Fondots , 4 hours ago

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)

1. 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.
2. The station forwards you to us
3. The station tells you to hang up and call 911.
4. 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.