Any police or dispatchers here? Questions.

[MichMar]

Since listening to the scanner, I have a few questions that I've wondered about.

1) In my area, I am quite frequently hearing calls about car-deer accidents, and sometimes dogs being hit . Sometimes I'll hear the dispatcher say that the "deer needs to be put down." I'm assuming that the officer will shoot the deer when he gets there? Seems pretty obvious, but I've never had it actually happen to me. Does the police officer use a silencer on his gun, etc.? I mean, residents nearby hearing a gun going off might get a little nervous.

2) A lot of times I'll hear the dispatcher relay information such as "Report of reckless driving, speeding. No description or tag number. Last seen at 5th & Main, heading west on Main. Caller is no longer following", etc. Okay, what the heck is the officer supposed to do with THAT? I mean, there's no description of the vehicle, or license plate number or anything. Just a general location, which might be 5-10 minutes old by the time they get there. And even if there IS a description "Red Honda Accord, partial tag A-G-Z...", the officer didn't actually witness the bad driving behavior, so what is he supposed to do about it if he sees the car and the person is driving just fine?

[scanjunkie]

Normally the officer will put the animal down and report to dispatch that he/she did so and how many rounds were used. This way if anyone calls in regarding "shots fired" dispatch can tell them it's OK.

As far as the second issue is concerned, the officer can use the info if he/she sees the offending car. They can follow it for a bit to see if it is in fact driving recklessly, etc, etc. Other than that, these calls usually go unfounded and are cleared from the system.

[ISP911]

That pretty much sums it up in a nutshell. Some agencies even go as far as firearms use reports. We just advise dispatch deer is 10-0 and give the location for pick up later by county or State highway.

As far as vague open ended dispatches go if a vehicle is located matching the description we can normally follow it to observe any violations. Even if it's not the offender vehicle if Probable Cause is established you can still make the stop. PC can be anything as little as license plate light out, failure to signal turn (lane change), etc. Once we make contact with the driver we can discuss reported driving behavior.