How to Catch a Cop - 2 Cops and a 13-Year Old Girl

HOW TO CATCH A COP

     DRAPER UT 10/18/2017 - A Salt Lake Police Officer is facing charges for allegedly making a false 911 call to report a burglary at his estranged wife's home.  Apparently, police arrived at her home and didn't find anything amiss.  When they tracked down the phone number that had made the 911 call, they found a match to the phone number of a Salt Lake Police Lieutenant.  The officer may be charged with multiple misdemeanor counts including filing a false police report and could face six months in jail.

Salt Lake Police Officer Accused of Making False 911 Call
(Salt Lake Tribune 10/17/2017)

     This report comes on the heels of an officer being fired from the same department for roughing up a nurse at the University Hospital.  The whole incident was captured on the officer's body cam, and when the footage was released to the public it went viral and caused the officer to go into hiding because of the threats he received.

 Utah Hospital to Police - Stay Away from our Nurses
(Washington Post 9/5/2017)

HOW VULGAR CAN A 13-YEAR OLD GIRL BE?
   
     Seeing the officer accused of making the false 911 call in the news this week made me remember the time that a young girl called our office at night and left a terribly profane voice mail message.  This wasn't a prank like the "your refrigerator is running, you better go catch it" like kids used to do when I was young.  This was a 3-minute profane tirade that shocked our sweet 19-year old receptionist to tears. Unfortunately for her, this young woman had called the wrong office.  I work for a company that develops call tracking software for business and I was able to capture the call record on a report so I knew where the call came from. This was long before such technology was widely in use.

     I called the non-emergency police number and reported the incident.  A police officer showed up a few hours later and listened to the recording.  He apologized and told us that there wasn't any easy way for them to determine who had made the call.  I told him that wouldn't be a problem and handed him a report showing the date, time, and caller ID of the call.  He asked if I wanted to press charges and I told him I would leave that up to him after he tracked the caller down. He said he would take care of it.
 
     That same officer called back the next day and said he had a story to tell.  He went to the home that made the call and found out that a 13-year old girl had made the call.  She had received a private phone line in her bedroom for her birthday the week before.  The night she called our office she was having a sleepover with friends and they were randomly dialing phone numbers and having a contest to see who could leave the most vulgar message.  Apparently, she belonged to a religious family and her parents were horrified.  The police officer indicated that I shouldn't need to press charges.  From what he saw the parents were going to take care of it.

WHAT DO ALL 3 INCIDENTS HAVE IN COMMON?
   
     When I look at all 3 incidents it makes me wonder why all 3-people involved thought they could get away with their actions.  Did they not realize that body cam video is saved, and that phone calls can be traced and tracked?  We live in a society where everyone is watching, and all public behavior and most private behavior is out there for everyone to see.

REMEMBER - SOMEONE'S ALWAYS WATCHING

      Before you decide to do something or call someone that could get you in trouble.  You should remember that you're probably going to get caught.  I've been selling Call Accounting Software to businesses for 25+ years and it always makes me giggle when an employee makes threatening calls from work to the boss's wife, or when an employee calls a competitor from work to divulge confidential information.

     We should all remember that anything crazy we do in public is probably going to be filmed and shared.  We should also remember that telephone calls made from your office phone are not confidential.  If your employer uses software like ours to capture and report call records then you are going to get caught.

     Whether you heed this advice or not there are enough people out there that I will continue to be amused when the next customer calls to thank us for the software and tell us the funny story of who they caught doing what.


Robert Edwards
Comm One LLC
http://www.commone.com
bob@commone.com
385-529-5819

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Robert Edwards is the CEO of Comm One LLC, a Call Accounting Software developer headquartered in Draper, UT.

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