuing a hiding suspect at night, and I am sure other things I may be missing.

I think these helicopters are one of the best investments of public funds ever. They cost a lot to buy and you need two to be operational and meet transportation safety requirements. They are not cheap to operate either. I understand that.

But given the demonstrable return the taxpayers get for their money this is one line item that if you were to cut it I would describe that as unbelievably foolish.

Of all the criticisms that could be launched against unlimited police spending this one is a poor one in my view.

[WhiteTiger]

Ever curious about how busy the 911 center gets during one of the busiest nights of the year?

The last Saturday night shift of Stampede is considered to be one of the busiest nights of our entire year, especially if the weather is good (with Halloween and New Years the only two other night shifts that contest that). I decided to look at the numbers for that shift last night.

In the 12 hour period of my shift (1745 to 0545) we put up for dispatch nearly 900 calls. I wasn't able to get an exact number, but my boss and I estimated that we took 3 times that many (which would fall in our usual 30-50% dispatched/taken ratio) which means that we took nearly 2700 calls from the public in that 12 hour period. That boils down to one incoming call every 16 seconds for our entire 12 hour shift.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by WhiteTiger

Ever curious about how busy the 911 center gets during one of the busiest nights of the year?

The last Saturday night shift of Stampede is considered to be one of the busiest nights of our entire year, especially if the weather is good (with Halloween and New Years the only two other night shifts that contest that). I decided to look at the numbers for that shift last night.

In the 12 hour period of my shift (1745 to 0545) we put up for dispatch nearly 900 calls. I wasn't able to get an exact number, but my boss and I estimated that we took 3 times that many (which would fall in our usual 30-50% dispatched/taken ratio) which means that we took nearly 2700 calls from the public in that 12 hour period. That boils down to one incoming call every 16 seconds for our entire 12 hour shift.

Whats your estimate of the number of those callers that were sober?

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by Locke

Whats your estimate of the number of those callers that were sober?

I'd say a pretty solid majority are. At least 80%. Maybe 85-90. Drunk people don't tend to call us, they tend to get called on. But there were a share of drunk bar goers calling in lost items and fights.

[dammage79]

911 for lost items. Yeesh.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by dammage79

911 for lost items. Yeesh.

People call 911 for just about everything these days. We got a lot of noise complaints on it last night. It's become known as "The police phone number" and not "The life or death/crime in progress only phone number", which is pretty sad.

[jayswin]

Yeah, people are calling all the time about these emergency amber alerts. Like literally calling 911 to say the alerts ruined their day or whatever.

[jayswin]

Calgary 911 call centres are angels as far as I'm concerned. Of all the emergency services, every time I've called they walk that perfect line of remaining polite and caring while pushing the pace on getting vital info.

I think I mentioned it on here but when I called about a teenage boy hanging out on a deerfoot overpass that wasn't accessible by walkway and looking upset. I casually asked for a call back from an officer because I was worried. The operator said sure and I figured he wouldn't even think about that with how busy they are and how unimportant my caring of the situation is.

About an hour later a sergeant called, explaining that he wasn't there when they got there and that they had crews and hawcs scouring the area. Then sincerely thanked me for taking the time to call, even sounding a little frustrated that a lot of citizens see stuff like this and just carry on with their day.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by jayswin

Calgary 911 call centres are angels as far as I'm concerned. Of all the emergency services, every time I've called they walk that perfect line of remaining polite and caring while pushing the pace on getting vital info.

Aw, thanks. I'll pass along the compliment to my co-workers when I return to work next. A compliment can lift the spirits of the team for a whole shift at times.

I think I mentioned it on here but when I called about a teenage boy hanging out on a deerfoot overpass that wasn't accessible by walkway and looking upset. I casually asked for a call back from an officer because I was worried. The operator said sure and I figured he wouldn't even think about that with how busy they are and how unimportant my caring of the situation is.

We get asked this a lot, though usually when someone is calling about someone else that they care or know about. A brother from out of town worried about his dad, say. Or a friend who's not heard from another friend in some time. Or a co-worker worried about another co-worker who's not showed up lately/for a bit.

The proper response to this should be something along the lines of "I can make a note to ask the responding officer to contact you with the results of the call/check/task you have asked, but I can't guarantee that they will or will be able to."

We basically aren't allowed to 'promise' something that we can't personally, legally deliver on. If I tell you, for instance, that "Sure, I'll have that officer give you call after." and s/he doesn't, I could get in trouble if you complained. No matter what the reason. Maybe the officer forgot. Maybe s/he didn't want to call. Maybe the person that was being checked on doesn't want the other person calling to know ("My brother called you to check on me? He knows I'm not speaking to him. You tell him to rot in hell." sort of thing). Could be all sorts of reasons.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by jayswin

Yeah, people are calling all the time about these emergency amber alerts. Like literally calling 911 to say the alerts ruined their day or whatever.

I dont know why but I'm laughing my head off at this.

I can just picture it:

"The Amber Alert went off at 5am and I couldnt sleep so I biffed my big presentation so my boss fired me then my wife left me and I ran over my dog pulling in to the garage....its all your fault!!"

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by WhiteTiger

Aw, thanks. I'll pass along the compliment to my co-workers when I return to work next. A compliment can lift the spirits of the team for a whole shift at times.



We get asked this a lot, though usually when someone is calling about someone else that they care or know about. A brother from out of town worried about his dad, say. Or a friend who's not heard from another friend in some time. Or a co-worker worried about another co-worker who's not showed up lately/for a bit.

The proper response to this should be something along the lines of "I can make a note to ask the responding officer to contact you with the results of the call/check/task you have asked, but I can't guarantee that they will or will be able to."

We basically aren't allowed to 'promise' something that we can't personally, legally deliver on. If I tell you, for instance, that "Sure, I'll have that officer give you call after." and s/he doesn't, I could get in trouble if you complained. No matter what the reason. Maybe the officer forgot. Maybe s/he didn't want to call. Maybe the person that was being checked on doesn't want the other person calling to know ("My brother called you to check on me? He knows I'm not speaking to him. You tell him to rot in hell." sort of thing). Could be all sorts of reasons.

WhiteTiger,

Do you have any idea how many accidental 911 calls happen on a daily basis? I used to work at a big 5 bank's main office downtown and we had a very large employee base for personal and commercial banking.

Long story short the amount of accidental 911 calls that resulted from bank employee's needing to dial 9 on the company phone to dial out and than calling 911 in error, was staggering. I understand that since we were a financial institution that police were required to respond to the building and check things out.

Our one branch, at 1 company was literally having police respond several times a week in error and it got me thinking that this scenario must play out hundreds of times a month across downtown Calgary. As a taxpayer it made me upset that police resources were being wasted on this stupidity when an easy fix was to change the requirement for dialing 9 as a start. Surely a City Bylaw change or a provincial law change could have resolved this.

Thanks!

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by curves2000

WhiteTiger,

Do you have any idea how many accidental 911 calls happen on a daily basis? I used to work at a big 5 bank's main office downtown and we had a very large employee base for personal and commercial banking.

Long story short the amount of accidental 911 calls that resulted from bank employee's needing to dial 9 on the company phone to dial out and than calling 911 in error, was staggering. I understand that since we were a financial institution that police were required to respond to the building and check things out.

Not just because it was a bank. It's CPS' policy that any and every time a phone calls 911, that extensive due diligence be done to attempt to find the phone and figure out what's going on. I've only not been able to 'find' a phone once, and that's because the person on it utterly refused to stop moving around the city and talk to police. After an hour and a half, it was decided that they were clearly not in any immediate danger, and I was allowed to stop trying to make contact.

Our one branch, at 1 company was literally having police respond several times a week in error and it got me thinking that this scenario must play out hundreds of times a month across downtown Calgary. As a taxpayer it made me upset that police resources were being wasted on this stupidity when an easy fix was to change the requirement for dialing 9 as a start. Surely a City Bylaw change or a provincial law change could have resolved this.

Thanks!

In my experience, it's not uncommon to have around 50-150 of these a day. I'm not sure what they'd average out to over the year, but weekday 'business hours' are obviously the worst, while night shift (or rather, past 8pm) almost never sees them.

Businesses are the worst for it, as you noted most have to dial '9' to get out. What makes it even trickier is that most businesses will dial 9 for an outside line, then 1 for long distance, then take a couple moments to look over the number and...by that time, your phone may assume you are trying to dial 911, fill the extra 1 in for you, and then you are talking to us. I don't know what the criteria is for a phone to fill in the extra 1, but a lot of them do, as the number of people I hear who say some variation on "I was dialing long distance and just paused to make sure I had the right numbers..." is very high. Because of this, businesses are slowly starting to switch to 8 for an outside line. However, I don't know what that's doing to Healthlink's false call rate, as they are 811.

Next, we see a lot of folks who use those Long Distance calling cards doing much the same thing as the businesses above. Those are the two biggest situations that we get 911 misdials from.

It is hard (for me, at any rate, given the access to the numbers I have) to pin down an exact number, as the ones I can look at class a 911 misdial and a 911 hangup as the same thing. So I can't get a solid number on either.

In my personal experience, I'll deal with 1-15 a shift, depending on the shift.

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by WhiteTiger

Not just because it was a bank. It's CPS' policy that any and every time a phone calls 911, that extensive due diligence be done to attempt to find the phone and figure out what's going on. I've only not been able to 'find' a phone once, and that's because the person on it utterly refused to stop moving around the city and talk to police. After an hour and a half, it was decided that they were clearly not in any immediate danger, and I was allowed to stop trying to make contact.



In my experience, it's not uncommon to have around 50-150 of these a day. I'm not sure what they'd average out to over the year, but weekday 'business hours' are obviously the worst, while night shift (or rather, past 8pm) almost never sees them.

Businesses are the worst for it, as you noted most have to dial '9' to get out. What makes it even trickier is that most businesses will dial 9 for an outside line, then 1 for long distance, then take a couple moments to look over the number and...by that time, your phone may assume you are trying to dial 911, fill the extra 1 in for you, and then you are talking to us. I don't know what the criteria is for a phone to fill in the extra 1, but a lot of them do, as the number of people I hear who say some variation on "I was dialing long distance and just paused to make sure I had the right numbers..." is very high. Because of this, businesses are slowly starting to switch to 8 for an outside line. However, I don't know what that's doing to Healthlink's false call rate, as they are 811.

Next, we see a lot of folks who use those Long Distance calling cards doing much the same thing as the businesses above. Those are the two biggest situations that we get 911 misdials from.

It is hard (for me, at any rate, given the access to the numbers I have) to pin down an exact number, as the ones I can look at class a 911 misdial and a 911 hangup as the same thing. So I can't get a solid number on either.

In my personal experience, I'll deal with 1-15 a shift, depending on the shift.

It's maddening how many resources are tied up when we can try and reduce this problem significantly with some broad based changes.

Thanks!

[PsYcNeT]

Well for one thing, businesses could transition away from hardwire PBX systems to cloud-based platforms and eliminate the need for dialing 9 in the first place. Thankfully, this is already happening a fair bit.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by WhiteTiger

Businesses are the worst for it, as you noted most have to dial '9' to get out. What makes it even trickier is that most businesses will dial 9 for an outside line, then 1 for long distance, then take a couple moments to look over the number and...by that time, your phone may assume you are trying to dial 911, fill the extra 1 in for you, and then you are talking to us. I don't know what the criteria is for a phone to fill in the extra 1, but a lot of them do, as the number of people I hear who say some variation on "I was dialing long distance and just paused to make sure I had the right numbers..." is very high.

It doesn't help that for a lot of people their instinct is to immediately hang up when they realize that they've inadvertently dialed 911. At our office, the call just shows up as coming from the main line, so police call back the main line and ask who called 911, and there's no way to tell which of the hundreds of people who work there placed the call. So then an "office everyone" email has to be sent from reception so that person can be found and can confirm that they just messed up dialing, which takes up unnecessary time.

I've never understood why "dial 9 to get out" was a thing in the first place. Why not use pound? Pound never caused anyone any problems.

[GordonBlue]

I wonder how many people on this site here know the non emergency police number for the area they live, without having to look it up.

[timun]

403-266-1234. Used to be plastered on the sides of every car they had, before they made the switch to the predominantly-black-with-minimal-markings look...