Police Lingo. You're doing it wrong.

I love when people call in trying to sound like insiders. They end up making me curse under my breath because they're such idiots.

These are the people who spend waaaaaaay too much time watching COPS, CSI and Law and Order. They are security guards, block watch captains, and loss prevention specialists. They think they are one of us, and they will call in to report a "519 in progress! I need a black and white out here, stat!"



I have no idea what you're talking about.


I always have to ask again, "What are you reporting? In plain English, please. Just tell me what the emergency is." The caller then gets frustrated and we have to start all over. See all that time we just wasted? That's your 519, getting away.


Lets talk about lingo! Every police department has a different way of saying things. Like I mentioned before, our 911 handles several departments. None of them have the same lingo for anything! One department will still use 10 codes. Roger, 10-4 and all that. Another department insists on everything on the radio go out as plain English. Yet another has lots of officers who are former military, so we still get the occasional "Wilco, over and out".


So just because you've seen the guys on cops yelling about perps and larcenies and pc to arrest, doesn't mean every department talks that way. If you call 911 and use the lingo you've picked up on TV, you're going to sound like an idiot.


I get callers all the time who call in to report a robbery. Now robberies are serious crimes. They usually involve a weapon of some sort, bodily harm or the threat of bodily harm, and theft. I think New Yorkers call them muggings. These are calls that our officers will swarm to. They go full throttle, lights and sirens, guns drawn, K9 officers deploy, the adrenaline starts pumping and we are all raring to go.


I learned the hard way about these kinds of calls. As a rookie operator, I got a call, with a guy screaming that he had just been robbed. I slam the call in, get units started, start calling for K9...then as I'm talking to him, I realize he's actually reporting a burglary. He had been out of town for the weekend and someone broke into his house. Yeah. That's a whole different crime. I was pretty embarrassed canceling all those extra patrols, canceling K9. I could just imagine the one police officer still responding cursing me as he turned off his lights and siren and slowed back down to a normal speed. He cut short a perfectly good cup of coffee, or didn't get to finish a report he was working on, all because I took a citizen's word for it. Ooops. So over the years, I've learned how to foil this one. Now anytime someone calls in reporting they've been robbed, my first question is "At gun or knifepoint?" 95% of the time, there is a confused silence, and the caller back pedals. I help them out and say "Ok, so you're reporting a burglary." Yep, now we understand each other. I know its a legit robbery when my caller answers me "Gunpoint. He got everything in the drawer". There we go, easy peasy!


One night I had a woman (block watch captain, yay!) reporting a female at a bus stop. Told me she was "loitering with intent". I am apparently supposed to understand this fine piece of television police lingo. It took me 5 minutes to get the caller to tell me she thought the woman was a hooker. Can't you just say that to begin with? I understand hooker. (Though I will use 'prostitute' in the call. My job is to filter all the crap that comes out of your mouth into something civilized and easily understandable.) Do we really have to dance around it?


The officers checked on her by the way. She was waiting for a bus. At a bus stop of all places.