Regarding the side note, people will stop calling in when they are asked “are you sure it wasn’t fireworks” nearly everytime. It is discouraging. From personal experience.
I generally avoid asking that except in 3 kinds cases
We already have multiple calls around the area for fireworks, and then one person calls in saying they think it’s gunshots.
Cases like I mentioned where there’s very obvious fireworks going on in the background that I can hear on the phone.
It’s on or very near a holiday that you’d expect there to be fireworks, 4th of July, New Years, Diwali, etc.
Even in those cases, if you insist it’s gunshots, I’m entering it as gunshots. Not my place to make that call and I don’t want that liability on me if I make the wrong one. If our cops want to ignore it that can be on them. Some agencies are better about this than others, but my training was very clear that I should enter the call for whatever the caller is telling me is going on, not what I think is going on, they’re there seeing or hearing it, I’m not.
Regarding the side note, people will stop calling in when they are asked “are you sure it wasn’t fireworks” nearly everytime. It is discouraging. From personal experience.
I generally avoid asking that except in 3 kinds cases
We already have multiple calls around the area for fireworks, and then one person calls in saying they think it’s gunshots.
Cases like I mentioned where there’s very obvious fireworks going on in the background that I can hear on the phone.
It’s on or very near a holiday that you’d expect there to be fireworks, 4th of July, New Years, Diwali, etc.
Even in those cases, if you insist it’s gunshots, I’m entering it as gunshots. Not my place to make that call and I don’t want that liability on me if I make the wrong one. If our cops want to ignore it that can be on them. Some agencies are better about this than others, but my training was very clear that I should enter the call for whatever the caller is telling me is going on, not what I think is going on, they’re there seeing or hearing it, I’m not.