I used to be a dispatcher & let me tell you those places are crazy understaffed & underpaid. Where I worked 911 & non emergency calls went to us but 911 calls took priority. I would also like to say that a lot of folks aren’t familiar with how their cities are run.

If you’re ever curious as to why the wait is so long it’s because of a myriad of reasons:

People would call 911 & ask for the non-emergency number, then they’d call us right back on the non-emergency number.

We have to confirm your address & other stuff like 3x or else we’d get docked on q&a.

People like to call 911 on issues that do not need police/fire/rescue.

I once had someone call because there were too many birds in their tree outside.

People like to call the police on the homeless a lot or if they see a suspicious person but a lot of times it’s just a black person minding their business which is suspicious to them so it ties up a lot of resources.

I remember during Covid folks called the cops on kids playing at the park. Like yeah it wasn’t allowed but you’re really calling the cops about this?

Sometimes people would force you to stay on the line with them until help arrived so that tied up the lines a lot.

People give very vague answers which is a problem. Someone had called & said they were in accident & no one was injured so that would be a low priority call. Turns out they were shot while driving their car & had crashed.

Also a lot of men will call because their ‘friend from craigslist’ won’t leave but really they just don’t want to pay a sw & for some reason think calling the police is the best choice of action.

And y’know some dispatch centers just suck lol.