I AM ALWAYS LIABLE said:
My response:
I guess I'm jaded by living in Los Angeles. Do you know what this Dispatcher would say to a call like this? "Is someone injured? No? Okay, we'll be there - - in about 20 hours - - if at all."
And that would be CRAPPY customer service, and my guess is that the Dispatcher would be disciplined. The reality may be that the department would send out a mail-in report or take a phone-in log entry, but the Dispatcher would, of course, never say that.
Of course a busy agency is not going to respond right away ... heck, even in MY agency it would be about as low a priority as you could get. However, even when I worked in a county of more than a million people and a city of 160,000 we would still document the incident, and (time permitting) would likely contact a couple of the possible miscreants. It's what we're expected to do.
You see, in large cities, unless a crime involves injury or the potential for bodily injury, you'd rarely, if at all, and only if you're lucky, see the police or sheriffs for something like this. Without suspects, this is a Civil matter.
My largest agency served a population of about 1 million and we would have either taken a phone report or dropped off a mail-in report for the person. We responded to priority calls only (my first call in field trainign was a double shooting ... and that set the stage), and even WE would have done SOMETHING ... even if it was just to document the incident in a log or the aforementioned phone or mail in report. Fortunately, the other agencies I have worked for have allowed their officers the ability to provide a higher level of service.
So, I can only imagine, Carl, that you're not used to working in a city with millions of people.
No, I'm not. I have worked in jurisdictions of almost one million, but never in one of "millions". But I do work closely (once a month, in fact) with people that DO (including LAPD and LASO) and I will be certain to inquire with them as to their response to such a low-level call. I imagine it will be much the same as my experience above, and will NOT involve telling the complainant that nobody will show for 20 hours.
Fortunately, I have managed to flee the big cities without becoming so jaded. Fleeing the urban sprawl was a conscious decision. And where I work we would almost HAVE to follow up with interviews of the alleged suspects. but, that's the price I pay to live and raise my kids in Mayberry as opposed to the concrete jungle.
- Carl
