Ask HN: In your US city/metropolis, do Police default call back from UNKNOWN? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: In your US city/metropolis, do Police default call back from UNKNOWN?

8 points6stringmerc7 comments

Genuinely curious about this subject, if known, so I set up a key that might help tally quickly just for a bit of data. My hope is this group might actually notice vs. xyz non-tech folks?

Do Not Know - dddd

No - nnnn

Yes - yyyy

(if okay with you) State - sXX

This observation is via the Southlake, TX police department, non-emergency contact number. According to my impression, policy does not allow officers to make appointments to take phone calls, by default they call back from UNKNOWN, and by request - must be each time - they will agree to call from an actual department number. Phew. Pretty nerdy but it's a system so...

Many thanks in advance!

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I grew up and graduated school from Southlake. One of the few from start to finish before the city was littered with castles.

I cannot remember for certain but I do believe the FW police use BLOCKED.

In my experience in municipal IT, working on shared computers at police stations, most beat cops not only don’t have their own computers, but also don’t have their own phones, and have to make calls from shared phones in computer rooms that aren’t occupied most of the time, so those numbers wouldn’t be suitable to call back on. The public can always call a main non-emergency number to leave a message for an officer if they have to.

Interesting - seems to add a layer of security through obscurity when pretty much any similar size / budget organization can make it happen.

Interesting side note about the non-emergency number: in several instances, specifically asking for a department or representative in that department or a person by name results in 2-3 questions that have nothing to do with connecting a person. Screening. Call it Intake not Dispatch.

I've lived in 3 cities, Seoul South Korea, Toronto Canada and NYC USA. In all 3, callbacks from the police come from UNKNOWN/BLOCKED.

Seems like there should be a general way to crowdsource this kind of data.

y u talkin to police bro, u snitchin?

Nope, asking them questions about a prisoner abuse case in the hands of Internal Affairs since mid-September with no updates.

U like it Cops take medicine out inmate hands?

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