June 19, 2007
From The Editor's Inbox
We get some interesting stories in the SFist editor's inbox, and here's the latest one we've heard.
I was on Polk and Green yesterday running some errands when I noticed a light blue motorcycle going about 50 miles an hour and popping wheelies. Up and down Polk Street, from about Greenwich to Broadway and back again. What I noticed about this guy second or third time around was that he had a dog on his lap while he was doing all of this. Twice the dog almost fell off the bike as he landed.So I decide to call the police because I'm an animal lover and stuff like this makes me crazy. But not only was he going to kill this dog but most likely end up causing God knows how much havoc and accidents on the street. It wasn't a shootout in the Mission but it was incredibly effed up and I'm sure illegal in many ways.
So I call the non-emergency police number I have stored in my phone, which is disconnected. Then I remember 211 and how it is San Francisco's saving grace and the answer to all our problems. All I get is Verizon telling me the number is not in service. I call again, thinking I did something wrong. Same response. [ed. note: we think our reader meant to call 311, not 211, but 211 should be working!]
Then I call 411, ask for a non-emergency number, and they give me 553.0123, connect me, and I get a recording in 27 different languages, and then what sounded like a fax signal with no end. I call again. Same thing.
So I decide to call 911. I figure I'm allowed at this point. I'm put on hold after another recording in 27 languages. I call again. Same thing.
Did our reader ever get to an actual person to report the situation? Find out, after the jump.
By now I'm sure motorcycle man is long gone but I'm not giving up.I call 411 again, ask for another non-emergency number that isn't the one they gave me before. They connect me to the same 553.0123. Disconnected again.
I call 411 again (You're noticing a pattern here, I'm sure). I get another number, 553.8090, and finally get a hold of someone to report the situation. The woman was, I have to say, great and thorough and I'd like to thank her very much, whoever she is.
My point is, other than the fact that if this really was an emergency I would be completely f***ed, is that maybe, just maybe, if our supervisors would come down off their ego trips and quit their playground tactics long enough to realize that there are serious problems in San Francisco; like mass shootouts on what now seems to be a daily basis, turf wars being fought by gangs from other sides of the bay, an increased homeless population (I don't care what you say, Gavin), tagging on every building and billboard one comes across, psychotic cab drivers, hit and runs, people being mugged on the street and the cops won't even take a report – maybe these things could actually be addressed, and the people of San Francisco won't have to live in quite so much fear for their lives and their City. Maybe we could get a bus to actually run on time, or maybe get a few more so people aren't packed in like sardines, falling and tripping and breathing all over each other.
I've lived here for 8 years now (I grew up in Oakland) and I LOVE this town. I'm a proper Republican hating San Franciscan and I can't imagine living anywhere else. But I'm increasingly disgusted by the recklessness with which the city government is behaving and how little regard they seem to have for the majority of people who live here, no matter what "fighting for the people" flag they wrap themselves in.
You guys rag on MUNI all the time (and I love you for it) – I'm hoping you could bring some attention to the utterly dysfunctional and somewhat useless police department and the supes' lack of interest in anything that doesn't involve a sound bite.
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Wow.Not surprised but sad...uh, what happened with the asshole and his little dog? Did he stop?
Reckless driving is a violent crime and you should call 911. I've been through this twice with the Emergency Communications department (not the police, civilian), and they seem to get it now. Even when you get the TTY tones, stay on the line, as the 27 languages say, repeatedly. E911 goes through directly to SF now, so you don't need to dial 553-8090, which goes to the same place.
The emergency dispatch system sucks for a number of reasons, but hanging up and dialing the phone company service number instead won't necessarily solve the problems.
The two times I have needed to call 911 I waited 12 and nine minutes respectively. That seemed like a long time to me.
Homeless person throwing bottles at passing cars and peds at Fillmore and Geary. Me and another bloke having a 911 race on our cellies whilst ducked behind a parked car. After 6 or 7 minutes I won, but my call was diverted to somewhere in So Cal and when I gave the cross streets the dispatcher didn't even know what city I was calling from. Ended up running four blocks to the Popo station and telling the desk sergeant in person.
All together now, "get up, get up, get up and get down, nine one one is a joke in our town".
The quickest response is to have your local popo station's 415 number in your celly.
This is a great post and I am totally behind the sentiment that contacting the police in this town is ridiculously complicated.
I had a similar experience when there was a guy revving his Harley for 45 minutes on my street at 3am not long ago (I think he was trying to scare someone in the crack house across the street with his "i'll be back and i'll hurt you taunts", but that's another story). In any case, since I am often awoken by various drunken fights etc. (see above crack house reference) I finally wrote down the direct number for the Park station so I wouldn't have to run around confused and bleary at 3am trying to find a phone book.
Contrary to fizzleandpop's advice, you apparently CAN'T call the stations directly for help. When I called the Park station they told me to call the central dispatch number. I think it's starts with a 3. Called that number and the connection was so bad I couldn't even talk with the guy and finally hung up. I called again and explained what was happening. By then the harley guy had left so they said there wasn't anything they could do.
Useful!!
Of course, to the benefit of the city, it lowers the reported crime rate if you can't report a crime!
Good to see a sane san franciscan! I have lived here in SF for 25 years... for the 2 or 3rd most expensive city with a 6 BILLION Dollar 2008 budget, more than 22 STATES in the USA .. thats STATES you'd think the kooks at cityhall could run more than a freakshow, I call SF City Politics... I'll tell you one thing ending district elections would solve a lot of problems!
Yep. 911 from a cell phone blows. In theory it should be routed to either the city dispatch or the Vallejo CHP dispatch. That's what happens, but you never really know when it will be routed locally. Certainly I've gotten SFPD from outside of city bounds and CHP from within city limits.
Let's not forget that when you get through, what happens is almost entirely dependent upon the dispatcher. The shenanigans in Los Angeles with the outright rude dispatcher certainly came as no shock after dealing with lots of surly CHP dispatchers.
That said, I bet 311 is the best choice for getting 24x7 non-emergency attention. sfgov.org lists 553-0123 as the non-emergency number. SFPD dispatch is listed as 553-8090. You can find the "direct" number for each police station by clicking on the appropriate link on the left. From here:
www.sfgov.org/site/police_index.asp?id=19455
I propose a proposition to allow citizens to carry around ball ping hammers to knock the piss out of these idiots driving dangerously in our streets - citizen justice, ya know? :) Just kidding .. don't get your shorts up in a knot.
Oh ... and check out Detroit's City Council for an example of how unworkable a bunch of "citywide" elected folks works out. The Mayor is our Citywide guy.
In Detroit they're locally referred to as the "Clownsil".
There's a dude who lives somewhere on Nob Hill who always rides his bike with his (non-stop) barking pit bull riding up front. It's a Harley so I don't think those things can be popped; probably not the same guy referred to in this arcitle.
FWIW I just used 553-0123 from my cell, got through right away and spoke to a very polite and helpful dude.
YMMV. No doubt inversely to the actual urgency of the situation.
It varies depending on the staffing level of the OES. There's never been a period when it wasn't instantaneous on one call, then 20 minutes on hold the next. They can't seem to retain enough staff.
You can imagine what would happen if there were a real disaster.
Didn't you get the latest press release from Newsom? 311 is working great, all the homeless are housed, and the guy exposing himself to piss in front of City Hall is part of an innovative program to clean the street.
All the problems in the city could be solved if we got rid of district elections and ranked voting, or better yet, just let the Mayor appoint all the supervisors.
No, you can call the stations direct, at least the Park one. I do it all the time whenever someone wearing a Tommy Bahama gets in his car on my street (Tommy Bahama shirt=white colar criminal/pedarist/republican lobyist). I just tell 'em a drunk driver has set off down Fell, the chances of me actually being right are about 50/50.
It is definitely a good idea to have the direct emergency numbers for the places you live in and visit frequently. I used to live in SF, study at UCSF and UC Berkeley, and play in the Presidio/Marin Headlands/Ocean Beach and Berkeley's Tilden Park. I had the numbers for SFPD, Berkeley PD, UC Berkeley PD, UCSF PD, BART PD, CHP, East Bay Park Police, and US Park Police in my phone. Overkill? I don't think so. I called one of these numbers about once a year to report various incidents, and the only time I waited on hold was with the CHP for about 4 minutes (to report a car stalled in a perilous location on the Bay Bridge).
I once called SFPD to report a drunk driver, but the moment I placed the call, the guy apparently realized he was too drunk to drive, pulled over, and got out. So I hung up just as the phone started to ring. I was pleasantly surprised that SFPD called me back a few seconds later to make sure I was okay! But, I guess YMMV.
I have had no trouble calling 911 from a cell phone, but I have had to ask for SFPD every time. One of the reasons they give you the recording is that so many phones have 911 on an easy speed dial and dial it accidentally from in your pocket - awful user interface design if I have ever seen it. (This has happened to me several times - the Treo is the worst by far.)
Homeless person throwing bottles at passing cars and peds at Fillmore and Geary.
Now if we could get him to throw bottles at only the reckless drivers, we'd be getting somewhere.