In non-emergency, dial 311

Keith Paul

Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2000 | 11:04 a.m.

Metro Police hope the creation of 311 will stop the flood of non-emergency calls coming into 911. But apparently it will take some time for people to catch on.

On Monday, the day Metro officials announced 311 for non-emergency calls was up and running, 911 operators received at least three calls from residents asking if 311 was working yet.

"We get calls into 911 all the time asking what our non-emergency number is," said Dan Salisbury, a Metro communications supervisor.

Capt. Marc Maston said 911 is really only for people to report crimes in progress, fires, injuries or illnesses that require immediate medical assistances or any incident that may result in immediate threat to life or property.

"A couple of weeks ago we had a woman call 911 because her parakeet flew out the window," he said. "People call 911 to report loud parties or dogs barking. These are all calls that should be going to the non-emergency number."

Residents who call 911 with non-emergencies still go into a queue and are taken in order, so that call is causing an emergency call to wait, Maston said.

Sheriff Jerry Keller said he has been interested in creating a 311 line since he heard about the use of the number in Baltimore about three years ago.

Maston said as residents start using 311 more, the response times of 911 will decrease. He estimated 20 to 25 percent of all 911 calls are non-emergencies.

"The 911 call takers would have to spend time to find out what the situation was and then for the non-emergencies they would transfer the caller to a recording listing the non-emergency number," Maston said.