A Taipei man complained yesterday that he called 110 to ask for help from the police as he tackled a burglar breaking into his apartment, only to find that the line was busy.
The man, who wanted to be identified only as Mr Huang, said he was disappointed that the first two calls from his cellphone did not go through. When he finally got through on the third attempt, the perpetrator fled, he said.
“I never thought something like this would happen to me and in the capital city,” Huang said.
He said the incident occurred around 7pm on March 29. On returning home from work he was shocked to find the door of his apartment wide open. Huang said when he turned the light on, the burglar jumped out and engaged him in a physical struggle, trying to snatch his cellphone as he attempted to make a call. The perpetrator then escaped after Huang chased him down one block.
Showing a copy of his cellphone record, Huang said he made three phone calls at 7:08pm, 7:09pm and 7:18pm. The first two lasted for about one minute and the third for more than five.
Records retrieved from Taipei City Police Department’s Service Center by New Party Taipei City councilor Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) showed that the center received only two phone calls from Huang, one at 7:07pm and the other at 7:15pm.
Center director Hsu Hsi-jung (?a) said it was possible that callers could have difficulty getting through if lines were busy but that such a possibility was unlikely. The center currently has seven people manning seven phone lines at once, he said, but could study the possibility of adding another person and one more line to the service.
He pledged to train staffers to be more efficient in answering calls in a bid to shorten the length of each conversation. He also urged the public to refrain from making prank calls to the 110 and 119 hot lines.
Hsinyi Precinct deputy director Lin Wen-kuei (林文貴) said it took police two minutes and 41 seconds to get to Huang’s apartment after they received the request to dispatch an officer to the scene at 7:09pm. Huang, however, said he felt it took longer and that they did not respond on Saturday when he reported he had seen someone who looked like the perpetrator at a nearby convenience store.
Tsai San-pao (蔡三保), director of the Wuxing Police Station, said they did not see the person Huang reported at the store so they could not arrest anyone. They visited Huang daily after the burglary, however, before he reported the sighting of the suspect.
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