Kent residents are urged to call 253-852-2121 to report non-emergency police incidents, ensuring that 911 will be readily available for actual emergencies.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
That’s the message put out this week by Kent Police Chief Ken Thomas.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Examples of calls that are appropriate for a non-emergency operator include:<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 A residential, business or vehicle break-in that occurred on an earlier day<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 The return of a runaway child<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Identification of additional lost or stolen property after an initial report has been made<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Lost property<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 A hit and run traffic collision when no longer at the scene of the accident<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cOver time, the message for residents has been to call 911 any time a response is needed, even if it wasn\u2019t an actual emergency,” Thomas said in a media release. “While good intentioned, that approach actually stopped people from calling 911 when they didn\u2019t believe their situation was an actual emergency. By promoting use of the non-emergency number, we\u2019re hoping residents will feel more comfortable calling for assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Both 911 and the 253-852-2121 numbers will ring into the Valley Communications Center. If an emergency is detected from a non-emergency call, it will be routed to the correct operator for immediate response.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Located in Kent, and known as Valley Com, the center answers emergency 911 calls and dispatches police officers, firefighters and paramedics to people in eight cities.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cWith multiple jurisdictions using Valley Com, we anticipate by sharing consistent information, we\u2019ll minimize confusion about what constitutes a non-emergency call,\u201d Thomas said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Examples of when to call 911 include:<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Serious medical emergencies<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Any crime in progress<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Any type of fire<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Any dangerous or life-threatening situation<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Any suspicious activity<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Any time someone fears for their safety or the safety of others<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Anyone unsure if their situation is an emergency is encouraged to call 911.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kent residents are urged to call 253-852-2121 to report non-emergency police incidents, ensuring that 911 will be readily available for actual emergencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":6692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-7978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7978"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7978"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=7978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}