It has happened to me; about a year ago, I called as several people were beating another person. I stayed on the phone until the people stopped the beating and left, and which point I hung up. A few minutes later, I got a call from 911 about the emergency. I told them it did not matter as the incident was over, and no emergency now existed.
It seems there is a shortage of 911 call takers, which probably is just as well, as I don’t believe there would be enough police officers to respond to all the calls. I don’t blame the city for the lack of police officers; I blame the state that has limited our city to how much money they can raise. The city budget’s largest amount goes to the police department.
Julio Ariciaga is among the first people Houstonians talk to when they call 911 for an emergency.
For nearly two years, he’s worked as a call taker at the Houston Emergency Center. He said during a typical busy shift, he answers more than 100 calls a day. After each call, he said he’s automatically put through to the next 911 caller waiting to speak with an emergency responder.
“The calls automatically go, so you can’t stop it unless you really need to stop the call, to finish processing it, to make sure that you respond to the dispatcher’s questions if they send you any messages,” Ariciaga told 13 Investigates’ Courtney Carpenter. “You just have to keep pushing. You have to keep going. Make sure that you’re doing the best that you can on your part.”
When we spoke with Ariciaga last summer, he told us he had been working 12-hour shifts, five days a week for months due to staffing issues.