Officials Ponder Possible Solution to Misuse of 911

By THAO HUA

March 2, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The calls come in about lost bicycles, loud stereos and parking tickets.

Some callers are just dialing for street directions.

So many people are misusing 911--the telephone number designated for local police emergencies--that the Federal Communications Commission has decided to allow police to use the number 311 nationwide for nonemergency situations.

Orange County law enforcement officials say that here, as elsewhere, the overwhelming majority of calls to 911 can hardly be considered to involve life-threatening emergencies, yet creation of a new 311 system may cost more than it’s worth.

Although none of the county’s police and fire departments currently has plans to implement new nonemergency telephone numbers, several--including the Sheriff’s Department, the Orange County Fire Authority and the California Highway Patrol--are evaluating whether they should.

Central to the debate is the cost of such a system, which may require hiring additional telephone operators, and paying for an advertising campaign to publicize the new number.

“At this point, we just don’t have a real clear handle on how it can be successfully implemented,” said Capt. Scott Brown, spokesman for the Orange County Fire Authority, which receives about 15,000 911 calls per month.

When the 911 system was introduced, state funds helped pay part of the cost. So far, state officials have not decided to subsidize a 311 system, but a task force is evaluating that option along with others, said Leah Senitte, program manager for the state’s 911 system.

“There are people looking into [the 311 system] to determine if it would be beneficial to do on a statewide basis,” Senitte said. “Right now, all that is still in its infancy stage.”

In the U.S. Senate, a proposal to allocate an annual $10 million to help implement 311 is being considered.

Even if funds are made available, law enforcement authorities wonder how they would go about educating the public about 311 use, especially since 911 is already so ingrained in people’s lives.

“Education is one of the most difficult things to accomplish,” said Richard Blansett, Fullerton police’s crime analyst. “We’re just now making headway in teaching people when and when not to use 911. If we implement 311, we’d have to start all over again.”

Efforts to educate the public about 911 have taken years and are continuing.

Several cities regularly mail flyers to residents urging them to limit their use of the emergency number to real emergency situations. Community outreach officers visit schools to educate students, who have sometimes dialed 911 as a prank. Many departments also send warning letters to residents who make improper emergency calls.

In Garden Grove last year, 82 residents were each fined $25 after dialing 911 and then hanging up, prompting operators to dispatch police officers to their addresses needlessly.

“When the officers got there, there was no emergency,” said Julie Dutton, who administers the department’s communication system. “Sometimes it’s a misdial, and other times it’s their kid playing on the phone.”

Misuse of 911 can result in federal misdemeanor charges. An 18-year-old man was charged earlier this year with 911 misuse after calling authorities in New Hanover, N.J., because he was lost.

In Orange County and elsewhere, however, police officers say they rarely enforce the federal law because they don’t want to discourage legitimate 911 calls.

State officials such as Senitte have been trying to find ways to ease the burden of improper calls on emergency operators for several years, especially in larger cities such as Los Angeles, where last year some 325,000 callers hung up after being put on hold.

So when the FCC announced it was making the 311 number available to law enforcement agencies earlier this month, Senitte said, “It was exactly what we were looking for.”

The announcement came on the heels of a pilot program that began in Baltimore in October. Already, nonemergency calls to 911 in that city are down by about a third, a police spokesman said.

Some Orange County police departments are advocating the idea as well, but with reservations.

“We think it’s a real solid way to get those [nonemergency] calls off the 911 lines,” said Roger Ham, communications administrator for the Huntington Beach police. “We think it should be implemented, but it should be implemented on a statewide or at least a countywide level. Otherwise, it wouldn’t work because people wouldn’t know when or when not to call 311.”

All 911 calls are channeled to the local police or sheriff’s department, unless they are made on cellular phones, in which case they are directed to the California Highway Patrol. Police then transfer calls to fire departments or other agencies as needed.

Several 911 operators interviewed this past week estimated that 50% to 75% of the calls they receive do not involve life-threatening situations.

Richard Eidlhuber, a police dispatcher in Huntington Beach, said a woman called one recent afternoon and told him, “I know this is not an emergency. . . I just fell out of bed.”

“She probably needed help, but it wasn’t a life-threatening situation,” he said.

Another caller wanted the telephone number of a Taco Bell in Fountain Valley and thought he had dialed 411 instead of 911. Others were returning pages from friends and relatives who had entered 911 to indicate there was a personal emergency, not a life-threatening incident.

“In a way, the problems that we are experiencing arise from the same reason that makes the system so successful,” Ham, of the Huntington Beach police, said. “People know 911, and they know that if they dial 911, they’ll get a real person. . . It’s so easy.”

Countywide, there are no known cases in which someone died because that person couldn’t get through to a 911 operator, but nonemergency calls frequently do tie up resources that could be devoted to real life-threatening cases.

“In public safety, success is measured in seconds,” Ham said. “A 911 call can go a few rings unanswered, and in a life and death situation, that delay can be very critical.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Make the Right Call

Routine, or nonemergency, calls usually involve situations that are not life-threatening, or where a wrongdoer is not known or present. Most Orange County cities have a police business number available to report nonemergency situations. Typical routine calls:

* Barking dogs

* Illegal dumping

* Graffiti

* Minor theft

* Cat in tree

* Loud music

* Non-injury auto accident

EMERGENCIES

The 911 emergency line should be used in situations like these:

* Armed robbery

* Burglary in progress

* Domestic violence