OMAHA 911!

In a move that would make Anti-Smoker in Chief NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg blush, the people of Omaha, Nebraska have decided that enforcing the city's no smoking ordinance is so important that they want citizens to call 911 to report violations.

police consider it just as serious as reporting a road accident, homicide or assault

Well smoking can kill you, and second hand smoke can kill those around you so...quick, alert S.W.A.T. there's a smoker on the loose!

Funny, I was taught that you report emergency crimes through 911 and non-emergency crimes through the police department's local number. But really, it's hard for me to imagine that someone smoking in a restaurant is something the manager can't handle. Do they really need to tie up a 911 operator for this? Apparently Douglas County Emergency director Mark Conrey is the one-eyed man in the land of the blind for he warns that, "trivializing the 911 telephone system to report by-law and ordinance infractions threatens its reliability and could compromise response times."

All hail the new king!

PS. Found this at "Dispatch Monthly" (I love that there's such thing as Dispatch Monthly).