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The flasher of the Fens is back
By adamg on Sat, 04/10/2010 - 10:22pm
Mike Mennonno reports that, in addition to the unfurling fern fronds, the guy who likes to show off his junk is back at the Victory Gardens.
Tim, the President of the garden society, says he's an older guy, been doing it for years.
"Yeah," he shuddered. "And sometimes he wears a thong."
Special bonus: 911 dispatchers refuse to send any cops over when people use the special city batphone with the blue strobe to complain about the guy because they insist on a street address, but nobody can give one to them because this city-installed phone is, you know, in the middle of the Fens.
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Comments
Street addresses
Huh, I thought the whole point of those blue bat-phones was that they would automatically tell the police where to respond to. E-911 has been around for ages.
The requirement for an exact street address seems silly. Isn't it the dispatcher's job to help figure out the address, if the caller can't provide one? Presumably they have access to computers and maps and such.
About two years ago I called 911 from a fully GPS-equipped cell phone, to report a man injured in the Public Garden. The dispatcher seemed flustered that I couldn't tell her my exact address. Apparently, "on Boylston Street right across from the Four Seasons hotel" isn't good enough for them. I actually had to walk away from the unconscious guy lying on the sidewalk, cross the street, walk into the hotel (because they didn't have a street number posted on the outside of the building), and ask the front desk for their address.
This was after...
This was after a group of college students declined to stop and help because they "didn't want to use up the minutes" on their cellphones to call 911. Idiots.
My partner had a nasty little
My partner had a nasty little dispatcher refuse to continue their 911 conversation until he could produce an exact street address--near the corner of blank street and blank road would not do at all.
Whit
It's been a few years
since I dug into this, but last time I checked, Boston wasn't one of the Mass regions that had fully-functioning E-911; Boston was in Phase I, which was something like "thinking about considering what color it'd be".
It probably doesn't help that
It probably doesn't help that those blue phones have been out of order for several days in a row following the heavy rain storms.
Next time, tell them Mayor
Next time, tell them Mayor Menino has been shot somewhere in the Fenway - you'll get plenty of action without an address.
cops want nothing to do with the fens
i know and have talked to several BPD over the years and none of them want anything to do with the fens. if they respond to a call in the "weeds" they are afraid of what they may see and what they may be legally bound to do after witnessing such behavior. the cops biggest fears? civil rights violations. they dont want to be accused of harrasing gay men. this is also true at other such spots in the city. a friend of mine lost a hubcap behind the arsenal mall several years ago and when he went into the woods to retrieve it he was shocked to find several men in the bushes performing oral sex on each other. he called 911 and staties responded. they told my friend they would wait for him to go in, retrieve his hubcap, and come back out. they told him they didnt go in and get involved because the men know if they scream civil rights the cop has a problem on his hands. the cops can actually be personally sued and lose their homes and savings. this is probably why they dont respond to the fenway blue phone.
I hope that someone catches him,
but someone other than Mike Menononononononono. Because Mike will just take his picture and blog about it later on.
On 911...
Boston 911 calls are answered by civilian call-takers employed by the police department. One of the critical points to taking a call is verifying the location of the emergency and entering it into a computer aided dispatch system so a radio dispatcher can send help. The system requires a valid street address and the call-takers sometimes struggle to translate a caller's description of where the emergency is with something that the street file will recognize and accept. (A new, more sophisticated GIS based system is in development but for now we use a legacy CAD system.) As far as wireless calls are concerned, Boston 911 is Phase II compliant, meaning that we can see where the caller is -but that is not always where the emergency is.
That being said, rudeness by a call-taker is unacceptable and not sending help because of a non-specific location is a very serious offense and I would encourage anyone who experiences poor service from 911 to contact me directly.
John Daley
Boston Police
617-343-5087 (office)
617-594-9369 (cell)
[email protected]
911 calls
EVERY time I call it's "S-T-E-L - no that E not I, S-T-E-L-L" etc etc. Would be nice to have regional dispatchers who knew specific areas of the city, like when I have to give them an ADDRESS for the park behind my house???? Give me a break! Who knows street addresses to parks? The cops know where it is - just give out the name. By the time I get through spelling the name of my street, the park etc, whatever I called about has probably resolved.