Police Will Limit Responses

Starting next month, Mesa (Ariz.) police will use dispatchers instead of officers to handle several types of non-emergency incidents, with the intent to free up officers for essential duties. Calls from citizens involvling lost cellphones, non-injury traffic accidents, minor shoplifting and even 911 coin phone hang-ups will no longer trigger a police response. Rather, dispatchers will take a phone report of the incident. In the case of 911 hang-ups, police will still investigate calls from homes and businesses. But the coin phone no-response policy will cut about 425 incidents a month from the department’s workload, officials said, and lost cellular phone reports will cut another 200+ incidents. Dispatch training supervisor Kim Clark said, “I think, ultimately, citizens will get a higher level of customer service with a better-educated call-taker with important knowledge for the citizen.”