Chaos at police 10111 call centre

WITH reference to The Herald article about the police 10111 centre and Danny Jordaan’s visit (“Centre out of top drawer”, September 8), as a active member of my neighbourhood watch I would like to let the public know how poor the service from the new 10111 centre actually is. I have had numerous car chases where suspects were committing crime in our area and the 10111 centre cocks it up every time.

I chased a car from Mount Pleasant onto the M4 freeway and all this time I was on the phone to 10111, having gone through three policing areas, namely Walmer, Humewood and Mount Road. They were not able provide a vehicle to stop these suspected criminals in an old Toyota Corolla.

I then called back and asked why they had said all their vehicles were busy. I then asked why was the incident not handed over to the flying squad or the dog unit, and the supervisor could not answer the question.

I have had several cases where we have the vehicle with suspects in front of us, and we give the registration number, colour, make and model, and number of suspects, etc. There is always chaos at the 10111 centre, operators also don’t have a problem cutting you off while on the phone and don’t even call you back.

When you call in they take down all the information. You then may call back in 10 minutes’ time, now you get a different person and you must explain the whole situation to the new operator.

Had they just given the operators numbers, for instance “Operator No 3, can I help you?”, it would be a lot easier to call the 10111 centre back and get in touch with the same person you spoke to earlier. This while travelling at 100km/h through the street of Walmer on a rainy evening and I don’t have time to remember all the names of the operators at the 10111 centre.

There was an incident just outside Newspaper House some time ago when I saw some Korean tourists being attacked and had to intervene. The police arrived in true holiday fashion from Humewood – no rush at all.

Even the police officers in the vehicles on the ground just shake their head at the 10111 centre situation. I know 80% of the time when I call the 10111 centre it’s going to end up in a situation of zero score to us and one to the criminals.

Maybe Jordaan was wowed by the 10111 centre, but to sum up the situation, its services are generally very poor and disorganised. The equipment at the 10111 centre may be first class, but the staff are not.