I'm going to use this thread to vent a bit about a situation that happened in my life:
This was when I was living with two of my good friends, Roommate A and Roommate B. Roommate A informed us one day that he had called an abuse hotline, described his relationship with his girlfriend at the time, and the person on the hotline had confirmed that it was an abusive relationship. He told us that he'd tried to break up with his ex/GF for months but that she wasn't taking it, and told us not to let her in the house if she came by. Within minutes, she called him... she was already waiting outside the house as he was having this conversation with us. Next, she repeatedly knocked on the door and even came in to our backyard while in a frantic state. She tried to open our backyard sliding door while Roommate B told her she needed to leave (we kept Roommate A, the one dating her, away from the situation). To make things worse, Roommate B was dating the ex/GF's roommate... and Roommate B's GF was of course at the house with us, watching her friend have this meltdown. Roommate B's GF went outside to try and calm down Roommate A's ex GF but nothing worked, and it just went on for hours with her outside, refusing to leave. The whole experience was... jolting... a bit.
After 2 or 3 hours of this, we called 9-1-1. I was the one who dialed and the main one speaking. The call started out fine, I told the 9-1-1 Operator that the ex GF had been in our backyard and was refusing to leave. So, she asked me some questions about the situation and took some info, and if my memory serves me correctly, she asked something like "has she broken anything or threatened to kill herself" (thankfully she had not done either) and I told her no, she just was frantic and wouldn't leave. The Operator then asked "what do you expect the Police to do?" in a condescending manner, like I was wasting her time. Mind you, this is after 2 to 3 hours of Roommate B and I trying to reassure Roommate A that it wasn't his fault that his GF/Ex had done this (he was apologizing for getting us into this mess) and also checking in with Roommate B's GF who was outside with the frantic girl. The Operator then got actually mad when I insisted that she have the police come, and I told her that the crazy Ex/GF may even need an ambulance. The Operator angrily told me "if you tell me I need to send an ambulance, then I have to send one" as if I was putting her in a bad position. She also told me that she thought that the girl was just sad that she had been broken up with (I had tried to explain the background) and that she wasn't trespassing because "she is outside our house but in her car". I don't even know where she got the "in the car" bit from, because I had told her that she was just outside our front door and had been in and out of our backyard periodically. It was shocking that the lady was just making assumptions about the situation instead of just sending an actual professional who could come and actually asses the situation directly.
The most frustrating part to me was that none of us had ever been in a situation like this. We needed help, and the Operator just wasn't the type of person who should be in her position. She was stand-off-ish and even angry at times; I couldn't imagine someone in a more dangerous situation (like the Sherman families' here) and having to fight with the Operator to get them to do their job.
I do have to remember that we are all people though. We all make mistakes, but regardless, someone who regularly talks like that to people going through a crises (IMO) shouldn't have that job.