I used to be a 911 dispatcher. BBQ Becky type racist calls happened daily.
I used to be a 911 dispatcher. I had to respond to racist calls every day.
The viral police call on a black family barbecuing in Oakland was an everyday occurrence.
By Rachael Herron Updated May 31, 2018, 1:55pm EDT
Several videos showing racial profiling of black Americans by police and white Americans have recently gone viral — in one video, a white woman calls the cops on a group of black people barbecuing in a park in Oakland. In another, a white student calls 911 when she sees a black classmate sleeping in a dormitory common room. In this essay, a former police dispatcher remembers the racist calls she used to take every day and law enforcement’s rules that forced her to respond to every caller, regardless of the incident.
It was the end of an 18-hour shift. My butt hurt from sitting in one place with only a couple of five-minute bathroom breaks. My brain hurt from staying awake that long, and my stomach ached from all the coffee I’d drunk to keep myself alert.
But the phones rarely stopped.
“911, what’s the address of your emergency?” I said into the headset.
The man gave me his address and then said, “There’s a woman pushing a shopping cart in front of my house.”
This one stumped me. I worked in a large metropolitan area. Yes, the city where I worked was affluent, and most people used their cars to get groceries. But surely he’d seen a person using a personal grocery cart before.
“I’m sorry, I’m not getting it. What’s the problem?” I waited for more clarification as I racked my brain for the correct penal code under which this infraction might fall.
“You need to get out here now.”
“Um.” A dispatcher has to be cautious about how she phrases things. Of all the jobs in emergency services — firefighters, police officers, nurses, doctors — dispatchers are the only ones who are recorded during every single thing they do. Everything they say — and their whole job is speaking — is part of public record. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re reporting.”
“She’s black.”
Lots more at link. Well worth the read:
https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/5/30/17406092/race-911-white-lady-calls-police-on-black-family-bbq-oakland
Conclusion:
With some rudimentary math, I’ve worked out that I’ve answered at least a quarter of a million 911 calls in my career. Amid the meaningless, racially charged calls, I’ve gotten so many by concerned citizens who genuinely want to help someone who is hurt or in danger. Good typically wins over evil. But it’s awfully damn close sometimes. And we all have to pick a side.
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