So I was walking and found this garbage bag that had flys on it and it was tied up. I kicked at it a bit and it did feel like something limp was in there like it was dead. Tried to untie it as well so might have my fingerprints on it. But yeah a car came up and was yeah someone actually concerned for me and he’s like I’m going to pray for you man. So that right there just got me to stop looking any further at the bag. But I’m still kinda of interested if I should’ve said something right then and there. My phone was almost dead anyway. But yeah I was thinking maybe I might find a dead body maybe a part of a dead body. I didn’t look any further but it was out of place I felt. Should I report such finds?
In my country, you can phone the nearest station(not using emergency line) and the police will check it for you. That’s how a lot of murder victim is found in my country anyway. They will also check for suspicious package left at the train station to make sure it’s not a bomb.
911, what’s your emergency?
I found a dead body on the side of the road.
Where are you? I’m sending police to you now.
Uhh, I touched it.
OK, don’t do that. Do you have hand sanitizer?
I may have eaten some.
…
Also, I tripped. I may have slipped inside.
What does that mean?
I…completed.
Listen just stay where you are, police are on their way.
And don’t forget to update us on the outcome!
Well I got a call back later from a private number I meant to answer but missed out. Since their number was private I couldn’t tell.
I called to report a possible body in a bag to the police.
But if I had gotten a random “Gonna pray for you” comment about me poking the bag, I would shut my mouth and move on with life as if I’d never seen the bag.
OP killed a guy and thinks this is gonna be part of their cover story
I feel like this is a pretty crass joke to make.
A good friend of mine found a body a few months ago. It’s a pretty shitty experience. And it’s actually a lot like what OP describes. A sense of foreboding and suspicion combined with a conviction that these thoughts are foolish. And an uncertainty whether to check or to alert someone or to just try to forget it.
Op, I’d report it and ask them to please follow up with you and let you know. It’s probably nothing, and you’ll feel better once you know it was nothing, and that you did the responsible thing in having it dealt with.
Exactly what I was thinking
Honestly at least if it is a dead body I’ve called it in and explained that I did touch it trying to open it but couldn’t.
“we found your fingerprints on the body”
Yeah I may have reached my hand inside and felt around a little my bad
Suuuure
Call your local law enforcement, either police or sheriff via the non-emergency number to not waste 911 time.
Seriously?
Phone the cops. Now.
Yeah there are non-emergency police numbers other than 911. I also say phone it in.
Wait, why would you not call 911? Murderer on the loose sounds like an emergency to me
I think 911 (or whatever the number is where you live) would be fine. But the argument could be made that the emergency number should reserved for active emergencies, in OPs case the victim is already potentially dead.
So, you’re correct that active emergencies take priority.
That being said, in essentially every place that has 911, both numbers connect to the same place and the only real difference is pick-up order and default response.
It’s the emergency number not simply because it’s only for emergencies but because it’s the number that’s the same everywhere that you need to know in the event of an emergency.It should be used in any situation where it should be dealt with by someone now, and that someone isn’t you. Finding a serious crime has occurred is an emergency, even if the perpetrator is gone and the situation is stable.
A dead person, particularly a potential murder, generally needs to be handled quickly.It’s also usually better to err on the side of 911, just in case it is an emergency that really needs the fancy features 911 often gives, like location lookups.
I would argue 911 is for emergencies that 100% need to be dealt with immediately.
This feels like calling it in and letting them decide priority is better. It could be anything.
So there are currently murderers on the loose (actual fact). Does that mean we live in a permanent emergency?
No, Bush, you have to have actionable intel.
Somebody get me some intel
We need to see proof of those WMDs first
It varies a bit from one area to another, but a lot of places have moved to a central dispatch model where basically everything goes through the 911 center one way or another. It’s usually best to just call 911 and cut out the middle men, worst case scenario they’ll tell you it’s not an emergency and who to call, maybe even connect you to them directly. Even if your area works differently and they do actually want to dispatch non emergencies from the station, you really need to be a nuisance before anyone even dreams of trying to get you in trouble for misusing 911, no one wants to do that paperwork or go to court for a one-off call.
Source- I am a 911 dispatcher.
If you do call the non-emergency number, one of 4 things is usually going to happen (in my county)
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The call comes right into us anyway, a lot of stations aren’t staffed 24/7 so when they’re not there to answer the phone it rolls over to us, or sometimes they even publish or give out a direct number to us instead of their actual inside line because most of the time we’re going to have to deal with it anyway.
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The station forwards you to us
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The station tells you to hang up and call 911.
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The station takes down the information, then after they hang up with you, they call us and relay it to us (and usually misses half the details we’d like to have)
Pretty much the only things the people answering the phones at the station are good for is answering general administrative questions- “can I get fingerprinted for my job?” “did anyone turn in some lost keys?” “How do I get a permit to…?” “How do i get a copy of a report?” “How do I pay my fine?” “Where was my car towed to?” Etc.
If you need a cop to do something, even if it’s just to take a report, your best bet is usually calling 911.
I think it definitely varies by county. I worked for an IT company that served a lot of county governments across a few states in the US, and a majority of them would try to discourage 911 calls for things that weren’t active emergencies.
Lots of counties had central 911 operations that coordinated for other local municipalities (ie the county 911 would dispatch a local city’s fire department), but non-emergency numbers usually went to the local municipality. Sometimes municipalities would have non-emergency calls roll over to the 911 center, but those calls were always tagged differently, and essentially moved to the back of the queue behind 911 calls. The goal was generally that if you call 911 you talk to someone immediately, whereas if you call non-emergency you can wait on hold for a bit if there were a lot of 911 calls.
My thing is that I get so many callers who are really bad at making a determination for themselves what is and isn’t an emergency or who to call. They’ll call a 10 digit police non emergency line because someone’s having a heart attack or their house is on fire or something else really urgent instead of just calling 911 or even instead of calling the fire department or ambulance station, or someone got stabbed and they call the wrong towns non emergency line, maybe even a town with the same name in a completely different state or even country (I once got a call for a town in Australia with a similar name to one of ours) so we kind of have to act like those non emergency lines are also potential emergencies.
Yes, they do go to the back of the queue, and in some places that’s more of an issue than others. In my jurisdiction, if the phone rings 2 or 3 times before it gets answered, emergency or not, that’s a lot for us and we’ve been fortunate that our staffing and call volumes haven’t been bad enough for that to really come into play except for some really bad major incidents (mostly severe storms and such, in which case, most people aren’t bothering with non emergencies anyway)
Some places do have longer queues and it could come into play, but I’ve had to transfer callers all over the country, usually those transfers end up going through on a 10-digit non emergency line because of how the transfer works, so we’re going to the back of the queue, and it’s pretty rare that we have to wait long for an answer. It’s less of an issue overall than you probably think.
Those non emergency calls can also often be handled very quicky. For a basic non emergency call, I’m getting an address, name, phone number, and like 1 or 2 short lines of notes, I’ve entered probably thousands of meet complainant calls (officer just needs to go out and meet with the caller to take a report) where the only thing I put in the notes was “RE: FRAUD,” “RE: HARASSMENT,” “RE: ONGOING ISSUE WITH NEIGHBORS, NOT IN PROGRESS” etc. If the caller is even marginally cooperative and not too long-winded it can take me like 30 seconds, they’re not tying up the queue for long.
One of our neighboring counties does have staffing and call volume issues, and it’s not uncommon to have to wait a minute or two for someone to answer, and sometimes even longer (they got hit hard during the George Floyd riots a few years back, and a couple times I had transfers to them during that that had we wait like 10 minutes in the actual 911 queue)
But a lot of the callers for them tell me that they tried calling the station directly or 311 only to be told to call 911 instead, even for some things that our stations could handle directly (and again, ours can’t handle much)
Location is also a big thing, having a landline address or cell phone location is a big time saver and we don’t get that on non emergency lines. A lot of our callers have no idea where they are, what police department covers their area, etc. (you’d also be amazed at how many people don’t know their own home address) and so a lot of times just trying to verify the location where something happened/is happening is the longest and most difficult part of the call.
It’s also sometimes surprisingly hard to find local contact info. Even with access to a database of other 911 centers, Google, etc. I’ve occasionally struggled to find the contact info for some other jurisdictions when I’m trying to transfer a caller, once or twice I struck out from the usual channels and had to call a neighboring jurisdiction and ask them to be transferred or get the correct number from them.
It pays to be aware of any special situations in your area, if they do have high call volumes, staffing issues, etc. and calling with a non emergency can actually create significant delays
Or we have a couple departments that have chosen to opt out of using our county PSAP for police dispatch (although we still handle fire and EMS for them) so in those areas it is often preferable to call them directly instead of needing us to connect you to them, although that location info is still very useful and again they don’t get it if you call them directly, so there’s been cases where someone calls them directly, but can’t tell them where they are, and they end up telling the caller to call 911 so we can get that location info for them.
But at the end of the day, the point of 911 is that no matter where you are, even if you don’t really know where you are, you know what number to call to get in touch with police/fire/EMS. Hammering on people about what is/isn’t an emergency is kind of antithetical to that, and overall most areas are moving away from that.
If you are absolutely certain that your call isn’t an emergency, you have the time to look up the phone number, and you’re ok with very likely being told to call someone else, or call back at a different time, maybe getting transferred around a few times, etc. then by all means please try the non emergency line. If you’re not sure, if you can’t wait, if you don’t have the phone number, if you need a cop to go do something now, then probably call 911.
Thanks for the detailed reply. I totally see your point about people not calling 911 when there’s an actual emergency, or calling the wrong number, and that resulting in a delay to first responders being notified in a critical situation. Obviously not a dispatcher myself, but have spent some time working with them, and I would say that most of them would echo your sentiments. I’ve heard some funny stories though of people calling 911 for the most inappropriate reasons - lost dogs, car won’t start (was in caller’s garage, not like they were stranded in a blizzard or something). My favorite was an elderly man who apparently called 911 because his computer was being “hacked”, sounded like he got one of those scam calls. That one made me pretty proud of the security awareness training we did for county employees.
As a 911 dispatcher, don’t you think the worst case scenario is someone choking to death in a chicken bone while you’re explaining to a flood of casual callers that their situation doesn’t count as an emergency?
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At the very least, OP, dumping garbage by the road is against the law, so even if it’s just regular garbage, you are reporting a crime regardless. Bonus: a cop has to deal with someone else’s garbage.
It was probably just full of garbage (which is also “limp” and attracts flies) and the idea of some cop having to cut it open and go through it because you called it in is sort of funny.
With that said, I have wondered about similar things. One time I saw a guy I thought might be dead but I waited a few minutes, he moved a little, and I figured he was probably just very drunk so I left. Another time I did go tell an NYC cop that there was a guy lying on the ground in the middle of a busy street, and the cop didn’t seem to care. Maybe I should have called 911 instead but I didn’t want to be officially associated with the situation.
and the idea of some cop having to cut it open and go through it because you called it in is sort of funny.
“Yeah, officers, uh… I definitely saw a body, at the bottom of the landfill… If you don’t find it right away, just keep looking, it’s definitely there.”
This kinda thing just happened to me 2 days ago. Out taking the dogs for their evening walk and some dude was lying in the middle of his yard splayed out on his back, eyes closed, motionless and alone. It really looked like he had fallen off the roof or passed out so I waited for 10 seconds to see if I could see breathe, didn’t, said loudly “you okay there buddy”?
‘Yup’
“awesome. Have a good evening.”
😳
Good on ya for lookin out!
I have to know - was this in Knoxville?
I live in Indiana.
Deer hunting season begins in less than two weeks. Depending on exactly where you found it, it could very likely be a poached deer’s discarded guts. This is common in rural areas. And, people tend to hide human bodies a bit better than in a bag on the side of the road.
What’s happening in Knoxville that made you assume this? 😰
Open it
Call 911, tell them where it is, explain that you found a trash bag somewhere and you’re concerned it has a dead body in it, don’t disturb it any more than you already have
I work in 911 dispatch, from my end of things this is a very straightforward call. Verify your location, one or two short lines of notes, send a copy out to check it out.
I’ve taken a few calls like this, luckily it’s always just been trash or at worst a dead animal.
One time the responding officer found some bones in the bag and was pretty sure they weren’t human, but called out our on-call coroner to be sure who confirmed that it was just a deer or something.
Similarly I once had a call from an off-duty coroner reporting a “strong smell of decomp” from the woods near a gas station or something. I guess if anyone would know it would be them. Sent a cop out, sure enough, it was a dead deer.
It’s very rare that anything like this is ever as exciting as your imagination makes you think it might be. Still, always better to call if you’re unsure.
Honest question, you seem like a great person to ask.
In the event fingerprints weren’t a issue…
What would be the best way go about this anonymously?
They send violence to those that ask for help. They’ll do no different for you.
What an unhelpful reply.
Unhelpful because it happens so frequently?
Police can lie. And because OP has added to the potential crime scene, they are now a potential person to interrogate.
Do it anonymously.
Will you please re-read my comment? I specifically asked how to report it anonymously & in no way mentioned the police.
Please please please use some basic cognitive skills here.
Everything a personal attack for you?
Personal? WHAT A TIRED FUCKING ARGUMENT…
If you can’t type in all caps, while swearing profusely, without your blood pressure raising, that’s your limitation friend, not mine.
I am completely fine talking your ass in circles all fucking day if you’re going to persistently talk out of your ass, bringing disingenuous comments to a conversation.
This isn’t personal at all, I’d just rather you waste your time trying to defend your ignorance with me, rather than foisting it upon someone else.
See? It’s Altruism!
In that case I recommend you call law enforcement and learn the hard way. It’s better than the alternative of continuing as you are.
Wtf are you on about? I asked how to anonymously get a dead body removed. Who the hell said anything about calling the cops?
You do get that cities offer more services to their residents than just policing? And that 911 operators can contact multiple services for support? Not just the police?
If there’s anonymous way to get a fucking dead body out my lil daily sphere of interaction, you’re god damn right I’d like to know about it.
Don’t you fucking paint my question with your bullshit asshole. Provide a useful reply or shut the everliving fuck up.
You sound like a pretentious cunt.
“DON’T ASK FOR HELP WITH DISPOSING OF A FETID ROTTING CARCASS OR THE COPS MAY KILL YOU. LEAVE THE CARCASS. ITS YOUR CARCASS NOW. IF YOU DONT HAVE YOUR CARCASS WHEN THE COPS COME ROUBD YOURE GONNA BE IN DEEP SHIT”
Where the fuck do you live that you don’t ask for help in disposing of dead material? Human or otherwise?
They send violence to those that ask for help. They’ll do no different for you.
Don’t you fucking paint my question with your bullshit asshole. Provide a useful reply or shut the everliving fuck up.
Uh what? Take a break from the internet.
I’ll repeat, I am not the one who brought the topic of the police into the this thread.
I simply asked a 911 Operator for information on anonymous reporting.
I’m not one misreading comments, ergo, I don’t believe I’m the one who needs a break…
But I applaud your condescension & reductivism… very constructive.
If you really want to remain anonymous for some reason, call from a payphone (they still exist,) use a burner phone, borrow a phone from a random passerby, wear a mask so no one can recognize you in case there’s security cameras, make sure you’re not seen getting into your own car or walking home, change your clothes somewhere in the middle, etc.
If you call from your own phone number, if we and/or the cops care enough, it’s not all that hard to get phone records and get your info.
But I’m also going to let you in on something- we’re not going to care. The cops may have a couple follow up questions for you (like maybe “how often do you walk this way,” "so they can try to establish how long it’s been there,) that I’m probably not going to ask on the initial 911 call. My job isn’t to take a full report and investigate and interrogate everyone, my job is to make sure cops are sent out to do all of that, and if you don’t give us a way to contact you back, you’re making it harder for them to investigate the incident.
And why? They’re not going to tell anyone who the random passerby was who found the bag, they’re not going to try to blame it on you, and honestly wanting to remain anonymous probably makes you sound a lot more suspicious than if you just gave your name and they’re probably going to put more effort into figuring out who you were and trying to drag you in for questioning than they would have otherwise.
Thanks for this. Helpful comment.
Question: Can someone report anonymously to a non emergency number?
I mean I get you probably shouldn’t call animal control or something, but if someone just really does not want to involve themselves with police/emergency services, is there a better option?
I helped open a community center in my hometown. We had more than a handful of volunteers who were brought up with a “no 911” mindset.
I guess I’m just curious if there’s an option for folks who are just flat out opposed.
Pay phone is anonymous answer, but the finger condom requirement will likely yield laziness.
So there’s 2 aspects to this
What cops theoretically could do if they’re properly trained and motivated and working on the crime of the century with the media and mayor’s office breathing down their neck
And there’s what they’re actually going to do for anything else.
Theoretically it’s almost impossible to be truly anonymous in the world we live in today. If you make a phone call, there’s phone records the cops can get access to, security cameras everywhere, if you call from a deactivated cell phone or take out your SIM card they can try to get the the IMEI number and see who that phone was last registered to, if you submit something online they can try to trace your IP address, etc. they can try to track down witnesses who may be able to ID you, etc.
Basically none of that is ever going to happen just to trace down a witness that called 911 who’s probably not going to be cooperative anyway. People watch too many CSI TV shows.
And good luck trying to get cops to try getting fingerprints for anything short of murder, and even then they’re going to be looking for the suspect, not a random passerby who called it in. They’re also probably not going to get useful prints off a payphone because 10,000 people have probably had their fingers all over that phone since the last time someone bothered to wipe it down. And if your prints aren’t already in the system, they’re not going to be able to tie them to you anyway (although from the way you’re talking about it I suspect a lot of people probably have previous records and been fingerprinted)
The practical answer is call from the payphone, call from a deactivated phone without a sim card, call from a borrowed phone, call from a TextNow or similar service number. That is more than enough anonymity that in all but the most extreme serious crimes the cops aren’t going to put in any real effort to try to track you down as a witness. They may put in a little more effort if they think you’re a suspect, but it’s usually pretty clear if that’s the case. Most of the time, they’re probably not even going to bother looking up the phone records even if you call into the station from your own number.
If the department has it, you can also try an anonymous tip line or submit the tip online. Those may not be checked very often, so I wouldn’t necessarily count on that if you have an emergency you want to be addressed quickly.
Really, just call, they’re not trying to bust people for other stuff for calling in an emergency, they’re not ratting people out as the one who called, that’s all counter productive and just makes more work for themselves in the long run. Make the call and leave the area if you want, we can’t make you stay there and you should have at least a few minutes to skedaddle before the cops show.
Back in the day a Payphone if you can find one.
Now I am not sure if their is a way anymore.
So I did call the non-emergency phone number. Could be a waste of time for the cops or whatever. What I was doing is walking to Burger King to get a Whooper I walked 5 miles there and 5 miles back home found it on my way home.
Whooper
Joking aside, if you think you’ve found a body, drugs, a gun, whatever it is; don’t touch it, find a place that’s far away from the thing but in view so you can keep an eye on it, and then call it in. I know, ACAB and all that, but this is serious shit. You don’t wanna be too close in case the owner comes back, but you don’t wanna leave it either.
Damn don’t think I’ve ever been “walk ten miles for burger king” hungry.
Anyway, dead bodies are typically the kind of things you want to report ANONYMOUSLY
Well it’s not the only time I’ve walked long distance.
The person said they’d pray for you because they thought you were a dumpster diver i.e. that you were gonna eat out of the trash so that’s what happened there. And so… It was also probably just a bag of food waste going gnarly.
It’s actually really funny to me that a cop has to go look in the funky bag. That’s a better use of their time than a lot of things they get up to of a day. Nice one!
The person said they’d pray for you because they thought you were a dumpster diver i.e. that you were gonna eat out of the trash so that’s what happened there.
Possible, but it is a huge stretch to automatically assume that was what they were thinking.
Yeah it’s a pretty rural area. I think he was just someone looking to spread his religion to cause he basically did hold up traffic a bit. So it did seem like he was actually concerned I would be walking all the way out.
“Hey buddy you need a ride?”
“Yes”
“Well I’ll pray you get one”
::: Peels out as he leaves :::
