TweetyBird

From the newsroom of the Olathe News, Olathe, Kansas, Thursday,
January 13, 2005 .....

Use of IM by Police Prevents Suicide

By Leonard Hall

Last week in California, a police officer used instant messaging (IM) on a
computer to communicate with a teenager to persuade him not to commit
suicide and to get help. The teenager's girlfriend had called the police.

The girlfriend said she was communicating with her boyfriend by IM, when her
boyfriend threatened suicide. The officer stopped by the teenager's house,
but the boy would not let the officer inside the house.

The officer got on the girlfriend's computer to communicate directly with
the teenager by IM. After several exchanges of messages, the teenager agreed
to let the officer in and the boy was then taken to a hospital for future
evaluation.

This is the first known communication in a real negotiation situation
between a suicidal person and the police department using IM.

Unlike email messages that people send and receive over a period of time, IM
is instant communication on computers or pagers between two people. IM is a
lot like deaf people communicating on the phone with other people having
TTYs.

For several years, pagers were provided with the technology to send emails
and to do IM communication with another person having a computer or pager.
This technology was quickly used by many deaf people across the world.

Instead of talking by TTY, most deaf people are communicating by IM or email
through pagers.

Recently, the technology for cell phones allowed the users to send out text
messages and IM with other people having cell phones or pagers. The use of
text messages on cell phones has become very popular among the teenagers.

It appeared that some teenagers are shy and communicate a lot by text
message with other teenagers, particularly of the opposite sex. The problem
is that using text messages on the cell phone costs money.

When parents get the high cell phone bills of $200 to $400 for the use of
text message in one month, many parents have grounded their teenagers and
taken away their cell phones.

There are pagers that have pager and cell phone technology combined into one
device that allowed for unlimited use of text messages such as Sidekick by
T-Mobile, Blackberry by Sprint, and OGS by ATT for a small monthly fee.

Arden MacDowell has been the recent deaf member appointed to the Olathe
Citizens Police Advisory Council and providing information about the latest
technology being used by the deaf people.

The Olathe police department is studying the option of using this type of
service for reporting crimes. With many deaf and hearing people using
pagers in Olathe, it is an option that the police department is studying.

Currently, the police department has an email address at
Olathepolice@olatheks.org to be used for police related questions only and
not for reporting crime. This email address is not monitored 24 hours a day
or on weekends. Deaf people can call 911 to report an emergency or
913-971-DEAF (3323) (police TTY number) to report a crime.

Deafness

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Deaf258

It's happened in Utah, too. The use of IMs have saved a couple of lives.

Y

Good idea for every police station/dept using AIM

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