The North Bay Police Service continues to try and cope with a frustrating trend that hampers many emergency services; that's 9-1-1 hangup calls.
"On an average day we receive 10 to 15 9-1-1 hang-ups," admitted Scott Tod, North Bay's Police Chief.
Tod says despite those hangup 9-1-1 calls, the police and emergency services cannot just assume it was just someone hitting the wrong button on their phone.
"Those at 9-1-1 calls that come into the service where there is no one speaking at the other end of the line. There is a requirement on police services in a 9-1-1 response to follow up on as many of those calls as possible so we can identify whether or not police service, fire service or paramedics services are to be dispatched to the 9-1-1 system," said Tod.
So 9-1-1 hangup calls and 9-1-1 improper calls - so people who call us about weather and road conditions or they want to report something non-urgent or emergent also takes up time of the police officers and it costs the police officers not only time but money too in response to calls for service that really are not urgent or emergent so it is a large issue among all police services and 9-1-1 answering services too.
He says it is a large issue.
"It causes our resources to be tapped," said Tod.
If you make that a fake 9-1-1 the police can charge you.
"If they do report a crime that is not true we can charge them with public mischief charges in the criminal code but what we often like to do is educate and make people aware about the 9-1-1 system rather than penalize them for using it," said Tod.
