Police Officers Lose Their Mobile Phones
from the no-more-calls dept
In a budget cutting effort, police in Oakland California are having their mobile phones taken away. Apparently, police on various beats were given mobile phones, which they used to stay in contact with people and organizations in the area they covered. It appears they gave out the numbers regularly, as they continually were dealing with incoming phone calls from residents reporting suspicious behaviors. So, not only were the phones removed for cost cutting reasons, but because the calls were beginning to become overwhelming. There is a reason that the police have a centralized dispatcher, and routing around it doesn't always make sense. While it is a nice idea to give residents direct communication tools with those patrolling their neighborhoods, without an efficient means of routing those calls, it's no surprise they quickly became overwhelming.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
police and cell phones
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: police and cell phones
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: police and cell phones
msykes
[ link to this | view in chronology ]