WAKEFIELD ‹ Wakefield Police have been inundated with 911 hang-up calls lately and they want residents to know the rules about unfounded emergency calls.
For the year, the Wakefield Police Department has received 380 unfounded 911 calls. In December alone police handled approximately 22 similar calls. The department received seven unfounded 911 calls last week.
Most cases of unfounded 911 calls are human error, pranks, children playing with phones or sometimes phone-related auto-dialing issues. When police call some numbers back they often get answering or fax machines, or no answer at all.
This increase in unfounded calls has police a bit concerned that residents don¹t understand the procedures or responses to such calls.
With the decrease in personnel, (unfounded 911) calls have increased calls for service, explained WPD Executive Officer Lt. John MacKay.
If people would just answer us when we call, it would save us from going out, said MacKay.
When police receive a 911 call, and no one responds on the line, police are required to call the number back.
If no one answers the follow-up call, police then send a patrol to the address and ensure all is OK.
In the past three months police have received around 40 unfounded 911 calls.
During this week, two unfounded calls were dealt with. When police contacted one unfounded 911 caller back all was OK and the matter was dealt with. A second call went unanswered.
One November call was quickly determined to be a misdial, while another was a child playing with a phone. Two calls came from one address in short succession.
Back in September WPD received an unfounded 911 call and followed-up with a call back. Police said the call was answered by a woman who was described as evasive.
The danger of 911 misuse or abuse are obvious as it often takes up time and diverts emergency personnel or resources.
The misuse or even abuse of 911 systems has prompted the Department of Justice to issue guidelines and advice for emergency personal faced with these problems.
According to the DOJ, misdials and hang-ups, occur when callers misdial area codes similar to 911. Others result from misdialing of the international access number 011. In addition, business Centrex and fax users sometimes dial 9 to get an outside line, when their phone systems do not require doing so, if the caller then dials a number starting with 1 and depresses 1 again by accident, the system dials 911 (thus 911 operators sometimes hear fax static on the line).
Area codes that are one digit off from 911 include parts of New York City, North Carolina, Georgia, Kansas and California.
It is suspected that many misdials end up as hang-up calls, once the callers realize their mistake, writes the DOJ. Agencies that have examined hang-up calls report that a majority are due to caller misdialing (rather than prank calls or hang-ups for other reasons). Many agencies instruct citizens not to hang up if they misdial 911. If a caller hangs up, agencies conduct callbacks or dispatch officers to determine if a police or medical emergency exists.
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