SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Thanksgiving brings an increased workload for those at Springfield-Greene County 911.
“Any time you have groups of people gathering, you’ll see domestic disturbance calls start to increase.” Kris Inman said. “Any time you have a large number of people who are together, you will often see this type of call increase. This is a time for, you know, accidents to kick up quite a bit. We see a lot of cooking fires and cooking-type injuries come to 911 quite a bit this time of year. And domestic disturbances, any time you get a lot of folks together in a tight space, you often see that as well.”
Law enforcement, along with 911 operators say domestic situation calls increase with the holidays.
“During the holiday season, we do seem to see a rise in calls for service calls for service for disturbances and domestic disturbances.” Lt. Mark Foos with Springfield Police said.
Foos and Inman say there are different ways to diffuse a situation if it gets tense.
“If you are at a family gathering and it looks like that, you know, you can see that the demeanor has changed within participants or those involved. The number one best thing we can do is just to separate.” Foos said.
“If things get heated with regard to the folks that you’re around or that becomes an argument-type situation, remove yourself from that situation. I know it’s you kind of want to dig in and particularly in a hot political climate, but remove yourself from that situation.” Inman added.
Inman says his 911 operators are prepared for the holiday.
“Our call volume will tick up on Thanksgiving, but we are trained for that and our folks are ready to send out the help that folks need any time.”