Kevin at The Smallest Minority writes about a 911 call in which the call receiver (CR) kept telling the reporting party (RP) to put down the gun she was using to hold an assailant at bay with before the reporting officers (RO) arrived.
As the struggle moved down the street, a neighbor — whom Theresa Gesell identified as “Hershall” — stopped to help. Theresa then grabbed her .45-caliber pistol and continued running after Campbell — despite the dispatcher’s plea for her to drop the handgun.
“I am going to go get my .45 … you all are too slow,” she said.
As the call continues, the dispatcher asks Theresa to get rid of the weapon. However, after the suspect tried to escape along a creek bed, Theresa and Hershall used the pistol to make sure he didn’t leave.
“You can go put that gun up now,” the dispatcher said.
“No sir,” Theresa replied.
The reason I titled this post as I did is because the CR was doing something very strange in telling the reporting party to put the gun away, at least according to the officers and 911 call receivers I know of.
As some of you may know, the Analog Wife works for one of the local constabulary�s 911 centers and I also have had this conversation with a god sized number of local peace officers in my locale. Telling an RP to put away a weapon before the RO�s arrive is not policy anywhere around here that I can find.
If the RP does put the weapon away and the assailant attacks them again, the RP can sue the department the CR is attached to for ordering the RP to put themselves in danger.
A CR is not a referee who is supposed to keep the fight fair, they are only there to take the call, transfer it to dispatch (unless they are themselves dispatch) who radios it to the officers.
If the RP does any actual shooting of themselves or someone else, the department cannot be held responsible, unless they instructed the RP to gather up a weapon.
This is one of the reasons why I could never work for 911. If someone doesn’t have a means of protection, I’m likely to start chewing on their ear in a not so gentle manner.
The RO�s greatly appreciate it if the RP puts the firearm away when they arrive on scene and the CR will probably instruct the RP to do that for the RO�s safety if they still have the RP on the line.
Other than that, I do have to ask if this jurisdiction in Oklahoma has a different policy where they do ask the RP to put the weapon down as quickly as possible, which would be just plain ignorant, as Kevin more than writes about.
Otherwise I am only seeing this as some gun-bigot of a call receiver who got freaked out by an armed citizen.
Either way, this definitely needs to be looked into and the policy/procedure clarified. Had the RP set the gun down when first asked, not only would she not have her purse back and a criminal not be in prison where he belongs, she might have been actually harmed by a very pissed off assailant. This CR needs their brain checked and maybe have their bigotry questioned for attempting to put an RP in danger.
