Abusive 911 calls create public safety 'epidemic' in Indianapolis

The Marion County 911 Call Center is the busiest in the state, handling about 1.2 million calls per year.

INDIANAPOLIS (WTHR) — Emergency dispatchers in Marion County have an urgent request: stop calling 911 for situations that are NOT actual emergencies.

“It’s become a life or death issue and I fear someone is going to die,” said Michael Hubbs, who runs the county’s emergency dispatch center on the east side of Indianapolis. “It’s an epidemic.”

The Marion County 911 Call Center is the busiest in the state, handling about 1.2 million calls per year. But roughly 40% of those – a staggering half million 911 calls – are not for real emergencies, according to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.

The non-emergency calls flooding phone lines at the dispatch center range from innocent mistakes to blatant abuse. The sheriff’s office shared multiple examples of inappropriate 911 calls with 13 Investigates. Among those calls:

• A motorist who called 911 to say she was lost on Fall Creek Road and needed directions to Anderson
• A man who dialed 911 to ask if the dispatcher could connect him with a phone in Germany
• A young mother who called 911 seeking assistance for a large spider on the ceiling of her apartment
• A man who called 911 to see if a dispatcher was willing to "get together” with him
• A woman who called 911 to report a cat that had climbed into a tree

A WTHR investigation finds the non-emergency calls are placing stress on the county’s emergency services infrastructure — at times causing significant delays for police, firefighters and paramedics to reach residents who have true life-threatening emergencies.

UFOs and fried chicken

“Oh, we get ‘em every day,” said Tori Dorsey, a 911 dispatcher who has worked at the Marion County 911 Call Center for 25 years. “I had someone call in to report a UFO, so we had to send an officer out. A co-worker just had a lady call because she saw peanut shells on the ground, and she wanted the police to come out and pick them up because she was afraid her dog might have an allergic reaction to the peanuts. We get a lot of crazy ones.”

Kina Holzer, another longtime dispatcher at the Marion County 911 Call Center, recently answered a call from a man who complained he had to wait too long to place his order at a fast food restaurant. When Holzer asked the caller for the address of his emergency, he responded:

“Yes, I was at this Rally's on Washington Street. They supposed to open at 10, and then they was running late, and I was at the window waiting on them to take my order and they take the drive thru order first. All I wanted was a chicken, was a chicken box… They got an attitude up there.”

“He thought that was a 911 emergency because they helped someone else first when he'd been waiting longer, and he tied my line for about three minutes where I'm not able to help someone who is truly having an emergency,” Holzer explained. “It’s really wasting our time. That shouldn't be a 911 call, but we get those calls on a daily basis.”

Hubbs told WTHR every dispatcher has stories to share about the growing number of non-emergency calls clogging the county’s 911 system.

“We don't want people calling and tying up the 911 system for cats in trees [or] barking dogs,” he said. “People have called to ask about the weather. 911 should be reserved for emergencies only.”

Misuse by all ages

“When we get a call and nobody’s talking, we don’t know if it’s somebody who pocket dialed 911 by mistake or someone who’s choking or having a heart attack”

Many of the non-emergency calls that dispatchers receive are from children, including toddlers who get ahold of a parent’s cell phone.

“Even old phones can still call 911,” warned Holzer. “I’ve had times where I’ve gotten 40 or 50 calls from the same number, and it’s a small child playing with an old phone that mom or dad thinks is out of service. It’s fun because it lights up, and they can push buttons, but any phone that can turn on can call 911.”

When a 911 caller does not respond to a dispatcher, police are usually sent to the location of the call anyway to ensure there is not an emergency.

“People don’t always understand that, and it takes a lot of time and lot of resources,” Hubbs explained. “When we get a call and nobody’s talking, we don’t know if it’s somebody who pocket dialed 911 by mistake or someone who’s choking or having a heart attack, so we have to follow up to make sure everything’s okay.”

Calls from older children tend to be more intentional, like this 911 call from a young girl who quickly admitted she was up to mischief:

Caller: Hello?

911 Dispatcher: Yes, can I help you?

Caller: Are you the police?

911 Dispatcher: Yes, ma'am. Can I help you?...

Caller: No thanks, I'm just prank calling.

911 Dispatcher: ...Does someone there need the police?

Caller: I'm prank. This is a prank.

But most 911 abuse comes from adults, and they often involve callers who know they do not have an emergency but aren’t sure where else to turn.

911 Dispatcher: 911. What's the location of your emergency?

Caller: Well, I don't know if it's an emergency, but somebody put a big ol' sign in my yard, and I don't know…

911 Dispatcher: What kind of sign is it?

Caller: …and I want it out.

911 Dispatcher: What kind of sign is in your yard?

Caller: Some kind talking about graduates. Congratulations somebody. I don't know who this is. But I want this sign out of my yard…

911 Dispatcher: Well, you need to call the company and tell them to come and get it out.

911 callers waiting on hold

While some of the calls may seem amusing or harmless, the sheriff’s department says they are not. As 911 dispatchers are handling those non-emergency calls, they cannot talk to people experiencing real emergencies.

A video monitor that hangs over the entrance to the emergency call center constantly shows the problem. During WTHR’s visit on a Monday afternoon, the data monitor showed 12 dispatchers were each handling 911 calls. Four other callers were on hold – some for more than 90 seconds – while dispatchers talked to callers asking for directions, reporting a missing garbage can, and unaware that their child had called 911.

“There's nothing worse than calling 911 and the phone just rings,” said Hubbs. “Every second counts, and if the dispatchers are unable to get to that one call that needs to be answered, it can cost somebody their life. There is misuse of the system, and it has impeded our ability to get to calls quickly.”

In June, callers to the Marion County 911 dispatch center waited an average of 27 seconds to have their calls answered. That is considerably longer than the accepted national standard set by NENA, a national organization that represents the 911 industry.

According to NENA, an emergency dispatch center should answer 90% of all 911 calls within 10 seconds, and 95% of emergency calls should be answered within 20 seconds.

“The standard is 10 seconds … because, especially for life critical events such as a heart attack or fire, the less the response time the better the outcome for the person on the other end of the phone,” said Chris Carver, NENA’s 911 operations director.

Carver said all emergency dispatch centers deal with non-emergency calls and must figure out how to minimize their impact on public safety.

“It’s something that’s known and foreseeable, really a cost of doing business and something you’re going to have within the 911 community,” he said. “It really comes down to effective public education and understanding and planning for that.”

Use this number instead

To attack the problem and to relieve stress on the 911 system, Marion County recently implemented a new hotline to help residents who need non-emergency assistance from police. Cellphone users in Marion County can now reach a non-emergency dispatcher by dialing 311. Marion County residents who use a landline can contact the non-emergency line by calling (317) 327-3811.

The sheriff’s department has tried to educate residents about when to call 911 and when to call 311 instead, but many people still do not know the non-emergency number exists.

Residents are encouraged to call 311 for law enforcement questions and to report situations such as loud music, fireworks, barking dogs, parking violations and identity theft. The sheriff’s department says justifiable reasons to call 911 include fires and medical emergencies, car accidents, fights, reporting drunk drivers, shots fired and suicidal people.

“We want to reserve 911 for immediate injuries and threats to safety and property. 311 is there for everything else,” Hubbs said. “If in doubt which number to call, go ahead and call 911. I’d rather people be safe than sorry.”

State lawmakers have given police another tool to cut down on inappropriate 911 calls: Indiana Code 36-8-16.7-46 makes it illegal to call 911 for a purpose other than obtaining public safety assistance or emergency services. Violators face a Class A felony with up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine.

But the law is seldom enforced. Since the start of 2017, only seven people have been charged under the 911 law for improperly using the emergency dispatch system, according to the Marion County prosecutor’s office. Emergency dispatchers say they received hundreds of thousands of abusive 911 calls during that time.