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Ever had to call the police?

virividox said:
i think we are privy to witnessing more crimes in nottingham than the rest of the uk!!!

iv called the police a lot ever since moving to uni here.
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I never called the police while I was at uni there, but there certainly was a lot of crime - our house windows were smashed several times, a guy was beaten with baseball bats outside our house for trying to evade a taxi fare and a lot of people I know had their houses broken into. I was (nearly) mugged by a useless mugger - he had a knife, but I didn't have any cash on me, so he tried to take me to the cash point. When we got to the main road where the cash point was, he just turned to me and said "Actually, I can't be bothered" and just walked off. :rolleyes:

I haven't called the emergency services, but I have phoned the local police station here in Kingston. Someone abandoned a running car outside my girlfriend's house - all the lights were on and the doors were open. There was also a guy in another car who kept driving off, then coming back and getting out to look at the abandoned car. This happened about 5 or 6 times before the police told me I should go out and turn off the car.
 
I lived in Columbia Heights in Washington DC for a/b 2 years. I think I called the police more times than I called my grandparents. Luckily, my building was VERY secure. But I heard LOTS of gun fire, & witnessed a few car robberies, and 1 mugging, & 1 hit-and-run. Needless to say, I moved as soon as I could afford to.
 
mad jew said:
Yeah, I've had no problems with them getting to me on time.
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No, from calling 999 to them turning up on the doorstep took less time than the kettle boiling. I was very impressed; made me feel much safer really. I walk down the road now with 112 (the mobile version of 999) predialled so I can just hit the button if I feel threatened since I figure the police might make it there before I run out of puff running away!

It's the ambulance service that I've usually had to hang online for - once for 20 minutes - by which time the patient might have been dead. He'd been having a seizure and banged his head off the concrete, hence why I called for one. Since in the UK, if you call they still come out, I hung on to let them know that their patient had recovered and walked off, blood streaming from his head.
 
I've called the police a few times but mostly for people parking in my parking spot or for loud parties.

For people in my parking spot I leave a note the first time saying I've noted their plate number, the next time I call and have them ticketed and if they are dumb a 3rd time I have them towed. I give them a first chance since some people honestly don't know where they can and can't park with fading numbers on the ground... although where I live it's $50 ticket for parking and if you have traffic tickets > $50 they have to tow your car... so if the parked person has even a 1 cent ticket then they get towed and tickets the 2nd time but that's not so much my fault... :)

I usually am cool with loud parties until about midnight if I don't have work the next day... after that if it doesn't seem it's cooling down I've called. I had to report the people last time to the police (for being noisy) and in the morning to the landlord because well... they apparently saw fit in the middle of the night to throw most of their furniture lawn furniture and some coats into the large tree in the backyard. Aside from being plain dumb, school kids waited for the bus under the tree and I didn't really want the furniture falling on them. Oddly enough I haven't heard a party upstairs since...

Oh yes... and I called one morning because I woke up to the sound of a car horn... it literally was just "on". There wasn't even anybody in the car. It stayed "on" for over 2 hours before I left for work. Dunno what happened with that though as I don't think the car was there when I got back.
 
Called once over a stolen mailbox. Once over a bottle through the window. Once had them called for me because I was crushed between 2 cars, and called them once because I couldn't be bothered to open up a #10 can of whoop-a$$ on a drunk who thought that me and my family were his ride home at 2 am. (midnight showing of some movie that I can't remember) Had my son not been there I would have been tempted to let push come to shove. As it was I started with polite requests and strategic positioning. (Me between said drunk and the family and the car) Then it was threats to call the cops, followed by calling the cops. Halfway through the conversation with the police some of his friends got worried and pulled him away and started apologizing.
 
I used to bartend. More times than I can even count.

I got to the point when there was a fight, I dialed 911 and hung up when they picked up. Cut response time in half - and don't lecture me. :rolleyes:
 
rendezvouscp said:
For those of you that are phone operators, I really am sorry for some of the crap you have to wade through.
-Chasen
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Thanks. Yep, I'm one of those phone operators (for the Dutch police). You wouldn't indeed know how rude or bad (or drunk ;) ) people sometimes can be on the phone, talking to the police, badmouthing us, swearing, calling names :rolleyes:

-Gnorn
 
Yes. When I was in college I once had to run to the grocery store at around 1 or 2AM because I realized I was out of face wash. I had only been home for about an hour when I went out to my truck and found the back passenger side window had been smashed in (it was an extended cab). I didn't notice it until I had started the engine and it sounded like my windows were down. They had stolen my CD player adapter cord and my big maglight flashlight(which I didn't notice was missing until a few weeks later). I immediately went back inside and called the police. Needless to say, didn't make it to the grocery store until much later. It turned out there were two or three other cars at my complex's garage that had also been broken into. They caught the kid who did it a couple of hours later. He was a fourteen year old they caught driving recklessly with his friends (I think they might have been drunk). :rolleyes: I got my CD adapter back and the window replaced (along with a new tint job to make the replaced window match the others) on the kid's parents dime. However, I was still vaccuuming little bits of glass out of my car six months after the whole incident. That stuff got everywhere!

Now, if I'd only been so lucky with getting my bag returned after someone broke into my car a couple of years later while parked in a church parking lot. Didn't call the police on that once since someone else who had been broken into at the same time already did. I now leave as little as possible in my car. FYI... Things stolen out of your car are not covered by auto insurance--they are covered by renters or homeowners insurance. I learned that out the hard way and ended up having to replace everything out of my own pocket.
 
Almost once when a girl got mugged in the church parking lot. But, someone else had already made the call. Man, they took a long time to show up. I had time to findout what was going on, see that the security tape timer was off (it was right after a ST/DT switch), go through the tape and see that (guess which) one of our security cameras was down...

Everything I have generally seen was in Baltimore. Since all the other incidents didn't involve direct violence against a person, I did what every good citizen of B-more does. "I did'n see nuthin."
 
When I first moved to the Huntsville area, Mr. and Mrs. Domestic Violence lived in the apartment above mine. I had to call the cops on them a number of times. :(
 
I've only called the police once, and that was when I got assaulted by some guys on a bike trail up in Minneapolis at around 11pm. I was with my girlfriend, so we left the area, and the cops called me 45 minutes later to say they had just gotten there and wanted to know why I hadn't stayed to talk to them. Yeah... like I would stay on a dark trail at night, for 45 minutes, after having just been attacked by a group of 4 guys. Good call!
 
Yes.

Driving home late one night on the 405 I saw two cars swerving and playing around. It seemed that they knew each other and were just goofing off so I backed away a bit to make sure I didn't get caught in the mess if they crashed. Well I saw guns pointing out the windows. No one fired (like I said, I think they were just fooling around) but it was not a good sign. I called 911 on my cell and told them the scenario, along with the make/models of their cars and mine. I followed them while staying on the phone with the cops to keep an updated location. When the cops pullled onto the freeway with sirens and lights blaring, I took the next exit.
No idea what happened or didn't happen as a result.
 
It wasnt me who called but I was in the car with my friend and her dad was driving and we where waiting for the lights to switch to green and this guy in a cow costume with his bare naked butt hanging out (he had this flap over his butt but he opened it) on a motocycle pulls up next to us. And turned so his ass could face the driver (my friend's dad) and started shaking it! He was probably drunk so my friends dad called and police.
It was seriously the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life, me and my friend were in the backseat laughing our asses off, but her dad was pretty pissed off lol
 
Applespider said:
Since in the UK, if you call they still come out, I hung on to let them know that their patient had recovered and walked off, blood streaming from his head.
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Wow. I guess that's a good thing that the ambulance comes no matter what. Down here they assume you're fine unless you follow through with the entire call.

There really should be an international protocol of sorts. I mean, I knew the UK used 999 but had no idea it was a different number for mobiles.
 
mad jew said:
There really should be an international protocol of sorts. I mean, I knew the UK used 999 but had no idea it was a different number for mobiles.
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I had no idea what it was in other countries. I knew it was 911 in more than just the US, so I assumed it was the same everywhere.

Wow, you really do learn something new everyday. :)

iGary said:
I got to the point when there was a fight, I dialed 911 and hung up when they picked up. Cut response time in half - and don't lecture me. :rolleyes:
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That is one of the best ideas I have ever heard.
 
mad jew said:
Wow. I guess that's a good thing that the ambulance comes no matter what. Down here they assume you're fine unless you follow through with the entire call.
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Police do the same thing. If you dial 999 and then don't follow through, they assume the worst and try to get to you if you're on a landline which is traceable. Mobiles are slightly trickier!

There really should be an international protocol of sorts. I mean, I knew the UK used 999 but had no idea it was a different number for mobiles.
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In Europe, you can dial 112 in any country on your cell phone and you'll get through to the emergency services in that country. In some countries 112 is also their police emergency number in any case.
 
Happend to me (actual conversation somewhat translated, you get the point...)

Me: "Hello, this is the police, how can I help you?"
She: "Hello, what is your phone number?"
Me: "Uhm? You just called it??" :rolleyes:

Slip of tongue, after getting a report of on incident that happend on Astronauts Street:

Me: "Okay, we'll send the astronauts over there." :cool:
 
It's universally 000 here, whether you want an ambulance, a policeman or a fireman and are using a mobile, a pay phone or a private landline. :)

Also, mobiles don't need SIM cards (active account) to call 000. :cool:
 
luckily I have not had to yet.... however my neighbors have... someone came and try to beat up the guy across the street once...
 
I tend to avoid involving the police most of the time now because there are usually glass objects, little baggies and other fun stuff all over the house, courtesty of my roommates...

But there was one incident last year when I was in the dorms where one of my hall mates stole my keys at a party and went home and ripped off my room. Didn't realize my keys were gone until I got home, so I called the cops, filed the report, etc., then found out who it was the next day when I was hanging out with the guy's roommate and saw all my stuff... Needless to say I called the cops back and let genius boy have what was coming to him.
 
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