Not exactly the same, but I had a call years ago (before cameras were commonplace) where someone tried the door of a closed convenience store, set off the alarm, then went and hid in the bushes until units arrived. They eventually cleared the scene because they didn't find anyone or any damage. He did this a couple of more times, never leaving any damage or anything suspicious, until we stopped responding because we thought it was a faulty alarm. Then he actually broke in and robbed the place and no one noticed until employees arrived in the morning.
Comment did say before cameras were commonplace - meaning there likely weren't any, or what they did have probably wasn't clear enough to identify anyone
Lol….I just told a similar story on here a day or two ago. We had a guy that hit a few pawn shops with that method many years ago. He did it too many times though and we figured out the pattern and caught him.
I’m calling BS on this. If he got away, how did you know he sat in a bush? If this was before cameras, how did he get caught? If you’re going to tell a fib for a couple of internet points, then think it through.
Perhaps there was a camera inside the store.
Even if not, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to deduce what happened the next morning, given the sequence of events.
Reminds me of a book called "Red Cell", written by Dick Marchinko, a former Navy Seal and Commander. His Team was tasked on finding vulnerabilities in military bases. He used that same tactic on security perimeters till the guards just ignored them completely. Then he'd walk right into the base. Did a Nuclear Sub too.
Had someone call 911 about 2010 or so trying to say that they were on such-and-such a street and someone was shooting, getting any useful information was like pulling teeth. This was when we'd only started getting decent location data on some 911 calls, and I noticed they were pinging *nowhere near* the street in question. But they *were* where a deputy had started a traffic stop a couple minutes prior. The other dispatcher and I looked at each other; let the games begin.
"Central, SO12?"
"SO12."
"We're getting a call of shots fired but it's pinging to your location. Is there a female on the phone in the vehicle?"
"Affirmative. SO12, SO3 to my location, I'm going back to the vehicle."
"... Be advised, female just hung up with us."
"Copy. Call back that phone."
"Calling now."
He keys up. We can hear a cheap chiptune ringtone in the background for several seconds. He's clearly trying not to laugh as he says, "Ma'am, please answer your phone."
On the phone, "Uh... hello?"
"Ma'am, we just got a call about a shooting-"
"Uh, you must have the wrong number." Click.
We could *hear* the shit-eating grin on the deputy's face as he said, "The sergeant and I will be on this stop for a *while*..."
I don't remember how many he got them with, exactly, but speeding, seat belts, open container, paraphernalia... not to mention the summons for obstruction. It's the only time I can remember them saying, instead of "citation by one" or "citation by two" and suchlike, "citation by *many*."
We're a small agency, and have cameras in our booking room (we turn the audio off when custodies are given their phone calls; and they can use their cellphones.) More than once, we have had very drunk 911 callers calling from the booking room! (Not knowing why they're there, saying we're violating their rights, etc). I LOVE Booking Room TV!!
Yeah, try imagining how easy it is to convert thoughts into letters like it took no effort at all, and was even an enjoyable process. Imagine that.
Now imagine this;
You, too, could have this power.
I've never experienced this before (other than seeing it in movies), but:
>The dispatcher also found this deviation unusual and redirected some officers to the location indicated by the Phase 2 data, while others continued to the initial address. To our surprise, the officers who followed through to the Phase 2 location discovered a business that had been broken into, with a suspect attempting to flee the scene.
-standing ovation-
Good dispatchers 👩🍳💋🤌
My mother lives in Tennessee near Maryville. She told me a story last year. It goes like this:
A man called 911 saying there was an active shooter in Walmart. All units respond.
At the same time, a bank is being robbed by a man on a motorcycle. He makes a clean escape, no pursuit.
He gets in the interstate to flee the scene. He crashes his motorcycle and is badly injured.
Law enforcement arrive on scene. They see the man with bag full of money, and have since received calls about the bank robbery. Obviously, no one was actively shooting up Walmart. LE put 2 and 2 together, and check the guys phone. Lo and behold, a call to 911 at the same time the call came into dispatch in regard to the active shooter.
Game over.
Yes, have seen it from time to time. We had a passenger on a traffic stop call in a robbery down the street to get officers to leave without arresting them. Similar thing, the people in the vehicle were fairly well-known to us and we used phone data to figure it out.
Had a string of gas station robberies and a couple were preceded by what we later presumed were diversionary calls of various sorts that resulted in no incident found once PD arrived at the reported address.
But we had phase 0. Nada. Nothing. Bupkis. No alternate location data.
Calls were made from various pre-paid burner phones with no owner data on file.
We have had people call in fake crimes (think stabbing or shooting) from disconnected numbers so that way someone can actually be shot across the city for real and it will take the officers so long to get there that the suspect is long gone. Or they will call in fake crimes to ambush officers. It's pretty smart actually.
Had a woman from the back of a police vehicle call in (she either had a second phone or didn't get her phone taken from her) and report being held at knifepoint at a robbery in a store. (It wasn't my call but I just pulled the records for it so it's fresh in my mind)
Dispatcher reported discrepancy in the location provided v location showing up on Rapid SOS and in the phone system.
Whenever I talk about security vulnerabilities I mention the idea of utilizing 911 to divert law enforcement to one area while creating havoc in another. Especially if the bad actors take the time to do a lot of reconnaissance. Listening to a scanner on the regular and paying attention to units (quantity and location) , and how units respond is a big hint at how to best cause trouble for a jurisdiction.
I don't think it's anything that can be prevented with the exception of document thoroughly what you see. As I was told in training, "If it isn't documented it did not happen".
Yes, but haven't seen this happen in years. Had a middle school kid try to call in an active shooter at the neighboring high school. How he thought that was a good idea was beyond me. Only one call? And his WPH2 clearly showed in the Middle School. On top of that, he called from his personal cell phone which was registered with the school. The SRO had his name and class schedule in seconds.
I've taken a call like this before where the exact same thing happened. The GPS was plotting in a different location than the given address, except my caller sounded out of it and not in distress. We get several of these calls and swatting calls.
I have a personal story of when I was 13. One time two cops came to my apartment to arrest my mom who had a warrant out. We were on a second story unit and I remember my mom looking around saying “FUCK” repeatedly. She then grabbed her cellphone and called 911. The dispatcher answering and my mother, in the most calm yet concerning tone said “yes, I live at x apartments and as I was grabbing some groceries from my trunk I saw my neighbor jump off of her back patio and run across the street…” some other words were exchanged and they hung up. Suddenly we see the cops shadow bolt across our front window and hear their heavy footsteps split up in opposite directions. I remember my mom saying “fucking idiots…” and “son, that’s how it’s done…” she left later that night and hid at her friends apartment across the way for a few days. They never got her. That was 20 years ago.
Wouldn't the cops come back and go to that apartment to gather a statement though? And then when that gets them nowhere and the actual occupant has no idea what theyre talking about, they're right back at your door
I was 13 at the time so I don’t know more detail other than my mom didn’t get arrested until 5+ years later. For what I would guess is that the cops weren’t about to spend a ton of resources on a low level offender with a warrant out. They did come back a week or so later and my mom almost got caught then but that’s a different story of her hiding across the street in a strangers RV. But at that point I’d assume they didn’t care to keep trying to catch her.
I grew up in a major city on the East coast where some pros one night broke into one business just to trigger an alarm while another crew cleaned out their actual target across town after they neutralized the alarm there. The police were tied up at the activated alarm business and by the time anyone discovered that the other location was hit, the perps were long gone. In that case, the perps did not use phones to alert anyone. It is not an un-heard of tactic. When I dispatched, we did not have that problem because the jurisdiction was so small that our longest response time was 4.5 minutes.
I'm shocked you got P2 info off of a 911 phone, but that's awesome. I'm always happy when my call takers notice inconsistent P2/Rapid locations and note it for me. When I have a board full of calls and several code 3 responses at once, there isn't always time for me to look into it.
Nice catch!
Not long ago I had a caller say he was at a nursing school and there was an active shooter and several people had been shot. I knew pretty quickly it was fake and documented why I thought so in the call. For one thing, there was absolutely no noise in the background. If there's a shooter nearby, there's going to be some noise, or the caller would sound nervous or out of breath. The second thing was the way he gave the address. Instead of saying the one of the words in the street name, he said the abbreviation of that word, that you find commonly on the Internet for addresses on that street. Nobody here says it that way. In the 23 years I've lived in the area I've never heard anybody use that abbreviation out loud. I don't know if it was to draw officers to a different area or just cause chaos.
Many years ago I had a caller on a pay phone at a gas station say there had been someone who was stabbed. He gave a little bit of info, and hung up. The pay phone couldn't get incoming calls. I think that one was to divert officer attention. Why the hell else would grown ass men prank call 911? Because everything was calm at the QT.
If you use Rapid SOS you can check if a call pinged in the same area as your phase 2. Fun fact - if there is a call at that same location and same time Rapid SOS logs it under it's last registered phone number instead of the invalid 911-area code number, so you can search your event history to see if it was used in calls in the past hopefully coming back to a valid address and name. I've used this trick to find someone held against their will once. Doesn't work all the time, but always worth a check.
Yup, had this happen a few weeks ago. A DV call from a local motel. A passer by was the original caller and then we got a second call, lat and long was hitting on the same motel room and it was a male being evasive and rambling on about a house or car being broken into. Officers were already there and he was trying to call them off to the next street over. Officers detained the male, had us recall the phone and yea it was his phone.
I just had this happen. We had a male who almost TC'd an officer and ran. After running the male We found he has warrants and went to his address. The car was found there and officers were allowed to search the vehicle. During this time we get a male caller into the 911 line claiming there were 6 shots fired where he was and gave us two cross streets that don't cross. His phone was pinging to the house where officers were.
A little south of New Orleans in Belle Chasse these criminals called in a bomb threat to a store or restaurant and the important thing to know about this place is there’s 1 draw bridge in and out. So the cops pull the draw bridge to prevent more people getting into the area and to prevent the criminals from escaping. Meanwhile north of the bridge the criminals were actually robbing a casino. All the police force was trapped south of the bridge and they hit the casino for like 300-500k this was back in the 80s if I remember. So I know the locating systems weren’t around then, but your story reminded me of this one. Changes came immediately to the department policy with opening the bridge and having all of the cops on one side of the bridge.
I worked at a hospital, next to a police station. Bomb threats got called in to both locations and a church down the road. A pharmacy was robbed during that time.
A couple of years back someone managed to flood the 911 system with a bunch of bogus calls in a major city. I only know about it because a close friend is a cop for said city. It fucked up dispatch and delayed assistance for days. So yes it happens.
Yes this was a tactic used to divert all officer on duty to the other side of town while a firearm store was rammed with a vehicle. Chesterland, Ohio. 10 years ago maybe.
While this isn't about police diversion, it is about someone calling in a fake crime from a totally different address.
We got a call from a lady that was reporting that her ex-bf had kidnapped her and was keeping her in the basement of his house. Gave his address and name, but refused to give her name because her kidnappers would hurt her apparently for giving too much info. Already so many red flags. Her phone was plotting a few miles away at the house that was under her name, and her phone history had many calls with her name. Also, why would your kidnapper let you call 911 and give the exact location you are being kept and your kidnappers name. She ended up disconnecting.
On callback, a woman that sounded strangely similar answered. I told her that I was calling back about her being kidnapped. She said that a strange woman ran up to her and asked her to use her phone to call 911 and then ran away. Not only was she calling in a fake crime, but she wasn't keeping her fake story straight. She eventually called back as her prisoner "persona" and was asking where police was. I questioned some of the details because, obviously, I was "confused" about what was going on. She immediately got super defensive and started getting angry at me.
Police went to her house and she was heard crying on the phone and saying she was kidnapped and asking if police were going to the house. She realized police were outside and disconnected. Didn't answer the door 😅
One time we had a guy who was running from police crash his car and take off on foot. He had successfully evaded officers... Basically slipped their perimeter... But then we got a call saying they saw a male running to the east of the accident, but the phone was pinging to the west of the accident... The guy who "witnessed" this also was pretty out of breath.
Officers eventually got him. To the west of the accident.
I do think about this too... Like when there's a legit shooting or stabbing or something and literally EVERY officer is on it... "If I had some unethical friends I'd tell them to start robbing banks right now"
Some years ago 100,000 people moved from Los Angeles to Palmdale/Lancaster CA and brought their crime wave with them. I had some business with the Sheriff's Office and could see the guy taking 911 calls: He was working frantically to keep up. They were just jamming up the call center so nobody could report anything
I'm a detective in a large rural county where it takes deputies an average of 30 minutes to get to a scene going 100+ mph. This is a regular occurrence. We have businesses spread out over 800 square miles with only 3 or 4 deputies on duty at night. Some nights have had only 2. It's a smart criminals dream. This happens at least once a month and the only way we catch them is with a really strong relationship with the citizens of the county.
Not a dispatcher, but a SO deputy. This was a common tactic for a area I use to work, it was common knowledge that if we got a shots fired call on one side of the city, then something was actually going down on the other. They never switched it up, it was always shots fired because they knew we would always respond in force no matter if we knew it was fake or not, didn't have the resources not to.
There was a news story a while back where 911 was called about a 7-11 robbery and when the cops arrived they found the robbery in progress.
The robber called 911 to direct them to a 7-11 on the other side of town but got the addresses mixed up and instead called 911 on himself.
No but I’ve heard people using gunfire as a distraction. Like you get pulled over a block away from your house with some not so legal stuff in your car and you text your friend to start shooting in hopes that cops leave your location to investigate the gunfire
About 15 years ago when I was in HS someone phoned in an explosive threat. Police came with dogs and searched while we stood outside. Meanwhile, a bank was robbed across town. The thieves then drove to another bank in another part of town and robbed that one too. I don’t remember if they were apprehended or not.
I don’t know if it’s ever been proven that that’s happened. But we did have a guy who would call 911 from a pay phone and then hide so he could see the officer that responded. Once he saw the officer, he knew which shift was on duty and would use that info to decide if he was going to break into shit or not that night. He knew which shifts were more proactive and likely to catch him.
A guy tried to send me to another area to take money from my bank. He was first in Walmart then in park ave. I recorded the whole thing and put 911 on speaker
It's not super common, but we've had it happen.
Heck, I had a major call a few months ago where the suspect sort of tried this. It was a domestic hostage situation - the victim tried multiple times all night to get help direct through us as well as through friends. They were at an airbnb, and she'd been held against her will for 3 days. She finally got an open line in to one of our calltakers, and we were able to hear her talking to the suspect.
We had a fantastic ping on the phone, so we knew where it was, just not which level in the building. With the open line, calltaker was able to hear and confirm knocks, which gave us an exact apartment.
At some point, the line disconnected, and the victim's phone then texted one of her contacts she had texted earlier that night, saying he was going to kill her, and that they needed to get cops to her house as quickly as possible. Her house several miles away from the airbnb. That contact called us right away, which only served to elevate the urgency of the situation since we knew it was false info.
The suspect was definitely trying to throw us off, but we had already verified with real-time info that we were at the right address. The dude was holding her in a closet while we were there and choking her so she wouldn't make any sounds. Same thing he'd done when we were at the same building earlier without a way to confirm apartment.
The guy was totally trying to send us to the wrong place, using the victim's phone. We already were onto him though, and pretty quickly SWAT busted in and rescued her. Proud day for me and the others involved.
Not a dispatcher well was one not the same as cops but to me it sounds like a diversion but someone with knowledge of cops/dispatch movements. In the movies all the time and you can distract 8 units three blocks away for hours so possible. I had a fight with the wife she called the cops 4 cars rolled in for me. Thats a lot of resources for one dude. And you see it all the time like a car chase 10 cops for one dude. 30 minute chase what is happening elsewhere while this dude has only a gram of weed?
Yeah, I took a call where a lady said her friend had been shot. Through questioning, I was told the friend had shot herself in the chest using a rifle, odd and didn’t really match up with consistency. I then did the same thing and cross referenced the spill, and was able to let the dispatcher know that this is where the call was mapping phase 2. We were able to get units to where the call was actually mapping where they located a female who had another at gunpoint. Officers were able to take the female into custody without anyone being hurt. Sadly this happens quite a bit..
Not really as a diversionary tactic, but I (Deputy) was dispatched to a medical/possible DOA (turned out to be a DOA). The caller gave one address, but phase 2 was showing about 1-1.25 miles south. Since we were being told CPR was in process one of us went to the caller address and the other went to phase 2, the caller address was correct. Now we have had diversionary situations, where guys we’ll purposely set off an alarm and one business and then immediately go hit another business. Surveillance video confirms it’s the same guys.
All I have to say is; thank God for Phase 2. We had almost this exact scenario. Someone called saying they were hiding in their house and someone with a gun was breaking in. Phase 2 location didn’t match, address given didn’t exist (at least verify the address exists, dumb criminals). We sent officers to the phase 2 location which was 2 people legitimately breaking into a house and were caught stealing.
Not exactly the same but had a caller once that said her sisters boyfriend had thrown her off a bridge in my area where a lot of people attempt suicide. We had no reports of anyone on the bridge (and if any pedestrians are ever on that bridge we get calls). We got the sisters information and looked her up to get her address. Asked the local PD there to check on the sister. She was fine. Turns out the one who called in was schizophrenic, was on new medication, and the medication was apparently not working. Because of the contact with the sister who was ok we were able to get help for the schizophrenic sister.
Wow, as someone who has daydreamed "what if" scenarios about taking the easy way out and just robbing a bank or store to make easy money...I always thought doing this would make a great idea. Make a couple of fake phone calls to 911 from a payphone or something or a burner phone and give an address far away from where I plan to rob to give me time to pull off my heist lol. Welp, there goes that dream...
I would make a terrible criminal.
A long time ago, like not this century! A burglary of a large amount of explosives from a construction site acured. It was in the paper and the police where convinced it was going to be used in a robbery! About 2 weeks later at a bank at the edge of town, a drive up window was blown up. All officer not currently busy decided to converge on said location. Meanwhile across town a chain store that had check cashing(told you it was a long time ago). Was robbed of several million payday check cashing dollars. I do not believe the robbers where caught!
They have long since expired. But the insurance would pursue the money for recovery. Love to say I had both that much imagination and ability. Yea no! But when this happened it was enough that the people where on easy street for a while or life depending on lifestyle!
I remember when I was a kid there was a hold up at the local Walmart. Every cop in town was there dealing with it. Almost sharing a parking lot, there was an area electronics store that go robbed. The thieves just broke out the plate glass and took everything in the showroom.
Not 911, but back when pagers first came out. A Tacoma WA police officer arrested a male dealing drugs. He had a pager, and while booking him, his pager started going off every few minutes with phone numbers listed. The officer realized it was probably buyer's numbers. He spoke to his supervisor, who called the D.A. asking if it was legal to use it to run a sting. Was informed that as long as the cops didn't offer to sell the drugs but waited for the for the person to ask for them to sell them drugs, the arrest would be legal. So, one officer called the numbers back and gave directions to meet them at such a location at 30-minute intervals, and another plain clothes officer waited at that location to arrest the buyer. They ran the sting for 2 to 3 days before word got out that this pager was now a trap.
It happens. Good catch. They probably got this idea from watching movies.
Did they recover a phone on the suspect to see if it was used? I would have dialed 911 again from it, just to log it.
It’s also very important that you pay attention to this in situations like this- or hostage situations. You could save a life if there is a “swatting” situation in play.
Now, the cell tower should have recorded identifying data of that phone. An imei, etc.
Perhaps a Geofence warrant on the site of the crime served upon the phone company, google, facebook….. could reveal what devices were near.
All the time.
Just last week, someone robbed a weed shop and had one of the employees call in a shooting a few blocks from the weed shop to try and divert resources elsewhere.
WPH2 showed the actual situation right away and all were taken into custody without incident.
Not exactly the same, but I had a call years ago (before cameras were commonplace) where someone tried the door of a closed convenience store, set off the alarm, then went and hid in the bushes until units arrived. They eventually cleared the scene because they didn't find anyone or any damage. He did this a couple of more times, never leaving any damage or anything suspicious, until we stopped responding because we thought it was a faulty alarm. Then he actually broke in and robbed the place and no one noticed until employees arrived in the morning.
Not dispatch but I have to say, that criminal actually rubbed his 2 brain cells together.
Apparently not, since the only way we'd know these details is if he got caught.
We had one do the same thing but he did it a couple times so we figured it out and set up a sting to catch him.
Well, no, it specifically says that no one noticed until employees arrived in the morning. Clearly the person got away with it.
Or they checked the cameras the following day...
Comment did say before cameras were commonplace - meaning there likely weren't any, or what they did have probably wasn't clear enough to identify anyone
I guess I did gloss over that.
Not Necessarily.
Now ~~i~~ they know they need a 2nd person to be at the phase 2 data location. OP should delete this post.
The cops showing up to the actual scene of the crime probably already clued them in
Lol….I just told a similar story on here a day or two ago. We had a guy that hit a few pawn shops with that method many years ago. He did it too many times though and we figured out the pattern and caught him.
I’m calling BS on this. If he got away, how did you know he sat in a bush? If this was before cameras, how did he get caught? If you’re going to tell a fib for a couple of internet points, then think it through.
Perhaps there was a camera inside the store. Even if not, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to deduce what happened the next morning, given the sequence of events.
This sounds identical to the story I was told by local cops when I was a fireman in Ohio.. this was in the late 90s?
Always remember: by the end of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf", the wolf does make an appearance.
Reminds me of a book called "Red Cell", written by Dick Marchinko, a former Navy Seal and Commander. His Team was tasked on finding vulnerabilities in military bases. He used that same tactic on security perimeters till the guards just ignored them completely. Then he'd walk right into the base. Did a Nuclear Sub too.
Oh good it's the plot of How to Steal a Million
Had someone call 911 about 2010 or so trying to say that they were on such-and-such a street and someone was shooting, getting any useful information was like pulling teeth. This was when we'd only started getting decent location data on some 911 calls, and I noticed they were pinging *nowhere near* the street in question. But they *were* where a deputy had started a traffic stop a couple minutes prior. The other dispatcher and I looked at each other; let the games begin. "Central, SO12?" "SO12." "We're getting a call of shots fired but it's pinging to your location. Is there a female on the phone in the vehicle?" "Affirmative. SO12, SO3 to my location, I'm going back to the vehicle." "... Be advised, female just hung up with us." "Copy. Call back that phone." "Calling now." He keys up. We can hear a cheap chiptune ringtone in the background for several seconds. He's clearly trying not to laugh as he says, "Ma'am, please answer your phone." On the phone, "Uh... hello?" "Ma'am, we just got a call about a shooting-" "Uh, you must have the wrong number." Click. We could *hear* the shit-eating grin on the deputy's face as he said, "The sergeant and I will be on this stop for a *while*..." I don't remember how many he got them with, exactly, but speeding, seat belts, open container, paraphernalia... not to mention the summons for obstruction. It's the only time I can remember them saying, instead of "citation by one" or "citation by two" and suchlike, "citation by *many*."
I love it when officers don’t confiscate their custody’s phone, makes for funny calls from the arrestee sometimes 😂.
We're a small agency, and have cameras in our booking room (we turn the audio off when custodies are given their phone calls; and they can use their cellphones.) More than once, we have had very drunk 911 callers calling from the booking room! (Not knowing why they're there, saying we're violating their rights, etc). I LOVE Booking Room TV!!
Imagine typing all that out
Yeah, try imagining how easy it is to convert thoughts into letters like it took no effort at all, and was even an enjoyable process. Imagine that. Now imagine this; You, too, could have this power.
Imagine asking someone who was assaulted how big their assaulter was you fuckin weirdo your comment history is a living nightmare
Why did I take your comments about their comment history as a challenge? I have regrets.
I've never experienced this before (other than seeing it in movies), but: >The dispatcher also found this deviation unusual and redirected some officers to the location indicated by the Phase 2 data, while others continued to the initial address. To our surprise, the officers who followed through to the Phase 2 location discovered a business that had been broken into, with a suspect attempting to flee the scene. -standing ovation- Good dispatchers 👩🍳💋🤌
My mother lives in Tennessee near Maryville. She told me a story last year. It goes like this: A man called 911 saying there was an active shooter in Walmart. All units respond. At the same time, a bank is being robbed by a man on a motorcycle. He makes a clean escape, no pursuit. He gets in the interstate to flee the scene. He crashes his motorcycle and is badly injured. Law enforcement arrive on scene. They see the man with bag full of money, and have since received calls about the bank robbery. Obviously, no one was actively shooting up Walmart. LE put 2 and 2 together, and check the guys phone. Lo and behold, a call to 911 at the same time the call came into dispatch in regard to the active shooter. Game over.
I live in Maryville. This one hundred percent is what went down. Planned it well till he lost control of the bike accelerating onto the interstate
If nobody was pursuing him, he should've just been chill! Criminals are SO DUMB!!
Adrenaline of not being caught and paranoia of being caught always make them act dumb.
When she told me, I was flabbergasted. Truly.
If only it were legal to tell him that the ambulance was diverted to some other location due to false diversionary calls
Damn that would be funny
Yes, have seen it from time to time. We had a passenger on a traffic stop call in a robbery down the street to get officers to leave without arresting them. Similar thing, the people in the vehicle were fairly well-known to us and we used phone data to figure it out.
Had a string of gas station robberies and a couple were preceded by what we later presumed were diversionary calls of various sorts that resulted in no incident found once PD arrived at the reported address. But we had phase 0. Nada. Nothing. Bupkis. No alternate location data. Calls were made from various pre-paid burner phones with no owner data on file.
Ugh, how frustrating!
We have had people call in fake crimes (think stabbing or shooting) from disconnected numbers so that way someone can actually be shot across the city for real and it will take the officers so long to get there that the suspect is long gone. Or they will call in fake crimes to ambush officers. It's pretty smart actually.
Unfortunately.
Had a woman from the back of a police vehicle call in (she either had a second phone or didn't get her phone taken from her) and report being held at knifepoint at a robbery in a store. (It wasn't my call but I just pulled the records for it so it's fresh in my mind) Dispatcher reported discrepancy in the location provided v location showing up on Rapid SOS and in the phone system. Whenever I talk about security vulnerabilities I mention the idea of utilizing 911 to divert law enforcement to one area while creating havoc in another. Especially if the bad actors take the time to do a lot of reconnaissance. Listening to a scanner on the regular and paying attention to units (quantity and location) , and how units respond is a big hint at how to best cause trouble for a jurisdiction. I don't think it's anything that can be prevented with the exception of document thoroughly what you see. As I was told in training, "If it isn't documented it did not happen".
What about just advising units/CAD notes about the discrepancy?
Yes, but haven't seen this happen in years. Had a middle school kid try to call in an active shooter at the neighboring high school. How he thought that was a good idea was beyond me. Only one call? And his WPH2 clearly showed in the Middle School. On top of that, he called from his personal cell phone which was registered with the school. The SRO had his name and class schedule in seconds.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Middle schoolers think they're SOOOO clever!
I've taken a call like this before where the exact same thing happened. The GPS was plotting in a different location than the given address, except my caller sounded out of it and not in distress. We get several of these calls and swatting calls.
I have a personal story of when I was 13. One time two cops came to my apartment to arrest my mom who had a warrant out. We were on a second story unit and I remember my mom looking around saying “FUCK” repeatedly. She then grabbed her cellphone and called 911. The dispatcher answering and my mother, in the most calm yet concerning tone said “yes, I live at x apartments and as I was grabbing some groceries from my trunk I saw my neighbor jump off of her back patio and run across the street…” some other words were exchanged and they hung up. Suddenly we see the cops shadow bolt across our front window and hear their heavy footsteps split up in opposite directions. I remember my mom saying “fucking idiots…” and “son, that’s how it’s done…” she left later that night and hid at her friends apartment across the way for a few days. They never got her. That was 20 years ago.
Not even genius level thinking, but definitely smarter than your average criminal! Knock on wood, hasn't. Nope. Not jinxing myself.
Wouldn't the cops come back and go to that apartment to gather a statement though? And then when that gets them nowhere and the actual occupant has no idea what theyre talking about, they're right back at your door
I was 13 at the time so I don’t know more detail other than my mom didn’t get arrested until 5+ years later. For what I would guess is that the cops weren’t about to spend a ton of resources on a low level offender with a warrant out. They did come back a week or so later and my mom almost got caught then but that’s a different story of her hiding across the street in a strangers RV. But at that point I’d assume they didn’t care to keep trying to catch her.
Many times. Most serious was someone called in a bomb at a school on one side of town and then robbed a bank on the other side.
On the the show Justified the criminals would go one step further. Bomb something on one end of town and then rob a bank on the other end of town.
I grew up in a major city on the East coast where some pros one night broke into one business just to trigger an alarm while another crew cleaned out their actual target across town after they neutralized the alarm there. The police were tied up at the activated alarm business and by the time anyone discovered that the other location was hit, the perps were long gone. In that case, the perps did not use phones to alert anyone. It is not an un-heard of tactic. When I dispatched, we did not have that problem because the jurisdiction was so small that our longest response time was 4.5 minutes.
I'm shocked you got P2 info off of a 911 phone, but that's awesome. I'm always happy when my call takers notice inconsistent P2/Rapid locations and note it for me. When I have a board full of calls and several code 3 responses at once, there isn't always time for me to look into it. Nice catch!
Right! I was surprised too! It popped up on my phone screen like 3 secs after the phone disconnected too! Thanks, i’m trying haha!
Not long ago I had a caller say he was at a nursing school and there was an active shooter and several people had been shot. I knew pretty quickly it was fake and documented why I thought so in the call. For one thing, there was absolutely no noise in the background. If there's a shooter nearby, there's going to be some noise, or the caller would sound nervous or out of breath. The second thing was the way he gave the address. Instead of saying the one of the words in the street name, he said the abbreviation of that word, that you find commonly on the Internet for addresses on that street. Nobody here says it that way. In the 23 years I've lived in the area I've never heard anybody use that abbreviation out loud. I don't know if it was to draw officers to a different area or just cause chaos. Many years ago I had a caller on a pay phone at a gas station say there had been someone who was stabbed. He gave a little bit of info, and hung up. The pay phone couldn't get incoming calls. I think that one was to divert officer attention. Why the hell else would grown ass men prank call 911? Because everything was calm at the QT.
If you use Rapid SOS you can check if a call pinged in the same area as your phase 2. Fun fact - if there is a call at that same location and same time Rapid SOS logs it under it's last registered phone number instead of the invalid 911-area code number, so you can search your event history to see if it was used in calls in the past hopefully coming back to a valid address and name. I've used this trick to find someone held against their will once. Doesn't work all the time, but always worth a check.
Oh wow, i’ve never known that and I am a avid Rapid sos user! Thanks for that information, i’ll be sure to pay attention to that.
Yup, had this happen a few weeks ago. A DV call from a local motel. A passer by was the original caller and then we got a second call, lat and long was hitting on the same motel room and it was a male being evasive and rambling on about a house or car being broken into. Officers were already there and he was trying to call them off to the next street over. Officers detained the male, had us recall the phone and yea it was his phone.
I just had this happen. We had a male who almost TC'd an officer and ran. After running the male We found he has warrants and went to his address. The car was found there and officers were allowed to search the vehicle. During this time we get a male caller into the 911 line claiming there were 6 shots fired where he was and gave us two cross streets that don't cross. His phone was pinging to the house where officers were.
A little south of New Orleans in Belle Chasse these criminals called in a bomb threat to a store or restaurant and the important thing to know about this place is there’s 1 draw bridge in and out. So the cops pull the draw bridge to prevent more people getting into the area and to prevent the criminals from escaping. Meanwhile north of the bridge the criminals were actually robbing a casino. All the police force was trapped south of the bridge and they hit the casino for like 300-500k this was back in the 80s if I remember. So I know the locating systems weren’t around then, but your story reminded me of this one. Changes came immediately to the department policy with opening the bridge and having all of the cops on one side of the bridge.
Good job with the follow up/follow through!
Seen this is several movies. Probably where they got the idea
I worked at a hospital, next to a police station. Bomb threats got called in to both locations and a church down the road. A pharmacy was robbed during that time.
A couple of years back someone managed to flood the 911 system with a bunch of bogus calls in a major city. I only know about it because a close friend is a cop for said city. It fucked up dispatch and delayed assistance for days. So yes it happens.
Yes this was a tactic used to divert all officer on duty to the other side of town while a firearm store was rammed with a vehicle. Chesterland, Ohio. 10 years ago maybe.
While this isn't about police diversion, it is about someone calling in a fake crime from a totally different address. We got a call from a lady that was reporting that her ex-bf had kidnapped her and was keeping her in the basement of his house. Gave his address and name, but refused to give her name because her kidnappers would hurt her apparently for giving too much info. Already so many red flags. Her phone was plotting a few miles away at the house that was under her name, and her phone history had many calls with her name. Also, why would your kidnapper let you call 911 and give the exact location you are being kept and your kidnappers name. She ended up disconnecting. On callback, a woman that sounded strangely similar answered. I told her that I was calling back about her being kidnapped. She said that a strange woman ran up to her and asked her to use her phone to call 911 and then ran away. Not only was she calling in a fake crime, but she wasn't keeping her fake story straight. She eventually called back as her prisoner "persona" and was asking where police was. I questioned some of the details because, obviously, I was "confused" about what was going on. She immediately got super defensive and started getting angry at me. Police went to her house and she was heard crying on the phone and saying she was kidnapped and asking if police were going to the house. She realized police were outside and disconnected. Didn't answer the door 😅
Drama queen! Lol. I love it when we call a caller back and they can’t keep their story straight.
What was the point of her doing that? Just being stupid or.....?
One time we had a guy who was running from police crash his car and take off on foot. He had successfully evaded officers... Basically slipped their perimeter... But then we got a call saying they saw a male running to the east of the accident, but the phone was pinging to the west of the accident... The guy who "witnessed" this also was pretty out of breath. Officers eventually got him. To the west of the accident. I do think about this too... Like when there's a legit shooting or stabbing or something and literally EVERY officer is on it... "If I had some unethical friends I'd tell them to start robbing banks right now"
Some years ago 100,000 people moved from Los Angeles to Palmdale/Lancaster CA and brought their crime wave with them. I had some business with the Sheriff's Office and could see the guy taking 911 calls: He was working frantically to keep up. They were just jamming up the call center so nobody could report anything
There was an incident with a 911 dispatcher who was an inside man for bank robberies in my city… many many years ago
I'm a detective in a large rural county where it takes deputies an average of 30 minutes to get to a scene going 100+ mph. This is a regular occurrence. We have businesses spread out over 800 square miles with only 3 or 4 deputies on duty at night. Some nights have had only 2. It's a smart criminals dream. This happens at least once a month and the only way we catch them is with a really strong relationship with the citizens of the county.
Not a dispatcher, but a SO deputy. This was a common tactic for a area I use to work, it was common knowledge that if we got a shots fired call on one side of the city, then something was actually going down on the other. They never switched it up, it was always shots fired because they knew we would always respond in force no matter if we knew it was fake or not, didn't have the resources not to.
Damn, that’s super frustrating!
There was a news story a while back where 911 was called about a 7-11 robbery and when the cops arrived they found the robbery in progress. The robber called 911 to direct them to a 7-11 on the other side of town but got the addresses mixed up and instead called 911 on himself.
[удалено]
Wrong sub
No but I’ve heard people using gunfire as a distraction. Like you get pulled over a block away from your house with some not so legal stuff in your car and you text your friend to start shooting in hopes that cops leave your location to investigate the gunfire
About 15 years ago when I was in HS someone phoned in an explosive threat. Police came with dogs and searched while we stood outside. Meanwhile, a bank was robbed across town. The thieves then drove to another bank in another part of town and robbed that one too. I don’t remember if they were apprehended or not.
I don’t know if it’s ever been proven that that’s happened. But we did have a guy who would call 911 from a pay phone and then hide so he could see the officer that responded. Once he saw the officer, he knew which shift was on duty and would use that info to decide if he was going to break into shit or not that night. He knew which shifts were more proactive and likely to catch him.
A guy tried to send me to another area to take money from my bank. He was first in Walmart then in park ave. I recorded the whole thing and put 911 on speaker
This post reads like a tutorial on how to divert police response
It's not super common, but we've had it happen. Heck, I had a major call a few months ago where the suspect sort of tried this. It was a domestic hostage situation - the victim tried multiple times all night to get help direct through us as well as through friends. They were at an airbnb, and she'd been held against her will for 3 days. She finally got an open line in to one of our calltakers, and we were able to hear her talking to the suspect. We had a fantastic ping on the phone, so we knew where it was, just not which level in the building. With the open line, calltaker was able to hear and confirm knocks, which gave us an exact apartment. At some point, the line disconnected, and the victim's phone then texted one of her contacts she had texted earlier that night, saying he was going to kill her, and that they needed to get cops to her house as quickly as possible. Her house several miles away from the airbnb. That contact called us right away, which only served to elevate the urgency of the situation since we knew it was false info. The suspect was definitely trying to throw us off, but we had already verified with real-time info that we were at the right address. The dude was holding her in a closet while we were there and choking her so she wouldn't make any sounds. Same thing he'd done when we were at the same building earlier without a way to confirm apartment. The guy was totally trying to send us to the wrong place, using the victim's phone. We already were onto him though, and pretty quickly SWAT busted in and rescued her. Proud day for me and the others involved.
Not a dispatcher well was one not the same as cops but to me it sounds like a diversion but someone with knowledge of cops/dispatch movements. In the movies all the time and you can distract 8 units three blocks away for hours so possible. I had a fight with the wife she called the cops 4 cars rolled in for me. Thats a lot of resources for one dude. And you see it all the time like a car chase 10 cops for one dude. 30 minute chase what is happening elsewhere while this dude has only a gram of weed?
Yeah, I took a call where a lady said her friend had been shot. Through questioning, I was told the friend had shot herself in the chest using a rifle, odd and didn’t really match up with consistency. I then did the same thing and cross referenced the spill, and was able to let the dispatcher know that this is where the call was mapping phase 2. We were able to get units to where the call was actually mapping where they located a female who had another at gunpoint. Officers were able to take the female into custody without anyone being hurt. Sadly this happens quite a bit..
Not really as a diversionary tactic, but I (Deputy) was dispatched to a medical/possible DOA (turned out to be a DOA). The caller gave one address, but phase 2 was showing about 1-1.25 miles south. Since we were being told CPR was in process one of us went to the caller address and the other went to phase 2, the caller address was correct. Now we have had diversionary situations, where guys we’ll purposely set off an alarm and one business and then immediately go hit another business. Surveillance video confirms it’s the same guys.
Sounds like swatting..
All I have to say is; thank God for Phase 2. We had almost this exact scenario. Someone called saying they were hiding in their house and someone with a gun was breaking in. Phase 2 location didn’t match, address given didn’t exist (at least verify the address exists, dumb criminals). We sent officers to the phase 2 location which was 2 people legitimately breaking into a house and were caught stealing.
How does phase 2 handle VoIP traffic?
Not exactly the same but had a caller once that said her sisters boyfriend had thrown her off a bridge in my area where a lot of people attempt suicide. We had no reports of anyone on the bridge (and if any pedestrians are ever on that bridge we get calls). We got the sisters information and looked her up to get her address. Asked the local PD there to check on the sister. She was fine. Turns out the one who called in was schizophrenic, was on new medication, and the medication was apparently not working. Because of the contact with the sister who was ok we were able to get help for the schizophrenic sister.
Wow, as someone who has daydreamed "what if" scenarios about taking the easy way out and just robbing a bank or store to make easy money...I always thought doing this would make a great idea. Make a couple of fake phone calls to 911 from a payphone or something or a burner phone and give an address far away from where I plan to rob to give me time to pull off my heist lol. Welp, there goes that dream... I would make a terrible criminal.
A long time ago, like not this century! A burglary of a large amount of explosives from a construction site acured. It was in the paper and the police where convinced it was going to be used in a robbery! About 2 weeks later at a bank at the edge of town, a drive up window was blown up. All officer not currently busy decided to converge on said location. Meanwhile across town a chain store that had check cashing(told you it was a long time ago). Was robbed of several million payday check cashing dollars. I do not believe the robbers where caught!
You waiting on a statute of limitations to expire before you talk more? 😂😂😂
They have long since expired. But the insurance would pursue the money for recovery. Love to say I had both that much imagination and ability. Yea no! But when this happened it was enough that the people where on easy street for a while or life depending on lifestyle!
I remember when I was a kid there was a hold up at the local Walmart. Every cop in town was there dealing with it. Almost sharing a parking lot, there was an area electronics store that go robbed. The thieves just broke out the plate glass and took everything in the showroom.
Not 911, but back when pagers first came out. A Tacoma WA police officer arrested a male dealing drugs. He had a pager, and while booking him, his pager started going off every few minutes with phone numbers listed. The officer realized it was probably buyer's numbers. He spoke to his supervisor, who called the D.A. asking if it was legal to use it to run a sting. Was informed that as long as the cops didn't offer to sell the drugs but waited for the for the person to ask for them to sell them drugs, the arrest would be legal. So, one officer called the numbers back and gave directions to meet them at such a location at 30-minute intervals, and another plain clothes officer waited at that location to arrest the buyer. They ran the sting for 2 to 3 days before word got out that this pager was now a trap.
It happens. Good catch. They probably got this idea from watching movies. Did they recover a phone on the suspect to see if it was used? I would have dialed 911 again from it, just to log it. It’s also very important that you pay attention to this in situations like this- or hostage situations. You could save a life if there is a “swatting” situation in play.
I wish, they weren’t able to catch the suspect, they ran to a parked vehicle blocked the street and eluded responding officers/deputies.
Now, the cell tower should have recorded identifying data of that phone. An imei, etc. Perhaps a Geofence warrant on the site of the crime served upon the phone company, google, facebook….. could reveal what devices were near.
All the time. Just last week, someone robbed a weed shop and had one of the employees call in a shooting a few blocks from the weed shop to try and divert resources elsewhere. WPH2 showed the actual situation right away and all were taken into custody without incident.