Mom in trouble for toddler's 911 calls

PORTLAND, Oregon (KGW) -- An Astoria mother faces big fines because her toddler accidentally dialed 911 a total of 16 times.


Police said if this had been a one-time mistake, they would not have cited Jessica May, but dispatchers said they received seven calls from her phone last Thursday and nine others before that, dating back to January.


May says she was in the bathroom when her 1-year-old daughter Ayla found her phone and started playing with it.


"It was an honest mistake," May said.


Her phone was in the "locked" mode at the time, May said, but it's still possible to dial emergency numbers without unlocking it.

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After the sixth call, an officer gave May a warning, but when it happened again, she was cited for abusing 911.

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Would never happen here. We answer 911 hang up calls with nothing but static on the line and calls from empty lots, with no structure or phone lines all the time.

What drives our dispatchers nuts is that people give their children old cell phones to play with but they are still charged and will call 911 even though the service is terminated. We get "disconnected cell" calls all day long, many times a child is on the other end, babbling away. Tracking them or determining who/where the call is coming from is next to impossible. E911 does not show the incoming number of a disconnected cell and you cannot call it back.

My first LE job was as a dispatcher. My last job was running the Communications Center and Detention Division so Communications holds a special place with me. I agree with charging mom if she can't put the cell phone up out of the way of the child. A call or two is understandable, 16 calls over a period of days shows apathy on mom's part. Dispatchers have a hard job anyway and constant false calls are an irritation and they can busy up a dispatcher when a real emergency is coming in.

The mom should've known after her toddler called 911 one or two times that the phone needed must be out of her child's reach. Common sense dictates that

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Originally Posted by Policefan1978

The mom should've known after her toddler called 911 one or two times that the phone needed must be out of her child's reach. Common sense dictates that

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Common sense isn't.

I was once patrolling in my home town when I overheard the local dispatcher broadcast a call to attend a silent 999(911 or 112 if your a European) call.
I immediately volunteered to attend as the adress given was mine!!
turned out my then 1 yr old had managed to get hold of the phone. It didn't happen again.