Do you feel safe calling 911?

[KentuckyWoman]

Last edited Sat Jan 2, 2021, 11:34 PM - Edit history (1)

I chose not to call 911 on Thurs night.

Buying gas around 7pm. A couple in another car in the gas station having a loud fight in the car. A good 10 min of them yelling and pushing at each other. I kept thinking I should call for help but couldn't make myself do it. Then he punched her in the head pretty hard. .... Luckily a couple big guys came from another lane, talked the guy out of that car and a woman was checking on her ...

Luckily some beefy guys stepped up for her, but I feel so bad. Guilty even.

We need police. We really do. But it needs to be police we can ALL trust. If a older white lady in suburban Ohio is afraid of who the cops will shoot before knowing the situation, how much worse in urban America?

It should never have been allowed to get to this point in the first place. Even if we have to tackle one police department at a time, we need to fix this. NOW.

Edit to add... I guess I was not real clear. The police were called, but not until it went from yelling to punching. If one of us had called when it was only yelling, we might have prevented the physical violence. That is why I am upset. Hesitating because of concern about the police was an issue for me. I posted to get a perspective.

Thanks to everyone who responded. I have taken your comments to heart.

[Skittles]

1. do you know how many 911 calls are made

and how many actually result in shootings?

[KentuckyWoman]

2. I don't. I expect it's rare.

Whether it is due to watching too much news, or a real probability, I stood there stuck in inaction because I was unsure I could trust their safety with the police.

That bothers me. A lot.

[Skittles]

4. I would have called 911

or at the very least, reported my concerns to a gas station employee

[cwydro]

19. If I see a man punch a woman, I'm calling the police without a second's delay.

That’s what I’d do.

[angstlessk]

3. I don't think the non-caller was weighing the possibilities

just afraid their call could be added to those possibilities.

[treestar]

5. I called them for an elderly person falling

I would look at real stats to see how many times disaster occurs. Most 911 calls do not end in disaster. I cannot imagine not calling if seeing what you did. Really the odds that the police are going to shoot someone are not THAT great. This has gotten so absurdly over-exaggerated. Maybe no one should ever drive, as the chances of getting killed in an auto accident are likely greater. Maybe you should never let any doctor perform surgery on you, because sometimes they commit malpractice and it results in death. I think people overindulge in this anti-police thing. Perspective. There are statistics. And it's mostly white people who are trying to prove they are more anti-racist than other and have the chance to call other white people racists if they can't join this bandwagon.

[brewens]

6. I'm in an almost all white area in Idaho. It's common knowledge that if it's a domestic

dispute and alcohol is involved, someone is going to jail. Cops really don't even want to deal with anyone that's been drinking, so unless you witnessed a hit and run or something, best to wait until morning. So if you're a middle aged law abiding citizen here, that's about the most you have to worry about.

What the people in the cities and mostly black areas need is what we have. I've known at least a couple of the cops on the force at any one time all my life. I played football with one of them. They are from here. What they don't need is cops that are white right-wing enforcers coming in from some suburb to bust heads and shoot them.

[KentuckyWoman]

11. We just had a situation in the last month of shoot first ask 2nd.

Domestic dispute. Alcohol. The police shot the boyfriend and the family dog. Even when everyone is white it still hits the news - at least local.

The yelling was one thing ... that punch was a different thing. I had pulled out my phone to call and in the few seconds it took to get it out of my pocket the big guys were already at the car and had the door open.

Judging by the overall replies, I can see I just need to stay away from the a news awhile and get a perspective back ...

[cwydro]

20. So you just assume the "big guys" would handle the situation correctly?

Maybe they beat the tar out of the guy. Maybe they might steal his car with the woman in it.

Maybe they just let him go back to the poor woman, but now he’s really pissed off. Jeez.

[KentuckyWoman]

33. Be assured.

No one beat up the man or stole their car - I can't even figure out where you got that from.

We all hesitated to call when it was only yelling. As I said in my last post, I did call, but not until after the punch. If one of us had not hesitated, we might have saved her being hit.

Your condemnation for hesitating to call is accepted, with my own added in.

[ProfessorGAC]

7. Here, I Suppose So

I once accidentally dialed 911. I couldn't remember the pizza joint number, and dialed that instead of 411.
Stupidly, when they picked up, I just said, "Oh, wrong number, never mind".
Under 2 minutes later, cop pulls up to house to make sure all was ok.
I told him what happened & apologized for wasting their time.
They understood.
But, they showed up, and it wasn't the swat team.

[True Dough]

9. Did they bring your large pie with the works?

If not, it's another dereliction of duty!

[ProfessorGAC]

12. Now That You Mention It

No!
That said, since it was under 2 minutes, they would have bringing us someone else's pizza.
Maybe it's better they didn't!

[True Dough]

14. Did you check their pockets

for donuts, at least?

[Dem2theMax]

8. I was involved in a car accident a few weeks ago.

The other person was at fault. She was female, black and Muslim.

She was also giving me a hard time about who was at fault. If anyone else had been present, it would have been easy to prove she was responsible for the accident.

I'm in San Diego County. The sheriff's department would have shown up if I had called. They are not exactly known for being impartial. I chose not to call.

And the reason I chose not to call was because this woman was black and Muslim. I was more concerned for her safety, than I was for anything that had to do with my vehicle or myself.

[True Dough]

13. I respect your decision

but are you confident things are going to work out in your favor? I was hit by another driver in a minor accident. She admitted fault at the scene and fortunately she sent me a text message with her name and "the lady who hit you" as part of it. We didn't involve the police. But the relatively minor cosmetic damage was resulting in body shop estimates around $3,000.

When I presented three estimates to her, she texted me again later and said her neighbor is a backyard mechanic who does quality body work and he could fix the damage for much less. I said thanks, but no thanks.

As the weeks went by, she changed her story and denied that she caused the accident. I told my insurance agent that I would send the text messages as proof. The insurance agent, much to my surprise, said text messages are meaningless to them. I insisted on talking to someone at a managerial level. A few days later another agent called me back and invited me to forward the text messages. I did. The issue was then resolved within 24 hours. No fault for me. It was a relief, but shouldn't have been such an ordeal.

[Dem2theMax]

17. Yes. Luckily for me, my situation was not nearly as bad as what you went through.

And I am so sorry you had to go through all of that. Car accidents, the people who won't admit responsibility, and insurance companies, always lead to a mess.

I'm really lucky in that I have a lawyer in the family who specializes an automobile accidents. I didn't need him this time, but he's there in a pinch.

[True Dough]

31. Glad to hear it won't be an ongoing hassle for you

Better luck to you in 2021, Dem2theMax. Take care.

[demmiblue]

10. I would have called in that situation...

it may have been the first step in getting that woman out of an abusive relationship.

The last time I called was in the middle of the night after I heard a bloodcurdling scream and witnessed four figures walking away from where I thought the scream came from.

[hunter]

28. I reckon by my personal experience it's about 60/40 for the police improving the ultimate outcome...

... of any horrible situation.

I once ran to a bloodcurdling scream in the night and some asshole sliced open my arm with a knife. The scar on my arm doesn't bother me, it's sort of cool actually, as expressive as any tattoo, but the addition to my PTSD baggage did not made me a better human.

No one was saved.

Unlike television the police in the real world usually get there just in time to seal off the crime scene and do the paperwork.

I don't hate the police, most of them anyways, but I don't buy into the myths.

[progree]

15. I have never called 911. But my phone did, twice. Cops showed up both times

VERY Loud banging on the door (scary, once was at 2 am, the other time I think it was like midnight).

They asked if I called 911, I groggily said no.

Anyway, due to some problem on the line, my landline's equipment (the phone company's not my phone) was randomly emitting static, some of which dialed numbers like 911. Phone company fixed it next day or two. Same problem recurred, and they fixed it for good.

[Bayard]

22. I used to have 911 speed dialed on my landline

The cat kept walking across the phone and dialing 911. The cops showed up 3 different times (very early morning). After that, I removed it off speed dial.

The original post doesn't say whether the couple was white or black. Sorry to say, that would influence my next step.

[marie999]

26. Sheriff's deputies showed up at my house answering to a 911 call.

I told them I hadn't called 911. They asked if I had mobile phones and I said yes. They said that mobile phones can dial 911 by themselves.

[Mr.Bill]

18. My granddaughter, who is 30, was drinking with some friends in a bar a few years ago

and a fight broke out. Of course I was not there, so I will never know the whole story, but she is not the type to start a fight and she wound up with a black eye. She didn't know the woman who hit her. I asked her why she didn't call the cops and she said "Are you kidding? Why? so they could come in the bar and kick the shit out of everybody and arrest us all? No way!"

Then I remembered she had been in a restaurant a few months earlier and without being involved saw exactly that take place.

[Tom Rinaldo]

21. Yes, in an emergency, because I'm an older White

In my case the odds are greater that the police would help me in an emergency, rather than shoot me. I know I have white privilege, didn't ask for it, inherited it at birth, but I have it. I try not to use it whenever I have any choice in the matter.

[hunter]

23. I've seen the police shoot people I wouldn't have shot...

... so I always think hard before I call them.

When I do call them I explain the situation as carefully as I can.

Years ago, over the course of a few months, the police in our city shot a few mentally ill people and it was a huge scandal.

The police now get special training to identify and deal with mentally ill people, but I still don't trust them.

When my wife and I were younger and our children were small we lived in some rough neighborhoods.

I did call the police once for a neighbor... it was two o'clock in the morning and he was pounding on our front door. I peeked out the window and he was covered with blood and asking me to call the police.

It turned out he'd come home drunk and his wife had smacked him in the head with a big glass bottle of bourbon and was threatening to kill him. He may well have deserved it, but not on my front porch. I sat out there trying to be some sort of calming influence, ready to jump out of the way if they started hammering on one another again, but it didn't come to that.

When I was in and out of college, all nine years of it, before modern psych meds, the local police knew who I was but didn't consider me dangerous, possibly because at my very worst I can still be an affable white guy. I think the police considered me a humorous diversion from their usual sordid graveyard shift duties of domestic violence and mean drunk frat boy rapists.

Ah, here's Hunter, running shoeless in the middle of the night with bloody feet. Always good for a laugh.

I don't like living in a nation where we have to think twice before calling the police, but we do.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

24. The system is working as it was designed. It can't be "fixed" or reformed.

[cwydro]

25. This reminds me of the Kitty Genovese story. Later to be debunked, but still.

Watching a person being beaten and turning away.

No words.

[myohmy2]

27. you did...

...what you thought was right and what you had to do to protect yourself...I can't crap you for that...

...sad world we live in...

[Empowerer]

29. I don't feel right about calling 911 because, like you, I'm afraid I'm putting someone in danger

[Kaleva]

30. I know a woman who was last seen arguing with her boyfriend at a gas station 5 years ago.

Had the people who saw that called 911, she might still be around today.

The woman is presumed dead and the boyfriend is a person of interest.

My guess is that a far, far greater percentage of women are killed or seriously injured by a man in their life then are shot by police responding to a 911 call.

[Klaralven]

32. An estimated 240 million calls are made to 9-1-1 in the U.S. each year.

Per https://www.nena.org/page/911Statistics

1004 people were shot and killed by police in 2019. Of those about a fourth were black.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/

So there's less than a 1 in 240,000 chance that a 911 call will result in someone being shot to death by the police.

[lilmamba]

34. We're they black?

Honestly if one of them or both were black I see why you would hesitate. I’m just curious as to their race so I can have a better idea of the situation...

[RobinA]

35. I've Called

911 a few times and probably would in this incident. If I call 911 a have a pretty strong belief that someone is or could be in trouble. The police rarely shoot people, despite what you see on the news. Police shootings have decreased dramatically over the years, whether the shootee is white or black. Of course, there are egregious police shootings, but that is certainly not the norm.

[Duppers]

36. Yep, I do. I called them 3 mos ago.

Nice guy came out, then called backup.

Why?
We were out on our midnight doggos walk when 2 car sped passed us in the back of our remote neighborhood. The suspects both hit the curve & spun around 180°. Both drivers exited their cars & ran down into the wooded ravine.

Highly suspicious activity, we thought, and, because I was trying to protect "my" wild foxes who lived in that ravine from possible hunters who had been trying to kill them, I called the cops.

I was surprised at how very nice the cops were & how they spent almost an hour trying to track these guys but couldn't find them. The nice, young policeman ran the plates & found these guys lived about 40miles away.

But since it was approaching 1:30am & we were tired, went went home to sleep.

Anyway, I never hesitate to call the police here. (It's another story in Baltimore where my son lived; cops there are rotten.)

[Raine]

37. Of course I do. I'm not about to do nothing while someone is being beaten! nt