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“Hello?” “Hi?” “Anyone There?”: Misusing 110 and how it affects our Government, and what they are doing about it!
By: Darius Ikemori
02/06/2024
Every day KPD and EMS get at least ten plus 110 calls. Whether it be about a fight at a powerplant, someone getting injured and needing medical assistance, a robbery or more. These calls are highly important, but yet some citizens choose to misuse this privilege to make anonymous calls to 110, some people abuse this and they tend to prank call the hotline
What Sort of Prank Calls Are Made?
I chose to look into these and ask government workers regarding the misuse issue. I first interviewed Atlas Edgeworth, a known EMS Paramedic who has been with EMS for almost 2 years. He stated and I quote "People misuse 110 in a multitude of ways. Some common being using it to say hello, to throw insults at EMS or KPD, use it like they are on a private personal call with someone that has no topic even close to any sort of emergency where you'd contact EMS or KPD.. the list goes on about it all." -Atlas Edgeworth
I then interviewed Patrol Officer Yong-Sun Seong, who has been with KPD for almost 4 months. I asked the same question, what sort of prank calls have they experienced in their time as an officer? Yong stated and I quote "I've experienced a lot of prank calls about fake animal attacks, murders, kidnapping, assault, etc. Almost every crime or prank call you can imagine, I've experienced." - Yong-Sun- Seong
It seems the calls vary between factions, while EMS deals with the more calm and relaxed calls, KPD deals with the more bigger level prank calls. How do these calls affect our government and their day-to-day jobs?
How Does It Affect Our Government?
During Atlas’s and Yong’s interview, they were both asked how it affects them and their day-to-day job. Atlas stated that it can flood the calls sometimes and can cause EMS to miss an important call. While Yong stated and I quote “They've been quite irritating.. They're not only loud but can divert our time from actual, real calls. It's not only annoying to go to an area for a crime when there are just children messing around and not doing anything. It can seriously give KPD a bad light AND force us to remove our priorities from the actual crime calls like I had said before."
These constant 110 calls or false calls seem to cause issues with KPD and EMS's ability to respond and handle real and important calls. A pretty serious effect on the so-called 'harmless' prank calls. As someone who has been in KPD for over 4 months, I can personally confirm that the prank calls are annoying to EMS and KPD alike, and that often when a large amount of these prank calls come in, it can be hard to respond or hear real calls. One of the more annoying sorts of calls that fall under the category of 'misuse' would be citizens providing 0 detail on the situation at hand, and only saying "Hello?" "Hi?" "Anyone There?" "KPD?" and other phrases like that. Often citizens will then flood those phrases and spam the hotline with them until they eventually insult KPD for not answering their call
These sorts of calls are some of the more annoying calls that KPD and EMS deal with, and both factions agree that these sorts of low-detail calls are pointless and just a waste of their time
How Does Our Government Handle It?
Again as someone who was in KPD for months, this is true, KPD often will ignore the call and not let the prank calls get to them or give the citizen a response, though in some cases when they do answer the call they are warned to not call the hotline and misuse it, a pretty ineffective method to this outgoing issue
What is Our Government Doing to Prevent These Calls?
The question remains though, if these 110 prank calls can cause issues for KPD and EMS and can prevent them from properly doing their job, what are they doing to prevent these calls? What repercussions are the citizens who MAKE these calls facing? Yong and I went back and forth regarding this topic, below is the audio recording of our conversation
Yong: "Currently we don't have much to stop these prank calls, relying on the better judgment of the people in order to hope they'll do the best thing and.. Not prank call. Often times we aren't able to catch the individual, therefore no punishment."
Darius: "I remember there used to be an arrest for the miscalls, has that been removed?"
Yong: "I'm unsure, I haven't yet experienced that. However, it's likely to be arrested for obstruction of justice if caught doing it after being warned."
Darius: "I see, and how exactly do you guys track DOWN who made the prank call? Is there an effective method to catching these callers?"
Yong: "There are times where we're simply too busy to, meaning most prank callers are able to call and then get away with it. However, I do believe we're able to track a phone to somebody's name.. That might have changed."
Darius: "I see, so if given the chance you track their phone number and find them later correct? That is of course if they don't stop after being warned."
Yong: "I believe so, but that's only in more serious cases."
With that being said, it's confirmed that KPD doesn't/can't do much regarding these prank calls despite it causing potential issues and delays to their job. Though they do have a method to catch these prank callers, it's unknown how often these prank callers are punished, or if KPD will get a new more effective method to getting these prank callers. But only time will tell
Do you have something you'd like to report or be reported on? Call the Reporter Hotline at (020) 980-4487, message us on Onrain @KaNews, or contact me personally at 030-957-9652
