In Extremis: Trick 'r Treat and 911 Dispatching
Disclaimer: This article is written as entertainment and is not legal advice. If you are currently on hold with 911 to report my terrible humour, please hang up and don’t call again. This is a recording. Spoilers for a movie released over a decade ago follow.
You are alone in your house. A monster, albeit a pint-sized imitation of Lock Stock & Barrel from Nightmare Before Christmas, is stabbing you with a razor filled candy bar. While fighting for your life you manage to fire two shotgun shells into the perturbed pumpkin (following good double tap practice). You grab your rotary telephone (what year is this?!) and call 911. You are now greeted by “911 please hold”. You scream at your phone and eventually are connected to an operator… but the line is cut. No officers show up to investigate and you are later killed by the ghosts of some kids you contract killed…looks like you got your just desserts.
But worst of all THE MONSTER KILLED YOUR DOG!
Who would hurt this GOOD BOY?!
Well that sounds ridiculous, but it is a part of the fairly enjoyable anthology film Trick r’ Treat. But what would actually happen in this situation?
911 dispatchers CAN in fact put you on hold, a fact that is outrageous to the public. For the government employing the 911 operator to be sued for their action, there must be a “special relationship” formed between the caller and the operator. Three things must be proven:
- The operator made an express promise or assurance of assistance;
- The victim relied on the promise or assurance of assistance; and,
- Damage is caused by relying on the promise or assurance of assistance.*
An example would be if the 911 operator said that help was on the way, when the police or emergency health services have not been called, and then someone was injured or died. An operator was found not liable for telling a woman not to intervene with her husband while he was dying of a heart attack, as the damage was not caused by the victim’s reliance on the operator’s advice (there was nothing she could do).**
In the scenario of Trick r’ Treat the portrayal was almost accurate to what would happen. Mr. Kreeg was put on hold with 911 for about 6 seconds. In an article linked below, Bill Bodgers, the commander of the North Carolina 911 remarked that in “[o]ver a million calls we[‘]re answering 90 percent of them within ten seconds.” Some callers are put on hold for more than 40 seconds. 911 operators often have to prioritize calls, and this film occurs on Halloween, a date where there may be a high volume of calls. ***
Mr. Kreeg finally gets someone on the phone and says to the operator “uh uh I’d like to report a…” and then Sam (the ghost child) cuts his phone line. Police will come investigate if the operator informs them that the line went dead. It is unclear if the operator and police would treat this as a priority or non-priority call. Now there are three minutes and 30 seconds of screen time till the sinister sprite leaves. The average response time depends on where this movie was set. The average response time in Vancouver, where the movie was filmed was between 7.5 minutes and 9.9 minutes in 2012. Big cities like New York are between 4.5 minutes and 9 minutes, whereas New Orleans had an average response time of 79 minutes, and 20 minutes for priority calls.***** If this is a rural area it may take a while for police to arrive at the house.
However, we see in the closing credits that Mr. Kreeg, who was responsible for the School Bus Massacre from the second short, is himself massacred by the ghost children. We are shown no officers arriving in the intervening time. Police show up when a broken phone line accidentally dials 911,***** so this seems highly unrealistic. Especially since no one in his neighbourhood called the police after hearing several shotgun blasts go off; but with a neighbour busy murdering, maybe the whole neighbourhood is just use to this kind of thing.
That said, the operator would not likely be held liable in this scenario as there was no special relationship created and how was he to know that this guy was about to get ghost ganked?!
So, remember kids, if you are being menaced by a ghost monster, call the police about 9 minutes or more before you plan to get killed.
I give Trick 'r Treat a 7/10 for legal realism (No police shootout with ghosts) and a 7/10 for being a good film to watch once a year… on Valentine’s Day.
*https://forpeopleforjustice.com/can-911-operator-sued-negligence/
**http://www.5dca.org/Opinions/Opin2016/103116/5D16-1245.op.pdf
*****https://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/12/police-response-times
******http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/bell-landline-911-toronto-police-1.3816648
Adam
Contributor/Actual Lawyer
Adam is a lawyer from Nova Scotia, Canada... that place above Maine beside Anne of Green Gables’ house. He hosts a deplorable show examining the law in sci-fi films called the "Space Lawyers Podcast". Adam enjoys the finer things in life such as "so bad they are good" films (see Leprechaun 4: In Space), pestiferous puns, and his collection of over 365 bowties.