ASHEBORO N.C. – Last year Randolph County Emergency Services’ 9-1-1 operators answered 128,580 calls. We reviewed records to find out the where and why.
Of those thousands of calls, the most recorded call type at 11% (14,089) were 9-1-1 hang-up, misdials, or open lines (aka butt-dials), followed by 11,186 calls (8.7%) which were marked as duplicate calls where several people called in to report the same incident.
Theft was responsible for the largest number of 9-1-1 calls reporting crime in 2022 (when larceny and burglaries are combined) with a total of 4,145 or 3.2% of all calls.
Retail stores are usually among the places that keep local police the busiest with Wal-Mart locations being the most frequent with almost 1,000 calls for service between the two locations in Randolph County last year.
9-1-1 records indicate that there were 712 calls for service at the Asheboro Walmart located at 1226 E Dixie Dr, and 237 calls for service at the Randleman location. Combined, that’s a total of 949 calls, the highest of any retailer in the county.
“We do respond there a lot, but I wouldn’t say we are overburdened by them,” says Steven Leonard, Chief of Police for the Randleman Police Department. “It’s larcenies, but it’s also people leaving animals in cars, and welfare checks.”
Records show that the Asheboro Walmart was the second most common call response address, behind only the Asheboro Police Department which logged 740 calls for citizens who walked in to report a crime.
Randolph Hospital takes third place with it being the response address for 651 calls, followed by the Asheboro Summit Apartment Complex with 402 calls, and in fifth place the Randolph Mall with 343 calls.
From location to reason, after removing hang ups and misdials, we graphed the top nine most common types of call last year.
After theft (larceny and burglary combined), calls for service with welfare checks account for 4.1% of calls, followed by calls about suspicious persons or vehicles at 2.7%.
Domestic calls take fourth place at 2.6% and in fifth place, local police conducted 2,695 traffic stops.
If the 128,580 calls were spaced out evenly that would mean one call was made to the 9-1-1 center every 15 minutes, all day, every single day last year.