LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — People can't "drop a dime" to police to report criminals anymore. Payphones are things of the past.
Instead, the Little Rock Police Department wants people to drop them a line to their dedicated inbox to report fireworks violations in the city.
"We want to make sure that people are aware that whenever they are experiencing fireworks in their neighborhood, we want them to report them via email instead of inundating our call center," said Officer Eric Barnes, a spokesperson in the LRPD public affairs office.
Thursday, the department will open up the inbox on FireworksViolations@littlerock.gov.
The email account paired with a dedicated non-emergency line in 2019 to free up the call center to handle urgent medical, police and fire calls.
Reporting at the time said it reduced 911 call volume by almost a third, but officials noted Tuesday that actual email reports were very few compared to non-emergency phone calls.
This year, the push is almost entirely focused on the email address, complete with supervising staffers monitoring the inbox all weekend.
"Whenever those emails come in they'll be going to our supervisors that work in the call center," said Barnes. "They'll be able to see those and get them to the person on dispatch and we'll have a unit specifically assigned to the area to handle fireworks."
Department leaders hope an email system draws the many gripes that right now often end up on neighborhood social media sites like Nextdoor and Facebook. Since the start of the week, many are already filled up with complaints about more than just after-hours noise.
"When you look at some of the veterans in the community that this may be a concern," said Barnes. "The noise brings up a bad experience for them."
Pets and their reactions are also often mentioned. All that is above and beyond the baseline fact that fireworks are illegal in the city limits.
"In Little Rock, to possess them or use fireworks in the city, is unlawful underneath the city ordinance," said Barnes, who didn't expect many confrontations when police respond.
He said officers usually hand over fireworks to the fire department to be destroyed while trying to educate users about their dangers.
Of course, police are not steering people from reporting gunshots or other serious noises, though dispatchers can usually help callers determine if explosions are for fun or felonious.
Barnes also said the city's Shotspotter detection system can tell the difference between a cherry bomb and a firearm.
"We just, we're trying to route them a different way to the email, so that for any medical emergency we may arise, we want this to be our route of receiving those complaints," he said.