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46% of my centers calls last year were either misdials, dropped cell phone calls (so much hate for 9-emergency key on cell phones), pranks, or telco/tech issues (dead lines, faxes, etc). We're a fairly small center, about 15,000 population, but i'd guess that there is a similarly high volume of non-emergency calls placed in the system elsewhere.
in many centers it is most certainly the dispatchers job to determine if a call is a prank or not and to prioritize response. Dispatchers are trained professionals and integral to managing a very limited resource base of responders.
I'm not trying to defend what the dispatcher did, but many of you are of the opinion that the dispatchers job is to simply parrot information gleaned from a caller to a responder, and in many call centers, that is just not the case. Most agencies prioritize calls, unit assignment, and place resource management onto the dispatchers.
its not as simple as always sending a full response, unless you want to double the resources out there (through increased taxes / user fees / special district funding soruces) prioritization, and resource management will continue to occur. now in this case, clearly some part of that system is failing and needs to be fixed -- but it isn't as simple as the "someone calls, you go" philosophy i'm seeing in alot of these posts.
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