Great Job Lakewood Police!

[Bill Trentel]

Interesting, I just relocated my office to Lakewood and yesterday I saw more guns drawn out my window then I did in 30 yrs. downtown.

Bill

[Bill Trentel]

To the 911 / regionalism issue. While I get Mr. O'Byran's regionalism concerns in this case they aren't related.

I recently switched my home number over to our cell plan and before I signed on the dotted line they made it clear that my home number would no longer work with the enhanced 911. Now in this day and age when I can take high-res video on a 2-1/2 x 5 inch hand-held photo and instantly zap it all over the world and Apple can locate my lost phone. One would think it wouldn't be to difficult (technically) for that same phone to go directly to Lakewood 911. The problem for the cell carriers is that they wouldn't make any money on that. What will need to happen is a high profile incident with a cute suburban, blonde girl for are leaders to require that function. Sorry Mr. O'Bryan you don't match that profile.

Bill

[Bill Trentel]

To the 911 / regionalism issue. While I get Mr. O'Byran's regionalism concerns in this case they aren't related.

I recently switched my home number over to our cell plan and before I signed on the dotted line they made it clear that my home number would no longer work with the enhanced 911. Now in this day and age when I can take high-res video on a 2-1/2 x 5 inch hand-held photo and instantly zap it all over the world and Apple can locate my lost phone. One would think it wouldn't be to difficult (technically) for that same phone to go directly to Lakewood 911. The problem for the cell carriers is that they wouldn't make any money on that. What will need to happen is a high profile incident with a cute suburban, blonde girl for are leaders to require that function. Sorry Mr. O'Bryan you don't match that profile.

Bill

[Betsy Voinovich]

But from now on, 521-1234.

.

Hi Bill and Jim,

This thread has become both frightening and confusing. So there's just too much information in the 21st century to actually use our shiny tools to actually help us. We should go back to the old days of calling our local police, NOT 9-1-1. If we are at home, within the boundaries of Lakewood.

Is it the case, that if I am in the middle of a crime in Lakewood, I should call 521-1234, because I will get a faster response than I would from 9-1-1?

Jim, your description of how fast someone could have shot at you yesterday, or how fast anything could happen was completely terrifying. So you were lucky. It was a kid who wasn't intent on getting you and he had a BB gun. And your description of how fast a fire burns is also very apt. How fast a car burns. How quickly an injured person bleeds or a person needing CPR runs out of air, etc.

Bill, I thought that if you had a cell phone, the police knew where you were, period. I know that there are free phones offered to people who can't afford cell phones, that only call 9-1-1. Would we all be safer if we had those? You are saying if you have a cell phone, they DON'T know where you are. Well, "they" do. Apple does. AT&T does. Google does. But the police do not. Not in real live time anyway, when it would make a difference.

So what do we do? I don't have the local police on speed dial but I am putting that number in there now. I guess I should say again, among all the issues being discussed here, I have one question, which I will ask again:

Is it the case that if I am in the middle of a crime, or see a crime in Lakewood, I should call 521-1234, because I will get a faster response than I would from 9-1-1?



Thanks.

Betsy Voinovich

[J Hrlec]

But from now on, 521-1234.

.

Hi Bill and Jim,

This thread has become both frightening and confusing. So there's just too much information in the 21st century to actually use our shiny tools to actually help us. We should go back to the old days of calling our local police, NOT 9-1-1. If we are at home, within the boundaries of Lakewood.

Is it the case, that if I am in the middle of a crime in Lakewood, I should call 521-1234, because I will get a faster response than I would from 9-1-1?

Jim, your description of how fast someone could have shot at you yesterday, or how fast anything could happen was completely terrifying. So you were lucky. It was a kid who wasn't intent on getting you and he had a BB gun. And your description of how fast a fire burns is also very apt. How fast a car burns. How quickly an injured person bleeds or a person needing CPR runs out of air, etc.

Bill, I thought that if you had a cell phone, the police knew where you were, period. I know that there are free phones offered to people who can't afford cell phones, that only call 9-1-1. Would we all be safer if we had those? You are saying if you have a cell phone, they DON'T know where you are. Well, "they" do. Apple does. AT&T does. Google does. But the police do not. Not in real live time anyway, when it would make a difference.

So what do we do? I don't have the local police on speed dial but I am putting that number in there now. I guess I should say again, among all the issues being discussed here, I have one question, which I will ask again:

Is it the case that if I am in the middle of a crime, or see a crime in Lakewood, I should call 521-1234, because I will get a faster response than I would from 9-1-1?



Thanks.

Betsy Voinovich

Can these questions be answered without a larger sample of calls? What if the "next" time 911 is called the call is answered right away... what if Lakewood answers slower "next" time. I guess I am simply saying it usually is not sufficient to paint broad strokes based on one occurrence. What are others past experiences, are there stats for these types of questions?

[Bill Trentel]

As a rule of thumb I would say it would be best to call the direct dial number (521-1234) in an emergency from a cell phone in Lakewood.

I used my cell phone to call 911 in Cleveland a couple months back and it was the same experience as Mr. O'Bryan had, an operator answered first to find out what city I was in then put me through the the CPD 911 call center.

It is obviously it isn't the technological ability of the equipment to make it work but the will of the providers and government for it to happen.

Bill

[Ryan Salo]

I just called lakewood police dispatch. They said that if you are calling from a cell phone it is routed through CECOMS http://cecoms.cuyahogacounty.us/ which is downtown. The dispatcher said it is always faster to call 216-521-1234 from a cell phone and better to call 911 from a home number. If you call 911 from a home number it goes straight to lakewood and they see your name and address.

I asked if users of VOIP systems have the same benefit of 911 and she said she wasn't sure. I looked into it more and your VOIP has to be registered with the 911 service and then it will route to the local city and the address you registered will show up.

Hope that helps.

[J Hrlec]

I just called lakewood police dispatch. They said that if you are calling from a cell phone it is routed through CECOMS http://cecoms.cuyahogacounty.us/ which is downtown. The dispatcher said it is always faster to call 216-521-1234 from a cell phone and better to call 911 from a home number. If you call 911 from a home number it goes straight to lakewood and they see your name and address.

I asked if users of VOIP systems have the same benefit of 911 and she said she wasn't sure. I looked into it more and your VOIP has to be registered with the 911 service and then it will route to the local city and the address you registered will show up.

Hope that helps.

Now that's good info, thanks!

[Jim DeVito]

I asked if users of VOIP systems have the same benefit of 911 and she said she wasn't sure. I looked into it more and your VOIP has to be registered with the 911 service and then it will route to the local city and the address you registered will show up.

Hope that helps.

If you do have VoIP service installed in your home or office with e911, make sure you call the dispatcher and ask them to let you make a test 911 call. Then have them read back the info they get to make sure it is correct.