A Story to Go With a Word of Caution

 Maybe BP residents know this.  It was told to me as if everyone knew it, or should have known it.

Yesterday, I was campaigning door to door.  I came upon one of those double door arrangements, with an outer metal and screen door, and an inner solid wood door.  There were no cars in the driveway, and it was during "business hours," so I figured probably no one was home, and I'd just leave a card.

The outer door was already ajar -- sometimes, they're locked, but they're always closed -- and I pulled it open to knock on the inner door.  But the inner door, too, was open.  I could just look right into the house.  I called out several times -- "hello" -- and there was no response.  Not only was it not a good thing that a house was totally exposed, but frankly, this did not look like a good scene.  Let's just say there was imagery there, and it was not happy.

So, I called Village Hall.  "For police, press 3."  It rings forever, and no one answers the phone.  I called again, and I pressed 4 for the Village manager.  No answer.  On call #3, "for the administrative clerk," I pressed 0.  BINGO: Mailan Nguyen.  Mailan said there's no one to answer the police line (so why does the recording say to press 3 for police?), and I should call either 911, if it's an emergency, or the non-emergency number (305-4POLICE), if it doesn't feel to me like an emergency.  It seemed ominous, but not like an emergency, so I called the non-emergency number.  Although I suppose it was possible that the homeowner, who was not yet dead, was still on the floor bleeding from the knife wound inflicted by the person who knocked on the door, ostensibly to ask directions or something, then overpowered the homeowner, attacked him or her, and stole his or her car.  (I told you the imagery wasn't happy.)  But this probably happened some time ago, so I really didn't think it was an emergency, any more.

It took a while (maybe 15 minutes) for anyone to get to the house.  (I decided to wait.)  Two CNM cruisers went by, but they didn't stop, so they hadn't been dispatched for my call.  Finally, an unmarked SUV stopped, and it was BP police.   They entered the house -- which I had not been willing to do -- called out to identify themselves, checked the premises, did not find the corpse, and were satisfied no terrible thing had happened.  Their first thought was that the house might be abandoned, but I couldn't imagine why the doors to an abandoned house would have been open.  But they checked the refrigerator, found "fresh" food, and decided someone actively lived there.  Maybe, they thought, the homeowner absent-mindedly left the house, and forgot to close the doors.  So now, we're probably talking about someone who is not cognitively all there (I did notice a walker inside), but who's driving (or walking?), which evoked different, and less ominous, imagery.

The BP officers left, and they said they were going to close the door.  I expressed concern that the kind of person who leaves home without closing the doors might also leave home without taking his or her keys (although, if they have and drove a car, then they probably did have the keys), and one officer said "then they're going to need a locksmith."  And he closed the door.

The other thing he told me, which I didn't know, and which is the point of this story, is that BP no longer has a police dispatcher/receptionist.  It wasn't a temporary quirk that no one answered the police extension when I pressed 3.  There isn't anyone there to answer that extension.  That phone isn't assigned to anyone.  It's not even forwarded to Mailan Nguyen.  Whether or not it's a good thing for us that we saved the cost of hiring someone to answer the phone for our police department (or make use of a volunteer, as we did for years) is a separate matter.  The fact is that answering that phone, when it rings for a really long time, is no one's job.  The deal now is that any BP resident who needs attention from the BP police has to call either 911 or the non-emergency number.  The latter is run by the county.  You decide whether you think your problem is an emergency, or you think it isn't.  

And close and lock your doors.  Car doors, too.