dwasson
02-18-2005, 01:03 PM
From: The Chicago Sun Times (http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-crank18.html)
February 18, 2005
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter
During the six-month period that ended Tuesday, 3,896 prank calls to Chicago's 911 emergency center were placed from a pair of phone numbers at a single West Side address.
It was not known how many times Chicago Police officers were dispatched. But it wasn't long before the address became notorious among 911 call takers.
Today, City Hall will reportedly announce an arrest in that case -- and bring the hammer down on 500 people whose phones have been used to place 50,672 bogus 911 calls since mid-August.
Not just kids playing
A mass mailing is going out to the most egregious offenders -- those whose phones have been used to make at least 50 bogus calls over the last six months -- warning them to "cease and desist" immediately. If the prank calls continue, fines ranging from $500 to $1,000 will follow within weeks.
"Some of them are kids. But this is not purely a problem defined by children. It includes adults who get a kick out of seeing police and fire resources dispatched when there's no real emergency," said Ron Huberman, executive director of the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communications.
"We're sending a message loud and clear as a city that this behavior is unacceptable, and if you choose to misuse emergency resources, it's going to cost you a lot of money. We simply cannot afford to be wasting our valuable resources. We plan to be very aggressive. We're starting with the worst, and we're gonna work our way down."
City Council Police Committee Chairman Isaac Carothers (29th), whose ordinance empowered the city to levy the fines, said the crackdown is sorely needed and long overdue.
"I can understand going after the most frequent offenders first, but we want to have a zero tolerance for this. It puts people's lives in jeopardy. It not only deprives someone who really needs emergency service. It endangers police officers and firefighters racing to the scene," Carothers said.
"It's the equivalent of shooting a gun, aiming at no one and hoping the bullet doesn't hit anybody."
Threat of fines gets results
Last year, pranksters placed nearly 3 million bogus calls to Chicago's 911 center. The rate of bogus calls has consistently hovered around the 30 percent mark. But a 70 percent surge in calls to 17,000 a day -- and a dramatic increase in cell phone calls, many of them in the hands of children -- has made prank and hangup calls a problem that can no longer be ignored, Huberman said.
The mere threat of fines -- coupled with an outreach program to schools and community groups -- has already produced results.
In the four months since the impending crackdown hit the headlines, there has been a 14 percent drop in prank calls.
Pinpointing cell phones
"We're picking up the phone faster. We're able to get to people faster. I can't begin to tell you how much it's helped," Huberman said.
Last year, the Sun-Times reported that cell phone users who place roughly 7,200 calls each day to Chicago's 911 center would have their locations pinpointed within 400 feet by year's end, under a long-awaited technology upgrade that might have saved the life of a murdered South Side woman.
That's the same technology that has allowed Huberman to develop the database now being used to crack the whip on prank callers.
February 18, 2005
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter
During the six-month period that ended Tuesday, 3,896 prank calls to Chicago's 911 emergency center were placed from a pair of phone numbers at a single West Side address.
It was not known how many times Chicago Police officers were dispatched. But it wasn't long before the address became notorious among 911 call takers.
Today, City Hall will reportedly announce an arrest in that case -- and bring the hammer down on 500 people whose phones have been used to place 50,672 bogus 911 calls since mid-August.
Not just kids playing
A mass mailing is going out to the most egregious offenders -- those whose phones have been used to make at least 50 bogus calls over the last six months -- warning them to "cease and desist" immediately. If the prank calls continue, fines ranging from $500 to $1,000 will follow within weeks.
"Some of them are kids. But this is not purely a problem defined by children. It includes adults who get a kick out of seeing police and fire resources dispatched when there's no real emergency," said Ron Huberman, executive director of the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communications.
"We're sending a message loud and clear as a city that this behavior is unacceptable, and if you choose to misuse emergency resources, it's going to cost you a lot of money. We simply cannot afford to be wasting our valuable resources. We plan to be very aggressive. We're starting with the worst, and we're gonna work our way down."
City Council Police Committee Chairman Isaac Carothers (29th), whose ordinance empowered the city to levy the fines, said the crackdown is sorely needed and long overdue.
"I can understand going after the most frequent offenders first, but we want to have a zero tolerance for this. It puts people's lives in jeopardy. It not only deprives someone who really needs emergency service. It endangers police officers and firefighters racing to the scene," Carothers said.
"It's the equivalent of shooting a gun, aiming at no one and hoping the bullet doesn't hit anybody."
Threat of fines gets results
Last year, pranksters placed nearly 3 million bogus calls to Chicago's 911 center. The rate of bogus calls has consistently hovered around the 30 percent mark. But a 70 percent surge in calls to 17,000 a day -- and a dramatic increase in cell phone calls, many of them in the hands of children -- has made prank and hangup calls a problem that can no longer be ignored, Huberman said.
The mere threat of fines -- coupled with an outreach program to schools and community groups -- has already produced results.
In the four months since the impending crackdown hit the headlines, there has been a 14 percent drop in prank calls.
Pinpointing cell phones
"We're picking up the phone faster. We're able to get to people faster. I can't begin to tell you how much it's helped," Huberman said.
Last year, the Sun-Times reported that cell phone users who place roughly 7,200 calls each day to Chicago's 911 center would have their locations pinpointed within 400 feet by year's end, under a long-awaited technology upgrade that might have saved the life of a murdered South Side woman.
That's the same technology that has allowed Huberman to develop the database now being used to crack the whip on prank callers.