Monday, December 29, 2008

Christmas follow-up

I noted in my post last Friday that second shift on Christmas had been rather interesting, and that I'd report on that later. Overall, Christmas is normally a slow day. We handled a total of 176 dispatches, which is about half our daily average.

What always surprises me about Christmas isn't the volume of incidents, but rather the nature. The ugly side of human behavior does not take a break for holy days. Here's a few snippets from the Christmas Incident Report one-liners:

VIC HIT BY BRO IN LAW DUR ALT/CUT TO LIP REQ STITCHES
SON STOLE DAD'S VISA CHECK CARD THEN WENT ON RUN
STRUCK IN FACE W/CLOSED HAND BY WIFE NO INJS MINOR PAIN
PROT ORDR VIOL/LETTER SENT TO VIC FROM PR
VIC GF CAME AT VIC W/KNIFE
PUNCHED V W/CLOSED FIST IN FACE CAUSING PAIN
SMELL OF MARIJ COMING FRM APT WHERE CHILD HRD CRYING
HUSBAND WRAPPED SCARF AROUND V'S MOUTH/NOSE/NOT ABLE TO BREATH
CONCEALED ALCOHOL INSIDE SLEEVE OF COAT/LEFT W/O PAYING
PROT ORDR VIOL/EX HUSBAND CALLED/SENT NUM TXT MESS TO VIC
VIC REC CALL FROM UNK MALE/MADE COMMENTS ABOUT VIC GENITALIA
VIC PUNCHED BY BRO IN LAW DUR ALT
VIC BRO CALLED MAKING THREAT STATEMENTS/DISTURBED VIC PEACE
SON INTOXICATED CAUSING DISTURBANCE
PAST BF PHONED MAKING DEMANDS & NAMECALLING
ATMPT SUICIDE BY SITTING IN RUNNING VEH W/GARAGE CLOSED
PR SHOWED UP AT RES/YELLING/POUNDING ON WINDOW

We were involved in ten mental health investigations on Christmas Day. At one point, around 8:00 PM, officers were dealing with three individuals threatening suicide at the same time. Sgt. Craig Price, covering supervisory duties on the east side of Lincoln, had just finished coordinating his second tactical entry in 20 minutes, when he cleared and asked the dispatcher if she was holding any more.

Nonetheless, the day really was slow. I blogged last year about the common myth that the holiday season is the high-water mark for suicide attempts and domestic violence. It's not. It's all comparative, though: I think Christmas always seems busy because there is a minimum staff on duty, and things like domestic assaults and suicide attempts seem so incongruous on Christmas.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Most of those strike me as being situations where one or more participants were possibly under the influence of mind-altering substances, either legal or illegal. Like grandpa said, if you can't handle your liquor, then stay dry.

Anonymous said...

My grandpa said, 'Why spend thousands to house a man in prison when a bullet only costs 7 cents...?'

Anonymous said...

Chief,
I don't have the numbers in front of me(I'm sure you could quickly) but perhaps it seems like this season has greater numbers of these calls because the other calls lessen.

For example; on Christmas day most of the stores are closed, or close early, so the amount of shoplifting, fraud, and etc., is much less. If the amount of domestics and mental health investigations stays the same as every other day, but other call types drop in number, it would seem that officers would feel like there is an increase for these offenses. If you listen to the radio and mostly hear, "Be enroute to a domestic," more often than other calls, you would assume the number has increased. It may not seem apparent that other calls are just not coming out as frequent as a non-holiday work day.

At the end of the day, when an officer reflects on the departments business that day I'm sure he/she would think, "Man, all we did was handle domestics or suicidal parties," because that is what he/she heard most. Might be a little bit of an availability heuristic approach but may explain why people feel these incidents increase. Just a thought.