Posted on 05/08/2009 9:59:47 AM PDT by BGHater
Action News 7 | Lincoln Park, Michigan, cop hangs up on girl while father has convulsions.
Worth a View.
Cop Arrests Girl for Swearing During 911 Call[Video]
I think he’s a wee bit less interested in making a valid point than in being right in his own eyes. He persistently misrepresents the views and words of others, while accenting something that is not even the most important point. Which is HE RISKED SOMEONE’S LIFE TO GIVE A LESSON ON ETIQUETTE THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN GIVEN AT A LATER TIME!
Oh yes, everyone else is wrong, the guy’s superiors are all wrong, only he is right. (rolling eyes)
Why would I be expecting a $60,000/yr (per the video) sergeant to be sitting on his donut stuffed dead ass taking 911 calls, rather than a trained 911 call center operator?
She didn't abuse him; HE abused her, by calling HER names; she used bad language to, not AT him. He directed bad language at her.
Using "colorful language" (blue IS a color) while talking to some one is not the same as swearing AT them. One is objectionable; the other is abusive.
Rhett didn't 'give a damn'; but he didn't "damn' Scarlet.
Well, see, that’s the problem with filing a lawsuit, you have to actually have something to sue over. Lawsuits are about money, and absent a financial loss, or some physical or emotional harm to the plaintiff, you have no lawsuit.
Even if we accept the reporter’s claim that there’s no “abuse of 911” law in Michigan (It’s usually called something else, but almost every state has one), there’s still the disturbing the peace type charge. Clearly, that’s what she was doing at the station, so a false arrest suit isn’t going to fly. If there had been some actual harm to the father as a result, and if that harm had been preventable, then there’d be something to hang your hat on there, but that doesn’t seem to apply.
So, combined with the timing on this, here’s two possibilities based on seeing a lot of these type of cases over the years. First, her lawyer, seeing that he has no case, is hoping to embarrass the city into coughing up some cash. Second, perhaps the charges against his client weren’t dropped, the court date’s approaching, and he’s attempting to negotiate an agreement where the city drops the charges and he cancels his publicity show. Both those kinds of activities are pretty common, and it wouldn’t surprise me to discover one applies here. One thing’s for sure, with a lawyer involved, if there was even one iota of evidence that the father had been harmed in any way, no matter how far-fetched, we’d be hearing about it.
Where are you getting that the girl hung up the phone? The cop hung up on her three times.
I don’t know if the story is ‘new’. I only saw it on youtube, this could be from months before, it might not be resurfacing because of a lawsuit; but only making the rounds now.
Have you ever worked at a job in the public domain? I mean, in a resturant, or at a Walmart, Home Depot or some place like that? I have, I spent my high school and college years working with the public.
Most of the public is like you or I. Polite, earnest and know what we want. There are those members of society, those who have never worked, who see this as an opportunity to abuse someone who can do little, if anything to defend themselves.
I've seen people walk into an Olive Garden, angry about something, and take it out on the waitress. She had nothing to do with what happened, she trying to make tips to go along with her $3/hr job; so she can feed herself and perhaps her family. She gets to take the abuse, do her best to appease the abuser, and then still hope her abuser see's fit to leave a small tip.
I've seen people chew a Home Depot worker out, because the paint they bought wasn't sticking to the cement like they had thought it would. The Home Depot worker repeated that he didn't sell them the paint, but would gladly refund their money - yet this wasn't enough.
In my examples, profanity was not offered - just abuse. When you work in a public setting, you are told that you may have to deal with unhappy customers, but you do not need to take their abuse.
So, lets look at the IRS, DMV, VA, Post Office, DPSS, shall we? These people are constantly berated. The best that they can hope for, is to do their job and not be abused. Think about the guy in the Post Office, mailing packages. What do you suppose his 'Best' day is like? The DPSS deals with rude, in some cases drug-addicted, unemployed/unemployable people who may or may not have any inclination to work. Yet, these workers are expected to come dressed professionally, be polite, and keep records on every visitor - many of whom have not had a bath in days. The public they serve may be as rude, as obnoxious and as demeaning as they want, they can demand anything and throw tantrums. They can, and some do. What response can these people offer? Simply put, their options are limited - but making the rude one's wait is about it. My wife worked for our state DPSS - it was far from the panacea you describe.
Visit your DMV and sit and watch them work; it's unending assembly line of thankless tasks. They have job security, but their work life is drudgery. If someone fails a test, who's blamed? The pay and benefits vary state to state, I can't talk about your state, but here in Utah the starting pay is pretty low. Let's simply say that it's not a 'fun envirnoment'. The idea that because you work for the gov't; you are supposed to take abuse, or profanity carries no weight whatsoever. Again, you wouldn't dream of demanding that people at Walmart, K-mart, Target, Sears or any other commercial venture sit there and take verbal abuse. We are perfectly able to convey thoughts, concepts and points of view without once uttering a single profanity. No one, absolutely no one should be in a position to be the object of ridicule.
Too much power, not enough accountability. Lots of that going around. I had two attempted home invasions in two nights. I was on the phone with 911 as I chased the guy down the street with a hatchet in hand (nearest weapon at the time)-— after 15 minutes no response-— I called again and the guy tells me I’m not the only GD person in town, they’ll get to me and he already put out the call-— I told him I hoped to god I was the only one in town chasing a home invader down the street with a hatchet. They could respond now or later, but if I caught the guy it was going to be messy in more ways than one. 2 minutes later I had four cars with sirens and lights-— they told me they arrived with 2 minutes of getting the call, so the guy never even put out report the first time! I went out and bought another 12 gauge so I will have quicker access and not be such a burden on the 911 system ever again.
First of all, the officer in question makes $31 an hour, not $9.
Secondly, listen to the recorded calls. HE was out of line. He was decided that disciplining her language was far more important than finding out why she needed an ambulance and even told her she was NOT going to get help. HE hung up on her twice after only two sentences of conversation. He escalated the issued far beyond reasonableness. You have to take people as they come, not as you wish them to be. How would he handle a call from a citizen suffering from Tourette's Syndrome?
His job is not to be judgmental about the language of the caller and to correct her speech... it's to triage the nature of the call and send the appropriate emergency response.
Glad your okay.
Man that would have been a sweet video of you chasing down a guy with a axe.
Your analogies are horsecrap as none involve potential life or death situations.
Are you a member of a public employee union?
That’s possible, but your thread is the second one this week on the same topic, meaning someone else ran across it because of its high profile. Also, a search of the blog coverage seems to indicate that most of it came this week, so something’s up. The incident was in October of ‘08.
I hope you are never allowed anywhere near a job that involves dealing with emergencies and life-or-death situations.
You’re mostly using examples of people who do not work in high-stress or life threatening/dependent situations. A cashier at Wal-Mart or a waitress at Olive Garden or a postal worker aren’t trained to save someone’s life. They aren’t there to dispatch rescue services.
It sounds as though you have an vendetta against profanity, but no regard for someone’s life being in danger. If the girl used profanity, big deal. She wasn’t calling him names. If anything, the police officer was calling HER names and berating her.
I don’t understand your sensitivity toward the language considering the situation the girl was in. If she was prank calling 911, it would be different.
If I saw my dad convulsing on the floor, I wouldn’t be concerned about my language either.
A crusade to end profanity doesn’t need to start during a life altering/life threatening situation and it’s not the cop’s job to give her lessons on politeness.
I worked as an ambulance dispatcher for a while. I had one ‘frequent flyer’ who’d call almost every night and spend fifteen minutes alternating back and forth between screaming that she was in severe pain and dying, and detailing the erotic acts she wanted to perform for me because I was “the only one who cared”. I offered to send her an ambulance every time... never did, though.
On my first call from “Mrs. Smith” when I was a rookie, I contacted her doctor about her “near-death condition”. He proceeded to chew me out for about half an hour. Never made that mistake again.
He bad luck is that she is a white blonde; if she were black or Hispanic, there would probably be a federal civil rights violation investigation as well...and the language would have been considered normal, if not restrained.
Does profanity help, in any way? Does it convey anything at all that expresses urgency, severity, or a special need? What is the purpose of profanity?
When was the last time you over-heard an ER doctor using profanity on the job? A fireman? A soldier? You can listen to our soldiers communicating to HQ, while under fire, and not listen to profanity.
There is simply no reason for it.
No soup ambulance for you!
What an amazing fantasy. You must watch a lot of television.
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