TexasCHLforum.com

hpcatx wrote:

knotquiteawake wrote:

40khammer wrote:You don't have to call 911 for situations like that. You can just call police dispatch and give them the information. They'll send a car over to cruise through at the very least. At least that's what they do in my town.

Have the non-emergency number for your local police station/substation in your phone.

I assume that this is different than calling 311, but wanted to verify. I'll need to research this info for our home.

It sounds like for dallas that 311 will connect you with city services. i think this would be different than contacting our local law for a non-emergency but still law enforcement related issue.

speedsix wrote:...call centers vary...ours handles 3 towns (poorly) and a call to the non-emergency number gets shunted right back to 911 operators...

good point. In California, twice over the course of a couple years I had called 911 because of a drunk driver on the freeway (VERY drunk, could not stay in the lane at all), both times I was put on hold for several minutes, by that time the diver had already exited or I had already exited. That was why unless I needed an ambulance I pretty much stayed away from 911. That hasn't been the case here in Dallas (I have bad luck with them transferring me to the wrong department though so it can take a while to actually get the right dispatcher).

40khammer wrote:You don't have to call 911 for situations like that. You can just call police dispatch and give them the information. They'll send a car over to cruise through at the very least. At least that's what they do in my town.

This is an important point I hadn't seen brought up before here. Have the non-emergency number for your local police station/substation in your phone. When I lived in southern California (LA County Sheriff was the local law in my city) I found this to be the most effective way to report suspicious behavior. Usually the Public Safety Officer they had manning the desk/dispatch at the substation was already in direct contact with the officers (as opposed to the 911 operator feeding information to the main dispatchers feeding information to an officer, or simply putting information into a call and feeding the info to a MDU in the officer's car). I think they appreciated me not using the emergency line because they could put me on hold as long as they needed to. The desk officer was also more available to stay on the line with me to update the officer on the suspicious person's location movement ect, the 911 dispatchers would usually just take the info and let me go if it was just a suspicious person kind of thing.

gigag04 wrote:I'd go check it out. I hate spiders almost as much as burglars.

Ditto, but only If I had a 12-gauge handy... those spiders can jump I hear!