The North Bay Police Continue to be overwhelmed by nuisance 911 calls
Scott Tod, North Bay's Police Chief told members of the North Bay Police Board that they received more than 350 9-1-1 calls in November with only 45 being legitimate.
"So when 911 calls get answered by our communicators they drop everything they are doing to answer that 911 call and we try to get to 911 calls as quickly as possible," explained Tod.
Despite how many times Police urge the public to respect the use of 911, the ignorant calls continue to roll in.
"To have the nuisance calls to 911 when someone wants to know what the road conditions are or if someone wants to find out if the schools are closed or buses are running," said Tod.
"Those 9-1-1 nuisance calls take a lot of time away from the work that our dispatchers use to support our police, fire, and ambulance personnel in North Bay. It also ties up our lines that if there is a legitimate 911 call coming in and we are receiving, those nuisance, or pocket dials for service, it could impair our ability to provide emergency services for all three services.
"It is constantly disappointing that people use 9-1-1 inappropriately and it is also disappointing that we have a lot of pocket dials and dials by children to see if someone is going to answer but we are not alone. I read something in Peel that it has to stop because it is eating up valuable dispatch and response time for our emergency services.
See related: Non-emergency calls are overwhelming Peel Region
The fact that the police service is struggling to find dispatchers does not help the 911 problem either.
