ReshyOne

Not the OP....

When you dial 9-1-1 from a Land line we get the information your telephone company has on file which typically includes your exact address and of course the phone number you called from.

When you dial from a VOIP phone like Vonage, we get whatever info was programmed when you setup the VOIP. The danger in this is that those phones are sold as "mobile" so you can move from place to place or even take them on business trips and use them wherever you are, but it will always report to 9-1-1 your home address you programmed it for.

When calling from a Cell Phone things get tricky.. Older phones had no real GPS info and just gave us the address of the cell tower its bouncing off. Newer phones now have rudimentary GPS data that gives us a general location based on the nearest 3 towers kind of like triangulation you see in movies/tv. However its not guaranteed accurate and is sometimes very inaccurate.

If I got a 9-1-1 call from a cell phone where someone just said "Help, I need help..." then it hung up I would first call that number back, if still no answer I go ahead and dispatch officers to the area that the cell phone location says it was at. While officers are enroute to that general area, I'd call AT&T or Verizon or whoever and get the subscribers address that the phone belongs to and also alternate phone numbers if available.

TL;DR: Unless you are calling from a land line, we don't know where you are "for sure". But we will try to find you.

*edit - I don't think OP's post was there when I first started typing mine, but was distracted and typed a lot so he got in before me... Not trying to steal his/her thunder, just provide info.

The department I work for (Also 9-1-1 for a city of about 300k) it takes upto 4-6 weeks for the hiring process.

Initial Application > Skills Test (Typing / Listening / Multitask) > 1st Interview > Background Check > Psych Eval > Polygraph > Drug Test > 2nd Interview (Usually a panel of 3 people) > Then finally a job offer.

So yeah its a lengthy process

The agency I work for actually charged someone with abuse / misuse of 9-1-1 earlier this year. It was a gentleman (I use that term loosely) who constantly called 9-1-1 and made lewd comments and cussed at the call takers who answered. He was spoofing his phone # to appear from various businesses and such but we knew his name. An investigation was started and after having most of the call takers make statements and such they issued a warrant and he was picked up about 3-4 weeks later.

That stopped the calls for about 7 months, and I heard hes started calling again a few weeks ago, but not as often.

lol we talk about saying stuff like that on the air all the time... but usually dont. I say usually because there is this thing called an "open mic" where you accidentally press the button to talk, or your radio console glitches and opens your mic... yeah some bad things have been said over the air.

Your phone system looks like Vesta ... Your Radio looks like Motorola... your CAD is unknown to me.

Love that you guys have a mirror on the wall to catch anyone sneaking up on you... Is your area accessible to the general public?