People call the police for a variety of reasons. Typically, dispatch has no choice but to assign the call. The assigned officer has to respond. That doesn’t mean that the officer has to assume that the original complainant is rational, credible and reliable or correct in the assertion made.

In this instance we have a parent complaining because of events that occurred during a distance learning situation. The key being “DISTANCE LEARNING.” There is no safety issue or threat. The complaining parent, hunkered down at home with their yard ape observed another child hunkered down in his home. These kids weren’t in the same room. They may not have shared the same zip code. This all occurred via the Internet.

The offender had a toy gun in proximity (within the camera view). This made the idiot complainant feel unsafe. A complaint to the school resulted in the teacher contacting the gun kid’s mother.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/05/26/glimpse-of-toy-gun-in-school-related-zoom-call-results-in-police-response-to-family-home/

A couple of hours later a cop shows up. The story doesn’t say, but there are two possibilities as to the delay.

The idiot who complained decided that he/she had not obtained sufficient satisfaction from the teacher’s actions. He/she or maybe heshe called hours after the event. The second possibility is that the dispatcher recognized the complaint for the crap complaint it was and assigned it a low priority. The dispatcher then assigned the call based on the fact that there were no other calls pending. Another possibility is that the officer dispatched pissed her off. So she sent him on to his just reward. Given the officer’s subsequent actions I’m inclined towards dispatcher revenge.

Chances are the dispatcher either over the air or via Mobile Data Terminals (MDT’s) presented sufficient information to indicate this was a nuisance call.

With what limited information I have, my approach would be low key. Two questions I would want answered: was this a real gun and is there a safety issue?

The story states that kid’s mother confirms the existence of the toy gun and displays it. If the gun looks like the one below:

I would be inclined to give the caller the benefit of the doubt. However, if it looked like this:

Then all bets are off. The call is complete. Mama confirms that there are no firearms in the household. No guns, no safety issue, no cause for complaint, done. What remains is an explanation and an apology for wasting her time.

Except, some cops just can’t admit that they were wrong. In this case, not personally wrong but, acting on bad information. In their view, to admit being wrong will cause the foundations of American law enforcement to crumple. Hundreds of police office pogues could be killed or injured in the collapse of police headquarters.

Instead they compound the error by swaggering off into a lecture about gun safety.

I used to patrol a wealthy bedroom community surrounded by San Antonio. I used to claim that the city was inhabited by trust fund babies. They were all to stupid to have earned the money on their own.

The most popular call on the hit parade was for a suspicious person. Invariably a person of the wrong color would be engaged in such nefarious activity as walking down a sidewalk, sitting on a bus bench or picking up or dropping off the maid, or yard man.

There is something called a Terry Stop. In it a police officer develops a “reasonable articulable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot and that a specific person is involved.” The fact that an idiot can dial 911 and babble to the dispatcher is not an indication of suspicious activity.

However, police officers can interact with the public up until the time that the individual indicates that they don’t want to play.

My opening gambit went something like this. “Sir, I have received a report that you are engaged in suspicious activity. That is probably due to the fact that you are the wrong color. I don’t think that you have done anything wrong. I felt that I ought to warn you about this community. Any further discussion was carried out without the onus of jackbooted thugs.

The reader may, at this point be inclined to think I have some liberal bones buried deep. You would be wrong. I never made a citizen contact without first thinking about how I would kill the person. In this manner, I could afford to appear nice, right up until the time I wasn’t.