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?
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 cop 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?
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.
Edit: call from a nearby business’ phone or a borrowed cell phone, and just don’t leave your name and try to stay off a security camera while you’re doing it. Unless you’re really distinctive looking, odds are the person who let you use the phone is probably not going be able to give much of a description of you if cops ask for some reason
Back in the day a Payphone if you can find one.
Now I am not sure if their is a way anymore.
They send violence to those that ask for help. They’ll do no different for you.
What an unhelpful reply.
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.
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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?
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Seriously?
Phone the cops. Now.
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.
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.
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.
It depends on the area, many people live in places where 911 is for non-emergencies too. When you call the dispatcher will ask if its an emergency and potentially put you on hold if it isn’t.
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.
Another thing that just occurred to me, is that if we harp on people too hard about only calling 911 when it’s a “real” emergency, they start getting paranoid and are reluctant to call sometimes when they really should call
I’ve seen it happen in person, one time I was over my friend’s house and we had a short but really intense storm roll through. We look outside and a big tree on his property is leaning and very obviously about to fall over the road and probably take down some wires.
He starts talking about calling the township and the electric company and like 3 other agencies to get it taken care of and starts looking up phone numbers.
And I’m there telling him to just call 911. I get about 50 calls just like that every time there’s a storm, it’s not a big deal- you know your address, your cross streets, what town you live in, you’re not a moron and not freaking out and can explain the issue intelligibly and succinctly, so you’re better than like 70% of the calls I get on any given day, the entire call will last you like 30 seconds. We have all the contact info to get anything we need out there to deal with it and can do it blindfolded because we do it every time there’s a storm.
And even with a 911 dispatcher, standing there telling him to just call 911, he was really reluctant to do it because to him it wasn’t a “real emergency”
And of course everyone has a different threshold for what a “real” emergency is. I’ll get people calling in cool as a cucumber to calmly report that their daughter just got stabbed like it’s something that just happens to them every other Tuesday, and I’ll get people losing their minds like it’s the end of the world as we know it because some road construction is too loud (and of course that same person would probably call in just as angry that there’s a pothole in the road and they’re angry it hasn’t been fixed yet)
I have a thousand other stupid reasons people called, some came in on non emergency lines, some on 911, and just as many stories of people who called in actual emergencies on a non emergency line for one reason or another.
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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.
Good diet plan! Average person burns around 80 calories per mile walking at a moderate pace. You burned 800 calories to eat a 660 calorie Whopper.
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.
I would suggest calling the city or county and reporting suspicious dumping. It could be a body. It could be a rotting animal carcass. It could have toxic chemicals in it.
You don’t need to suspect that it’s a body to call the city and report what looks like dangerous dumping.
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.
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!
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.”
I never report any of the dead bodies I find, I really hate paperwork
Thanks buddy, I really appreciate it.
A similar situation happened to me! DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING Call the non emergency number! If they are annoyed that they came out and it winds up being garbage, who cares? At least you didn’t ignore something potentially very important.
In my case, it was a suitcase that had duct tape around it. That showed up overnight. I called local cops first that sent guys out that seemed bored, honestly. And my heart was racing as I answered questions. When they opened the bag, it had ripped clothes and a half used roll of duct tape. The local PD literally said “well, we don’t have a crime we can match this to.” They started to leave without the bag and I was confused why they wouldn’t at least take it for evidence? I have watched too many episodes of CSI, cold case etc and was freaking out. They left. I guess they just want to make money on traffic stops.
I couldn’t leave the situation there, and a friend knew someone in the State Police. After a few phone calls I got in touch with a detective. Who was very confused that the local cops had handled the situation like that. He arrived and took the bag into evidence and got my information. As far as I know, nothing ever came of it.
How was the duct tape in the duct taped suitcase?
You’re asking a guy who got offended the cops didn’t take a random suitcase with clothes and tape as evidence of a non existent case enough to call up a detective who probably just took the time to take the thing to a dumpster somewhere
The circumstances it was found in were a little different than OPs, like I said the bag appeared overnight. And on private property where there was no road access. Little bit suspicious for a heavy suitcase to wind up in a place like that. The detective agreed. Police aren’t just there to make traffic stops. He said there were a few unsolved missing persons cases that police had searched the nearby area for on account of their circumstances. In one case, a wife went missing, and her husband was spotted circling the roads nearby for hours the night she went missing but her body was never found.
I just kept my story brief because I didn’t think anyone would be interested. But there was absolutely reason to think it could amount to something. And all I’m saying is if I get murdered, I hope the local cops I initially called aren’t on the job cause those guys acted like they wanted to be sitting in their car eating donuts.
Yeah, but like, what about the duct tape?
The roll inside the suitcase was what he used to bind her with, and was discarded with the clothes torn off her. He later used a different roll to bind the suitcase.
Yeah, I guess when you put it that way
You’re aware that it’s legal to own more than one roll of duct tape, right? Or to tear a really long strip off the roll and wrap it around something after you put the roll inside? 😁
So, do you think they were trying to hide the evidence? Including the tape they used to hide the evidence?
I like to think they were planning for the mass confusion it would cause on Lemmy. “They’ll never figure this out, muhahahaha!”
But I’m on to them. Oh yes.
That was part we were confused by! I literally asked my coworkers before I called the cops if this was some sort of prank they were playing on me because no one else had access to the area and it just seemed like something out of a cheesy mystery novel. When the police opened the bag and it was just clothes I was so relieved, but the roll being inside was weird. Like someone either had another roll of tape for the outside, or they preeemtively cut a length off before putting the roll inside. Who knows. I wonder if I’ll ever get a call about it, but suppose no news is good news.
cheesy mystery novel.
Well… I guess I’ll just delete that Google doc I’ve been working on for 2 and a half years! 😭
Hey, I love all mystery novels. Cheesy or not!
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.
My friend found a tent on his property. It had mold on one side of it, a horrible smell and basically a black cloud of flies. He tried to open it but the stench was so bad he just called the police.
I bet it’s just a mannequin.
(It’s never a mannequin)
And don’t forget to update us on the outcome!
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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.
