9-1-1 Call

Last night was the last night of my class and since group presentations take various amounts of time we actually were out a bit early. Because of that I was almost home about 9:45 p.m. Ready to turn onto the street just before mine, I noticed a boy of about 8 or 9 crossing the street carrying his shoes. I was on the phone with my sister and told her that it seemed bizarre. It was too late on a school night for a child that age to be walking alone, and even though it was warm for October 21 it was too weird to be walking barefoot. I got off the phone, turned around and watched him for a minute while waiting at the intersection. A sheriff’s car drove by so I hoped the officer would see him as he had walked out onto the street and back onto the grass a couple of times. The officer drove by him.

I turned and saw the boy had crossed the street which is the second major thoroughfare of town—four lanes of undivided street with fast moving cars and semis. I drove a bit quickly to the sheriff’s satellite office about three blocks away hoping the officer was headed there.

I didn’t see a car at city hall so I called 911. Right away I said I didn’t think it was an emergency so if they needed to patch me to a non-emergency dispatch and tried to quickly explain the situation—what I had seen and where it was. She began asking very specific questions about where I saw the boy, which direction he was walking, which side of the road, etc. When I said that an officer had driven by the boy she said all the officers were on another call, but then she told me to hold and went to another line.

I turned around to see if I could still find the boy. The dispatcher came back on and said that they were looking for a boy in the area. She asked his race, hair color, etc. and wondered if I could still see him. By now he had turned down a side street. I told her I saw him and he was wearing a dark sweatshirt and maybe camouflage pants. I asked her what to do, do you want me to stop? She never really would say except don’t scare him. Because she was slow to answer and I was driving slowly wondering what to do I decided to drive by him to not be slowly following him and then scare him. I told the dispatcher I had driven by him and should I turn around. Yes, turn around.

Just before I got to him, an officer with lights off pulled up to the boy. Within five seconds two more cars pulled up. I had pulled over and thanked the officers for getting there quickly that I had called 911.

The officer wanted my license plate number to know who he was talking with and who had made the call. I was a bit afraid it was for that U-turn in the street I had made about a minute earlier.

I told both the dispatcher and the officer that I wasn’t sure about calling 911 that it seemed a bit extreme and chances were it was a neighborhood kid who had just stayed out too late and was going home.

Both thanked me for calling 911. The officer said, “We’ve been looking for this kid since 5:30 and he had threatened to kill himself.”