Fun times . . .

411 and 911 are NOT the same thing. I'm just saying. And I would REALLY like to know what in the hell goes through peoples' minds before they call the jail. Did they print our damn phone number in the front under the heading: "Don't know who else to call? Call us!" For those special few people who do NOT call 911 for stupid things like Burger King being out of lemonade or McDonald's being out of chicken nuggets; there is a whole other category. These people call the jail, or dispatch, who punts them over to the jail all night.
We have become the non-emergency, but I think it's an emergency, but I need legal advice, but he has warrants hotline of the whole damn county. The one that made my blood pressure go up the fastest was during a massive power outage. "Can you tell me if John Q. Public Schools are open today?" Lady, are you kidding me? IT'S A JAIL!! Hell, I'm not even sure if we have court tomorrow right now.
My other pet peeve is when people call to see if we are holding someone, the answer is no, and then the fun starts.
"Well he was arrested an hour ago! Where could he be?"
"Arrested, pulled over or just detained?"
"Arrested!!"
"By what department?"
"I don't know!"
"Where was he arrested at?"
"I don't know!"
"Ok, well this is a large county with multiple jails and departments. You may want to try somewhere else."

The even better part is when some well meaning police department in our county or an adjoining one pulls the "They're going to county" stunt. This is where said alleged law breaker is arrested by someone other than the SO and the arresting officer tells the loving family "They're going to county." What said officer fails to mention is the following.
1. Depending on policy, procedure and fresh charges they may have to be processed by that agency first.
2. They have to wait until we can free up a road patrol unit or a transport unit to meet them if they are not bringing them to us.
3. If they ARE bringing them to us, they have to free up a unit.
4. Sometimes they just pull stuff out of their butt.

So we've got that going for us, which is nice.