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Pleasant Grove police are offering some pointers to parents and students after encountering several challenges largely related to cellphone use during last week's massive response to a man-with-a-gun hoax.
Sgt. Austin Edwards said cellphone circuits in the area were tied up during the Thursday ordeal with a high volume of calls, and that cellular communications from students to parents resulted in a wave of calls from parents and family members to dispatchers.
"Keeping the lines of communication as open as we can is critical for us," Edwards said Tuesday.
In audio obtained by KSL through an open records request, one woman is heard asking a dispatcher on a 911 line simply for information about the incident.
"Depends on the day, we only have a few dispatchers working at a time," Edwards explained. "That can tie up the line for somebody who may be in distress or actually have an emergency occurring close to them."
Instead, police recommended that parents and others seeking urgent updates default first to official police and city social media channels for information, keeping police lines free as much as possible except to relay information that may be important to the police response.
Police also said misinformation spread through students' use of cellphones, with some kids even reporting that they heard gunshots inside the school. No shots were ever fired.
In post on Facebook, police also noted potential dangers of leaked videos from inside the school while the situation was active, and of students standing around windows to take pictures and videos.
**A FEW TIPS ABOUT THURSDAY'S INCIDENT AND A HEAD'S UP FOR THE FUTURE **CITIZEN QUESTION: I have a question concerning...
Posted by Pleasant Grove Police Department on Tuesday, December 8, 2015
"Stay away from the windows and be as quiet as they can," Edwards advised. "Barricade the doors, lock the doors, be a harder target."
Edwards underscored nobody in particular did anything wrong, and they don't fault anybody for wanting to know what was happening, but he encouraged more judicious cellphone use, particularly in calling emergency lines.
"We're in a digital age where everybody has access to a cellphone and social media," Edwards said. "We realize that that's not going away. It's just something to point out just for future reference."
