A few years ago in my force, the drill was to type the first sentence of speech from a call into the logging system, that way it gave a good overview of the nature and seriousness if the call as well as providing good evidence.
When we entered the modern era if never saying no to anyone in an attempt to make people love the Police, I got sent to a job with the first line of text being "I know this is nothing to do with the Police, but..."
My very short time spent with this lady advised her that if that was to be the first line of her call, nice as her biscuits and hospitality was, we really did have other things to be doing! Compared to her concern of the neighbour having just too many bags of building sand and a loud parrot, the chicken in the road seems important stuff!
My good lady once received a 999 call asking if Tesco still had fresh bread on the shelves! It was late at night
She also got one reporting a fire, and when Mrs T asked the old dear why she hadn't asked for the fire brigade she said that she didn't want to wake the poor loves up!!!! Bless
Tonks
Ps... These time wasters should get a £60 fine for wasting police time!!!
No real sympathy for the Police, because many Forces have brought this upon themselves. Until last year , we had an active Station in our ( small ) town centre . It had a counter which was staffed during daylight hours. A small fortune has just been spent on re-roofing it . Has this improved the service to the public ? No, because now it has been closed to the public, and the nearest station is some 7 miles away .
No real sympathy for the Police, because many Forces have brought this upon themselves.]
Whilst I am continually embarrassed by the cutting of services by my Force and others, it's hardly good cause to block the emergency lines with time wasters who don't realise how serious it is. Many times were deployed to false calls which until proved as false, tie unit up who then can't respond to a genuine call.