Can I just say that from my own experience of being dispatched to an incident via the Police radio, you have to take what is initially on the dispatch log for 911 with a pinch of salt. I say this because from my personal perspective and that of my colleagues, attending incidents in inner city Liverpool U.K. , you don’t really know what you have in front of you when you first arrive at scene and it can be a minute or two for you to realise what’s happened or what you think you are dealing with. All the while transmitting this information over the radio . And then the officer who inputs the information on the computer log is literally transcribing as quickly as possible, the information that you are passing, but from their own perspective and using their own words and terminology. At the same time of doing this, they are also making contact with a supervisory officer, the Detective dept , the Area commander ( or whoever is in charge of that Policing area to update them of a potential serious situation that requires a strategy to deal with the media and enquiries from the Prime Minister Office ) , ascertaining who the SIO is and calling them out, calling out Forensic teams, calling out Search trained and armed response officers ( UK cops are not routinely armed with guns ), obtaining previous incident data for the address , making initial contact with Mobile phone providers that there is an incident commenced that may need real time input ) , and tasking the Force Intelligence Unit to obtain recent information from all the Force systems of intelligence re the address attended
All this is going on at super speed and it’s only a couple of operators along with the Forve Incident Commander, doing all of these initial actions to get the ball rolling. And as I said before, this is all being done whilst communicating over the Police radio with attending officers AND updating the log ( 999 or 911 record ). So you really can’t put too much thought into what was said by whom or what instruction given at what time or when the reason for attendance code / title was changed and by whom or who was in the house and now appears to be missing. All this information gathering is taking place in real time and bring actioned accordingly and the operator is run ragged at this point and high on adrenaline trying
to fulfill a checklist of what needs implementing and updating it all on the computer. So he answered the door becomes he’s at the foot of the door or his feet are out of the door or the door has been kicked in, no not kicked from my perspective, it’s been shot in etc etc etc
If you get my inference?
That’s why when a case finally goes before the Court, the initial log of call and the information thats then inputted can be a huge source of confusion leading the defence to create huge reasonable doubt among a jury straight away as if the initial call info isn’t clear as to what’s what and what happened then how can LE be sure of anything. It’s s typical defence strategy to attack policy and procedures rather than evidence in the U.K. although they do attack the evidence chain too.
I hope this helps you understand all the different information first released .
