IF RESIDENTS OF AUSTIN, TEXAS, USA, WERE ASKED TO EXPLAIN WHY THEY NEVER CALL 311 OR 911 TO REPORT TO AUSTIN POLICE THE FACTUAL EVIDENCE THEY HAD WITNESSED, OR RUMORS THEY HAD HEARD, ABOUT ALLEGED POSSIBLE FELONY CRIMES VICTIMIZING A PERSON OTHER THAN THEMSELVES HERE IN AUSTIN, THEY MIGHT REPLY WITH ANY OF THE FOLLOWING:

---"If I call 911 or 311 and report tentative evidence of alleged criminal activities I've witnessed, it would be very financially costly to me for having made that call. I would be expected to take time off from my job in order to testify in a courtroom for the prosecuting attorney, and I feel sure that the DA would pay me either nothing or only a few dollars for my testimony."

--"I simply don't have the spare time available to call the police. There's no room for that in my time-management plan for this week."

---"I am experiencing so much road rage on the freeway here in Austin that I'm definitely NOT in the mood to call 911 to protect the safety of anyone I happen to see along the roadway who looks like they're being victimized by crime. Rush-hour traffic is so unnerving to me that it makes it impossible for me to even think about picking up my cell phone to call 911 for anyone."

--"If I called 911 and the police don't arrest the suspect, I am 100 percent sure that since he lives right near me, he would violently retaliate against me."

---"As a member of an illicit youth gang, I have taken a pledge that I will NEVER under any circumstance ever call the cops to report anything that I witness here in Austin. It is considered cowardly and a betrayal of my youth gang members if I ever contact the cops about anything."

---"I was a teenager in the 1960s when we referred to the police as 'The Fuzz'. I disliked 'The Fuzz' then, and still do. So no, I won't call the police about anything I ever witness here in Austin. It would be a betrayal of my proud hippie heritage."

---"It would be foolish of me to call 911 or 311 unless I actually see a suspect with my own eyes. I would hate to waste APD's time with a phone call complaint about a cited ghost allegedly trespassing inside my locked home and allegedly stalking me and abusing me during my sleep."

---"If I make a 911 call and the dispatcher sends an EMS ambulance out to accompany the police, I could get charged with that EMS bill. That's my guess, anyway. They could claim that I was the one who prompted the visit to the scene by the EMS staff."

---"I'm an artist by profession, and I do all of my talking with my paintbrush. I'm very good at painting scenery at Inks Lake when the bluebonnets are in full bloom. But I'm not good at describing mundane matters orally, such as talking about crime suspects. It's completely outside of my area of focus. So when it comes to 911-call situations, what I'll do instead is maybe a watercolor painting that offers a visually intriguing profile of an individual in distress. That type of artwork can sell, I have found in the past. A lot of Austinites like to have at least one artwork on display in their home that shows compassion toward crime victims."

--"I am too busy recording the crime scene with my cell phone camera to actually make a 911 call to the police. My hope is that I can sell the video images to the victim or his attorney in exchange for a $5,000 payment. I assume it's perfectly legal for me to make some money out of the incident. After all, I'm providing a valuable public service through the video I'm obtaining that can be used by APD at a later point. And besides, I'm way behind on next month's rent. Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say."

---"I lack confidence in the Austin Police Department. They have never solved any crime I reported to them when I myself was a victim of crime. So if I call 911 to try to help someone else, it could just be one more local crime case that goes unsolved by APD. Maybe there's a hex against me by some witch or warlock whenever I call 911. But this suggests that I'm superstitious, doesn't it?"

---"My astrologer indicated to me today that I should refrain from contacting the police department about anything during this particular 24-hour period. My astrologer has been  accurate in the past, so the illegal activity I just witnessed will have to get reported by someone whose astrological sign indicates that today is a good day for them to call 911. It's just not in the stars for me to play NARC today, if I put it in very blunt English."

---"I hate NARCs, so why should I be a NARC myself by calling 911?"

---"My female dog is very upset with me that I haven't given her a walk yet today. So any report to APD about a very loud argument in the unit abutting our own will have to wait until I bring her back from that outdoor walk."

---"As a Christian Austinite, I know that life is often unfair to us mortals. The question is, should I be presumptuous and attempt to meddle in what God is obviously permitting to take place across the street before my mortal eyes? Maybe God is testing me on my own love for Jesus, by subjecting me to that apparent injustice and asking me whether I can have faith that God will resolve injustices on His own. Maybe God is asking me to pray for the victim in lieu of calling 911, to prove I'm confident that God will intervene to prevent any further injury to the crime victim."

---"Whenever I witness activity like what I just saw 50 feet from me, I am reminded of the distinction between a mortal sin and a minor sin. I forget the term for minor sins. They are sins that don't put someone in Hell, if I remember correctly. Minor sins are trivial, it seems to me; what I saw was probably a trivial incident that I can just wince at, without having to bother the police with an actual 911 call."

---"In all my years of going to confession here in Austin, I have never once confessed to my priest that I failed to report to the police many of the major crimes I witnessed here in Austin.  During confessional, the priest never asks me how many 911 calls I made in the most recent week."

---"I try to never call 911 to report on anyone who is committing a crime that I myself have committed in my own life. This means that anyone committing theft of property; sexual assault; attempted homicide; or kidnapping does not have to worry about my turning him in to the authorities. I will witness his conduct without comment, since I've done all of that myself."

--"If I call 911 to report on a Hispanic male drug dealer I see doing a drug deal 100 feet from me, he might find out the name of my own drug dealer and then hours after he gets released from prison he'd retaliate violently against my own dealer. At that point, I might be at risk of turning into the next victim on that ex-con's revenge-with-rage hit list."

---"If I get a public reputation for reporting evidence of illicit-drug activities in Austin, everyone would be calling me a 'NARC' and there would be no end to the grief I'd get from it all. To be a labeled a 'NARC' in Austin today is to incur ostracism and condemnation from 80 percent of all Austin residents."

--"What I need to to is take a class on how to identify a crime in the making here in Austin. None of the schools I've attended has ever taught me that skill, and I feel very strongly that calling 911 in a diligent manner is one way to show good citizenship skills. Unfortunately, though, I don't know of any private instructor here who teaches potential good samaritans like myself on how to make a habit of calling 911 to help protect the safety of residents and visitors here. Until I get the opportunity to take a class of that type, my tendency is to err on the side of NOT calling 911, regardless of what I witness here in Austin."

---"It's not like the local news media are publicizing the names of each local celebrity who failed to call 911 and ask for Austin police at any time during the most recent one-month period. As a famous celebrity myself, I find it very reassuring to sense that no one is going to publicly scold me for failure to be vigilant and heroic."

---"As a City Council member here in Austin, I could lose the votes of many of my constituents if they learned that I had called 911 to ask APD to investigate them. I don't want anyone to accuse me of taking advantage of my position of authority here, so I let others do all the 911 calling---especially if it's a complaint about illegal conduct by someone residing in my district."

---"I don't know the state penal code well enough to be sure whether another Austin resident is breaking the law in full view of me. What I need is a 'Citizens Guidebook on How to Tell Whether Someone You are Observing from 20 feet away is, in fact, violating the law and should be reported to Austin Police'. Since there isn't any guidebook like that at present, this gives me the excuse of ignorance in the meantime."

--"I already have so many hobbies and pastimes that keep me fully occupied during my retirement years. I feel sure that the younger fellows here in Austin will be happy to do all the 911 calling that's needed if they see something that looks suspicious. When I'm in the middle of a chess game as a retiree here, the only thing suspicious I can see is a knight putting me at risk of losing my queen."

--"Everyone associates me with gracious hospitality. So if I developed a reputation here for calling 911, everyone would worry that I've lost my flair for Southern-style hospitality. It's as if I've developed this awful fixation on trying to get half of Austin's residents arrested and put in Huntsville State Prison. That's what everyone would say about me, what a big change for the worse I have taken---how I have this split personality that is very confusing to everyone."

---"I prefer to call 911 and make a report to police after I've had a cup of coffee. If I observe suspicious activity at a time when I haven't had my mandatory cup of coffee, it just doesn't feel right to push the 911 button on my cell phone. I want to be as alert and informative as I can possibly be when I'm talking to the dispatcher, and caffeine helps me to make that type of report possible."

---"If I call 911 and get famous for it, that could ruin my reputation for being very low-key. Modesty is one of my leading attributes, everyone says, and there is something brash and immodest about calling 911 to ask for a police investigation on someone."

--"I wish I knew more about the sociology and psychology of calling 911. I think if I read a book about the history and sociology of 911 calls and 911 callers, this would help to encourage me to add that to my leisuretime rituals. I would feel more competent and more informed as a 911 caller if I truly knew more about the grand tradition in which I am now participating."

---"If I developed a habit of making 911 calls, I might have a tendency to file reports on my enemies and adversaries. This could lead to severe reprisals against me. Ideally, I would think I would want to file 911 reports about persons who are neither enemies nor adversaries of mine. How nice that would be, to feel confident that since they would not attempt to target me for reprisals if I call 911, since I have no malice toward them."

---"No one wants to be the Mrs. Kravitz of their neighborhood. There's a lot of social pressure NOT to call 911 and ask police to investigate a neighbor, since as Samantha Stevens repeatedly proved on the television show "Bewitched", that neighbor was actually very benevolent and charming and, unfortunately, very misunderstood by everyone living near them."

--"I'm on information overload here in Austin, since there is so much crime going on here that I would not know where to begin filing crime reports for APD through 911 calls. Maybe if I make zero 911 calls, this will help the crime problem to go away, by demonstrating to everyone that I continue to have the high hope that Austinites will eventually learn how to obey the law on their own."

---"On a rainy day, it discourages me from using my cell phone to make a 911 call to the Austin Police Department. Owning a cell phone is something very new for me, and I'm worried that if I attempt to make a 911 call to APD when I'm outdoors on a rainy day, the rain would destroy my cell phone. If I could find a waterproof cell phone that I can use during rainy weather, this would probably encourage me to make 911 calls under those outdoor-weather conditions."

--"As a professional actor living here in Austin, I love the idea of a great dramatic scene in one of my movies in which I am dialing 911 to save another Austinite's life. It would look great in a movie profiling me as a good guy in a city with lots of bad guys. In real life, though, it would be a waste of my time. There would not be any camera recording my heroism so movie fans of mine and future generations could get goosebumps from watching me contact APD."

--"Environmentalism is my great passion in life, and I take pride in driving an electric car around town to help protect the Ozone Layer. Our entire planet is at risk of annihilation if we can't reverse the Global Warming Effect ASAP. Compared to that, the incidents between humanoids, as I call them, that occur within eyesight of me when I'm behind the wheel are very, very trivial and not worthy of my attention. I will make a 911 call to APD if I witness an environmental crime, such as someone driving around town with lots of smoke spewing from their tailpipe. But any other type of 911 call would be about a matter so infinitessimally insignificant compared to what our entire planet as a whole is facing, that I wouldn't waste my time with it."

--"As an environmental-minded Austinite, the primary question I always ask after a murder case is whether the victim was cremated, and if so, were there ashes spread into wilderness land to help nourish the botanical life and wildlife there? This is my top priority: Was the cremated body returned to nature properly? The rest, about the circumstances that led to that scattering of nutrients to plants and animals in nature, is quite irrelevant to me."

---"I am very sure that the white guy being assaulted across the street had ancestors who were slave owners. As an African-American man, I can't possibly find any interest in calling 911 to ask the Austin police to protect the safety of that descendant of a slave owner. His racist heritage is very repugnant to me."

---"As a news media professional in Austin, I am honorbound to never call 911 to report any of the crime evidence I witness to the Austin Police Department. This is how I protect my own credibility as an objective, impartial observer of the Austin scene. I am here to REPORT on the news, but NEVER to actually MAKE the news."

---"When I call 911 to ask police to protect the safety of an Austin resident, I always prefer that the victim I help be someone who's a member of my own religious congregation. Helping members of my congregation is my top priority, and that includes the relatives of mine who are members of that wonderful congregation."

--"My hair and make-up do not look good today, so there's no way I'm going to use my cell phone to call 911 at this time. If the crime I'm witnessing is as major as I think it is, Fox 7 will immediately send a reporter of theirs with a cameraman to interview me at the scene. And people all over the world will laugh at my smeared make-up and mussed-up hair. It will make a complete mockery of me all over the globe!"

---"When I'm listening to rap music on my headset, which I do about 90 percent of the time when I'm not at my workplace, I tune everything else out. You could have some guy commit murder in broad daylight across the street from me, and I wouldn't even hear the gunshots or see the murder take place. Someone else would have to handle the 911-call part."

---"Nothing fazes me, that's even my nickname, they call me No Faze Harry. So why should I get fazed if I witness a member of the criminal element here attacking some bum with a machete? I do video games that are twice as violent as what I ever see when I'm out in public here in Austin."

---"What most honkies aren't aware of is that when I'm in public places, I keep my headsets on while listening to music in order to signal the right message to other members of the black community that I won't call 911 and tattle on them if they ever break the law within eyesight of me. They always know that they can count on me to not betray any brother of mine by snitching on them to APD."

--"My strategy of keeping my headset on and listening to rap music at all times during my off-duty hours is my way of telling the DA that I WON'T be able to testify for Margaret Moore if anything within 50 feet of me ever goes to trial. The police would have to perform hypnosis on me to determine if my mind registered any awareness about the criminal incident that put the case in a courtroom. And even then, the results of APD interview of me after hypnosis might not be admissible as crime evidence when the case goes to trial."

---"To me, what I'm witnessing at a nearby picnic table just looks like a lovers' quarrel. They both put a lot of passion into it, which indicates to me that they have a very passionate romantic relationship. Italians tend to be very passionate about everything they do, and they both look Italian to me. So this is nothing I would want to report to APD. Nothing out of the ordinary about it. It's just the way Italians are."

---"It would be hypocritical of me to call 911 and report that I just saw a couple smoking marijuana together. I do marijuana myself about twice a month with my girlfriend. My policy is that I never call 911 to report anything that I myself do. Never throw stones from glass houses, if I remember correctly that old saying."

--"Even my parents smoked marijuana inside my home during my childhood. So marijuana activities are like a family tradition to me. If I called 911 to report to APD that I just saw a middle-aged person smoking marijuana at a Capital Metro bus stop, it would be like spitting in the face of my own parents!"

---"I would hate to take sides if I see two young men fighting over the same lady in front of a nightclub. It's one of those great American traditions that two men will duke it out with each other if one of them suspects the other of pursuing his own girlfriend. If there are injuries from that type of brawl to see who gets the girl, it's a matter for EMS, not for APD. So calling 911 in a case like that is something I let others do, since no police action on that is needed."

---"The guy over there striking someone with a hammer in broad daylight is a known video-game addict. All the video games he does are extremely violent, since he won't settle for merely violent video games, from what I've heard. His obvious defense when DA Moore opposes him in a courtroom is that he's addicted to extremely-violent video games and they caused him to do that. He will probably get off easy if he gets the right defense attorney. As for whether anyone is going to call 911 and actually report this incident, I am not sure that I have the appetite for making a call of that type. I sympathize with video-game addicts, since I do lots of video games myself. If there were a Video Game Addicts Legal Defense Fund here in Austin, I would gladly make a donation to that noble cause."

--"The rap music I listen to on my headset 20 hours a day frequently reminds me in very vivid terms that violence between one black brother and another is just a given of life. Murder is just murder, it happens every two minutes in the rap music songs I'm listening to. Why should I pick up my cell phone and call 911 about something as mundane and trivial to me as murder?"

--"The only way I could ever make a 911 call and give a crime report to Austin Police is if they would assure me in advance that the officer who'd meet with me near the scene of the crime is a woman. Everyone knows that I'm a very hot single lady, so the male officers would all be asking me out on a date if they arrived at the crime scene. But the police dispatcher probably would not be willing to guarantee to me in advance that I could get a female officer to respond to my 911 call. And if it is a female officer approaching me after my call, the odds are high that she'd be lesbian or bisexual, which would also be very rough on me as a 911 caller.  It would be a complete visual shock to me and would even nauseate me to be looking at that awful "butch" hairstyle, if it's a lesbian officer responding to my call. And either a lesbian or bisexual female officer might attempt to fondle my brazierre and ask me out on a hot date, since homoerotic ladies find me irresistible. The only type of officer I could handle as a criminal-law complainant, through a process of elimination, would be a heterosexual biological female woman. I also know, though, that if I specified to the APD dispatcher that I wanted a 'heterosexual biological female officer', he might snap that they don't discriminate based on sexual or gender identity. 'You will have to take whatever you get', the dispatcher might as well lecture me from his end of the phone line."

---"'I do my thing, you do your thing', that's my motto. Unless a police officer directly contacts me and asks me what I witnessed last night in downtown Austin, I follow the 'Tolerance Toward All' credo that goes well with our city's 'Keep Austin Weird' slogan. I tolerate gangsters; I tolerate thieves; I tolerate robbers; I tolerate rapists; I tolerate home-invasion crime perpetrators; I tolerate stalkers; I tolerate violent types. Until such time as any of them actually get arrested by the cops and actually get charged with an actual crime, I revere their human right to do their own thing, any way they want to do it, here in this 'Tolerance Capital of the Southwest', as I call it. Then if the police try to interview me about what I saw, I will politely explain that I'm so tolerant of all forms of weirdness here in Austin that I didn't even make a mental note of that particular act of weirdness."

--"The glare toward me from the sun makes it impossible for me to give a reliable factual report to the Austin Police Department about what I just witnessed. I feel I'm being very conscientious by disqualifying myself as a potential witness for the prosecution, since I was literally blinded by the sheer intensity of the sun here in Austin."

--"When I witness a violent crime here in Austin, I can't be sure whether it's a revenge crime, in which case it was provoked, or a regular crime. I might call 911 to report the incident if it's a regular violent crime, but when it comes to revenge crimes, I can fully understand and empathize with those who choose to take the law into their own hands to violently punish someone they had been wronged by."

--"I support the sanctity of sleep theme for almost everyone here in Austin. 
Almost everyone should get to enjoy eight consecutive hours of healthful and restful sleep every night. If they are enemies of mine, though, I privately celebrate if anyone breaks into their locked private home and subjects them to physical torture and abuse of their circulatory system, harmful nasal inhalants, repeated-sleep-deprivation-infliction, anal rape, and year-round acceleration-of-their-aging process. I have ZERO sympathy for my enemies!"

--"If the criminal activity occurs just before sunset, my ability to describe the scene I observe to APD is significantly undermined. I am probably able to see one person knocking another over along the sidewalk, but the details, such as whether there's a gun involved, would completely elude me at that hour. This is why I would be very unreliable as a 911 caller just before sunset, and I never make 911 calls at that hour of the day for that reason. It's true that I never make 911 calls at any other hour of the day, either, but that's an entirely different subject."

--"If I were deeply religious and regarded it as sinful not to call 911 about witnessing a crime victimizing someone, I probably would make a call to APD on that. But since I'm so non-religious I'm anti-religious, in fact I regard all religion as crap, I have no incentive to call 911 on that. I'm not worried about burning in hell for failing to make that call."

--"I think the woman who just struck that man was probably having a period of some type that was strictly biological in nature. Why should I call 911 if the jury will just throw the entire case out by emphasizing that she was having one of her periods at the time of the incident."

---"I have reasonable doubt, just like the jurors of Austin might put it, whether I just witnessed a kidnapping or not. It may well have been that someone from inside that motor vehicle was just assisting that young lady as she attempted to get into their own vehicle. Maybe she had a handicap, which explains why she needed help getting into the vehicle. It all happened with split-second timing, so I am glad I remember what they always tell the juries in American courtrooms. If you have a shadow of a doubt about whether the defendant is guilty of  the crime he's charged with, don't convict him. My decision not to call 911 today helps to achieve the not-guilty from the jury in that potential court case without the taxpayers having to foot the bill on that trial."

--"To me, I find it funny that Austinites refuse to call 911 to report a possible crime suspect they just observed. It's funny because it tells you something about the level of morality that most Austinites exhibit. It's the morality of a pot party guest."

---"The dispatcher would sound very skeptical toward me if I made a 911 call to report a crime I knew about here in Austin. I could not handle that skepticism, since I know perfectly well that my 911 report is valid.

--"I'm a party host on a monthly basis here in Austin, so I'm very accustomed to watching illegal things go on around me here in Austin without my ever calling anyone's attention to it. 'See no evil, hear no evil', that's my slogan."

---"To me, it takes a lot more courage NOT to call 911 than to be just another Austinite crying Wolf all the time and getting ignored even by the police dispatchers because he gives so many fake reports to APD."

--"If I called 911 on that, I would feel like a sleezy scandal-mongering reporter for the 'National Enquirer'. I am not here to sensationalize the world around me, so of course I show lots of restraint about ever making a 911 call. I refuse to put my nose in the excrement around me here in Austin; I simply will NOT stoop that low, as the sleezy journalists will do."

---"I disagree with those who say that I'm a coward for refusing to ever call 911 to protect the safety of other Austinites. My outlook is this: I have the courage to NOT call 911, despite all the social pressure on me to make that call. I am not one for sensationalism, and a 911 call tends to be that type of scandal-mongering, gossipy news that we already have too much of here in this college town and capital city."

--"I see calling 911 as a last-resort type of option. When I see a conflict in town, such as when two guys are slugging each other at a street corner, I prefer to play the role as a mediator and help to put a stop to it myself."

---"If I get that guy arrested through a 911 call, he might hang himself in his jail cell before he can be brought before a judge. I would not want to have any role in the suicide of anyone here in Austin, and my choosing AGAINST making a 911 call is one way I have to help prevent suicide here."

---"I get very confused when I see a human being physically attacking a wild animal or a pet of his here in Austin. I don't know whether our state penal code addresses man versus animal conflicts in our city. But I admit that I haven't done any reading on that subject. It just seems to me that humans are meant to be dominant in the animal kingdom, so everything else is a moot point."

---"It would be different if I knew for sure that that crime victim had ever made a financial donation to my own favorite political cause. The odds are high that he hasn't, so it is very, very difficult for me to care about his own life."

--"As a professional comedian here in Austin, I can only see one total reason for ever calling 911 to report to APD that anyone other than myself has been victimized by crime. That one total reason is if I ever decide to do a live comedy skit for the Capital City Comedy Club along Research Boulevard in which I plan to tell hilariously funny anecdotes about my various 911 calls to APD that I've made. I would need material to draw from for my comedy skit. I would have the entire audience laughing so hard that the entire building might shake as if it were an earthquake that just struck there.  That reminds me that I also am planning to do an earthquake skit in the near future that may even be funnier than my Calling 911 skit."

--"As a single lady here in Austin, I regard Italian Mafia men as being the sexiest men in the entire world. If I see a super-sexy Mafia man pursuing a non-sexy non-Mafia type in a physical way here in Austin, I would hate to do anything that might cramp the style of that Mafia hunk. He's in all my masturbation fantasies inside my apartment unit, so the least I can do is refrain from ever calling 911 and turning him in to the cops as a crime suspect. I'm a loyal member of his fan club, so I will do everything I can to protect his ability to stay out of jail."

---"Calling 911 would be a lot like hitting a panic button. I am not the panicky type, so hitting a panic button through a 911 call to APD would be an example of something I would never do. Mellowness is my thing in life, so I don't ever want to admit to anyone that I'm in a panic mode."

--"Nowhere in the Ten Commandments does it state that I must call 911 if I observe crime evidence here in Austin. And since the Bible doesn't quote God on that subject, either, this is solid proof that I won't go to hell if I discreetly choose against ever calling 911 for anyone."

---"I realize, of course, that cell phones were invented AFTER the Ten Commandments were issued. Maybe if they updated the Bible to refer to God's current position on the subject of cell phones of today and how they should be used, this would help me to decide whether to call 911 if I observe another Austinite being victimized by a physical assault in public."

----"I called 911 while I'm driving on the freeway to report what I just saw, the police or a DPS trooper might ticket me for using my cell phone when I'm behind the wheel. I don't see anyplace where I could pull over to make a 911 call, so this is one 911 call that is not going to happen. If the state and city offered decent shoulders to this freeway, it would be different. But they have made it very difficult for me to call 911 here."

---"One of my favorite sayings as a German-American Austinite is that I always say 'Nein' whenever I'm asked if I am willing to call 911 to help save the life of a crime victim other than myself. This is why 911 is a helpful neumonic device for me, since the first digit in 911 sounds exactly the same as the German word for 'no'. 'No, no, don't call 911 for anyone, no matter what!', an inner voice implores me with an earnest-sounding German accent."

--"As a German-American pedophile here in Austin, I often smile when I reflect on what, to me, is the deeper meaning of '911'. I laughingly translate that as a solid 'Nein' on the subject of whether I should ever pounce on 11-year-olds. They must turn age 12 before I'd even think of raping them, that's my pederastic moral code as an unabashed sex offender here in Austin. I might add, incidentally, that some of this reflects my lifestyle practice of getting high on marijuana every night. If I ever get arrested, I plan to use the Marijuana Aphrodisiac Defense in which I will emphasize that it was impossible for me to tell the difference between a 21-year-old and a 12-year-old, since I suffer from both dyslexia and an addiction to marijuana that, in both cases, is a condition I was born with as a genetically-induced trait."

---"I prefer to only call 911 on a day or night when I am have a pair of ear plugs I can grab. The only circumstance in which I will ever agree to ask Austin Police to drive to the scene of the crime where I am currently situated as a witness, is if I am wearing ear plugs when the blare from the police sirens blasts noise pollution at me."

--"I'm a movie producer here in Austin, and I'm doing a documentary film these days in which I am interviewing dozens of Austinites to ask each of them why they never call 911 to report to Austin Police factual evidence those private citizens observed or heard about an alleged crime victimizing a current resident of Austin. Because of the enormous amount of time I've had to devote to this documentary film production, throughout this entire creative project I have been unable to call 911 myself when I happened to hear or see crime evidence. It would probably be a conflict of interest for me if I called 911, since that's the subject of my film and I strive to appear impartial and fair to all sides in my documentary."

--"'To be or not to be a 911 caller here in Austin', that's the eternal question for so many of us. Myself, I find it more fulfilling to write poetry about social injustices I observe here. Calling 911 to report evidence of someone other than myself being victimized by crime would feel vulgar, crass, and anti-poetic. It's the exact opposite of the philosophically profound pleasure I derive from writing poetry about social injustice here in Austin."

---"If I call 911 about someone being a victim of crime, I would probably be expected to ride with the victim in the EMS ambulance as it drives to a nearby hospital. I would find that unbearably intense, especially since nine times out of 10 I don't even know the victim."

---"If I call 911 to politely request that Austin police arrest the gay couple here at Zilker Park who are currently eating marijuana-laced brownies at their picnic table, the dispatcher would snap at me that unless I can actually SEE the marijuana, no action will be taken by APD."

---"There aren't enough jail cells in Austin to handle all the Austin residents who at any given moment are high on an illicit drug. I always keep that in mind whenever I attempt to decide whether to call 911 and report my suspicions about any particular drug addict here in this 'Let's Get High Capital of the Southwest', as I often refer to Austin. If I call 911 to report that a neighbor of mine is snorting cocaine in front of his apartment unit, this could deprive Austin Police of jail space they need for a guy who raped someone in broad daylight."

--"As a high school student, I have to obey my parents. If I made a 911 call to APD that my parents don't approve of, they could ground me for an entire month. That would be disastrous for my social life!"

--"If I make that 911 call after stopping my car along the side of the road, the police might find out that I am legally intoxicated and do a breathalyzer test on me right there. The last thing in the world I want to do is get stuck in a drunk tank tonight as punishment for being a good and vigilant citizen!"

--"I'm one of those people who never talks about sex. For me to make this type of 911 call I would have to tell an APD dispatcher about a lady in the nude having sex in public with a man while she's screaming loudly about it. If it were a non-sexual type of item, I would gladly call 911 to report it. But this is an X-rated realm of commentary in which I do not dwell. It's too pornographic a scene for me to describe to the police. The entire subject is outside of my comfort zone as a prospective witness."

---"If I call 911 and describe what I just saw to a dispatcher for APD, I could get sued for violating the privacy of the individual I'm describing! We have some pretty aggressive privacy-law attorneys here in Austin, and they would make mincemeat of me in a courtroom, particularly if they allege that my 911 report was defamatory toward the plaintiff!"

--"I never had formal instruction on how to file a 911 report to APD, and I blame the Austin Independent School District for that. If my school district wanted me to be making 911 calls to APD, they would have taught me how to do it at my  high school. But since I never got training on that, this is one 911 call that is not going to take place."

--"What I've found in the past is that when I call 911 to report a suspicious activity I observe in Austin, that activity suddenly ends abruptly seconds after I begin talking with the dispatcher. This leaves me a bit flabbergasted, since I don't know what to say at that point. There's no point in having a police car drive to the scene if the scene itself has suddenly vanished on me. It all feels like a cruel joke from some prankster in the background who is determined to make me look foolish in attempting to file a possible criminal-law complaint with the police."

---"As a fervent Christian here in Austin, one of my favorite sayings from the Bible is: 'Judge not, lest ye be judged'. When I witness what appears to be a possibly sinful act here in town, I am very proud of  the Christian humility I show by choosing against calling 911 or making any kind of moral  judgment on what I just observed."

--"If I call 911, I might wake up the next morning and face a front-page story in the 'Austin American-Statesman' that identifies me by name as the one who contacted APD and got an individual arrested. That could invite violent retaliation against me by friends and relatives and associates of the guy who got arrested."

---"I think I would have a lot more incentive to call 911 if the dispatcher would directly inform me from the very start that she's assigned me a random-drawing number I can then use to contact a 24-hour-a-day automated phone service operated by the City of Austin that will tell me seven days later whether I won a $10,000 random-drawing prize for having made that 911 call to APD. I could sure use the money, and it would be nice to have something a bit different from the Texas Lottery to win prizes from."

--"Everyone knows that I'm heavily into S&M, so when I happen to see sadistic torture of someone going on outdoors in public here in Austin, I look upon it as a new twist on what I'm already doing indoors. My own sadomasochistic lifestyle is strictly mutual-consent, so I never complain about the beatings and whippings I get from my lover inside our condo unit. The S&M I witness outdoors here in Austin appears to have an involuntary component to it. Even so, I would be the last person in the world to call 911 on that sort of stuff, since I am very opposed to getting preachy on anyone and S&M is my chosen lifestyle, after all. It would be hypocritical of me to speak out against S&M that I see in public.  Besides, I am not one to get on a soapbox about anything." 

---"If I call 911 here in Austin, the police here won't do anything. If I moved from Travis County to Williamson County, my chances would increase 1,000 percent  that they would arrest a suspect if I call 911 there. Williamson County has a much higher percentage of residents who actually support law-enforcement."

--"My worst fear is that if I call 911, a police officer who is on the take with the Mafia might be the one to respond to my crime report. I have no idea what percentage of the local police officers have accepted bribes from organized crime, but obviously every police department has at least one rotten apple. With my bad luck, that's the kind of APD officer who would visit my home to take my crime report. He would then turn over to the Mafia all the confidential information I give him about myself being a victim of crime."

--"The physical assault I witnessed occurred while I was at an illegal gambling event here in Austin. If I call 911, APD would arrest me for illegal gambling and would ignore everything else I tell them."

---"I'm on a hot date right now, and it would be a complete turn-off to her if I call 911 to report an incident I observed along the roadway as I was driving us to a romantic restaurant for a candlelit dinner. She might even dump me if I sound like a cop on our first date."

---"I would get fired from my job if my boss found out that I had made a 911 call to APD in an attempt to help save the life of the well-known continuous-personal-injury-crimes victim here in Austin whom my boss despises. Job security is crucial these days, so I keep my mouth shut."

---"If I call 911 on a night when I'm high on drugs, which is 300 days of the year, the APD dispatcher might ask me if I was high on drugs and send an APD officer to arrest me for filing a police report under the influence of drugs. For all I know, it may be against the law for anyone who is high at the time to contact APD with a crime report."

---"As a single woman living alone, I dread calling 911 and having a male APD officer minutes later knock on my front door and attempt to get fresh with me. Instead of filing a criminal-law complaint through that APD officer, I'd be debating whether to contact the APD Internal Affairs Office and file a formal complaint against that flirtatious male officer. So I avoid that entire scenario by not calling 911 at all."

---"What I dread the most about making a 911 call to APD is that I'll be attending church service on Sunday and some other member of our congregation will ask me why I had consulted the police instead of re-reading my Bible. The latter activity would be more useful to me in the long run, that church member would state to me with emphasis."

--"What I just saw my next-door neighbor do was probably a violation of our state penal code. However, since this appeared to be a one-time incident and I have never seen him do anything like that before, I will show compassion for him by not calling 911 and identifying him as a crime suspect. Besides, if I called 911 and turned him in to APD, I would have to face his rage toward me on a year-round basis if he doesn't actually get arrested and put in jail."

---"If I called 911 and complained about a home-invasion crime at the building of my apartment complex where I live in south Austin, the police would immediately ask me what the point of entry had been. The question would completely stump me, since I didn't hear anyone knocking on the victim's front door. Maybe there's some very weird way in which a wall in the victim's bedroom somehow moves during his sleep and lets intruders in without the victim knowing about it. I have seen fictional crime shows that feature a wall that moves, so maybe that can happen in real life, too."

--"I've been diagnosed with a terminal illness, so it is impossible for me to care about the people I see being victimized by crime a matter of 20 feet from me. They are very lucky to be alive, and it's obvious that the physical assault on them I am witnessing won't be ruled as a homicide case. So they have nothing to be bitching and moaning about!"

--"It's true that I hear lots of strange noises emanating from inside her apartment unit at nighttime, and she has asked me to please call 911 if I ever sense there may be a trespasser inside her unit during her sleeping hours. But if I called 911 and they asked me if I actually saw anyone break into her unit, I would have to say 'no'. So it's very unlikely that Austin Police would send anyone to the scene in order to investigate."

---"I'm on my way to a rock concert, and I do that frequently since Austin is the live music capital of the world and we're all very proud of that here. If I see anything suspicious outside when I'm driving to a rock concert, I am very good at tuning that out. My policy is to ignore ANYTHING that might prevent me from getting to a rock concert on time."

--"I have sometimes suspected that one of my neighbors is a possible terrorist, but I don't believe that can justify my making a 311 call or 911 call to the Austin police. I should do a Google search to figure out whether I should instead call Homeland Security or the FBI to report my suspicions about that neighbor of mine, if I do ever get around to contacting a federal agency about it."

--"When the 911 dispatcher asks, 'What is your emergency?', this reminds me that I've got to be 100 percent sure when I call 911 that what I'm calling about meets the City of Austin's criteria for an actual real-life emergency. I have had numerous near-emergency situations I've witnessed here in Austin, but I usually figure they'll resolve that conflict on their own, without APD having to get involved. So they probably weren't true emergencies."

---"If I call 911 for suspicious activities where I'm not sure they are actual violations of the state penal code, then APD might add my name to the list of 'zero-credibility callers' that they probably have. If a real life-threatening emergency ever did occur for me, the dispatcher might consult their 'zero-credibility-callers' list and disregard my entire phone call."

--"If I call 911 about the very strange thing I just saw here in Austin, the dispatcher might just send an officer out to put me in Austin State Hospital as a psychiatric patient. I would be forced to take psychiatric medications the rest of my life, even though I am honest and mentally healthy and factually accurate, and I do not seek to harm myself or anyone else."

---"The unidentified flying object I just observed outdoors could put Austin on the UFO sightings map if it gets documented. But if I call 911 about it, the dispatcher would just laugh at me and ask me which drug I'm high on. Maybe what I need is an emergency number to call for UFO sightings. I could do a Google search to find out what that number is. If I call that number, at least the dispatcher won't ridicule me for making the call."

--"I did ask the manager at the fast-food restaurant closest to the crime scene whether it's OK for me to borrow their phone to make a 911 call. She told me that their phone cannot be used by members of the general public to make a 911 call. Since my cell phone's battery is dead, there is no way I can make a 911 call on what I just witnessed."

--"I'm a UT-Austin student, and my major has nothing to do with criminal justice. I would be going far astray from my primary academic focus here in Austin if I were somehow expected to make a 911 call to APD in order to report possible crime evidence I had observed or heard rumors about. And since my parents are paying thousands of dollars per year for my college education here, I feel that my energy is best directed toward my primary field of study, which is economics. I don't believe that UT-Austin even has a criminal justice program, so that academic subject is very abstract and intangible to me, and nothing I would ever directly encounter on my campus."

--"My policy is that if the crime I'm observing in Austin appears to be a misdemeanor crime, I am NOT willing to make a 911 call to APD. If, on the other hand, the crime I'm witnessing appears to possibly meet the criteria for an actual FELONY crime, then yes, I will be willing to consider dialing 911 on my cell phone. This is how I avoid going insane here in Austin. I consign to oblivion each of the crimes I witness that appear to not be felony crimes, which allows me to limit my time on the phone with APD dispatchers."

--"I can't be 100 percent sure whether that lady got into the car on her own initiative or was forced into that car by a criminal person. It all happened too fast for me to say whether it was a crime or not. Then even if it was a crime, I don't recognize the make and model of the car and I didn't get the license plate number. So I would be completely useless to the police as a witness on that. The tendency in a case like that is to assume that what I saw was perfectly legal."

---"The man I just saw with a young boy inside an H.E.B. store doesn't even resemble that boy. But it's likely that the man is the boy's stepfather, or the man is the boy's official Big Brother. So this is why I find myself debating whether it would make sense for me to call 911 in a case like that. Nine times out of time, I'll be wrong if I complain to the police about it."

--"I don't have a cell phone myself, and I've noticed in the past that people in Austin who do own a cell phone are very reluctant about letting me borrow their phone to make a 911 call. They see it as something that might get them involved in a crime case, and they want to protect their own personal safety."

--"If I call 911 and the police send a squad car to my apartment complex, rumors would get started and it would give me notoriety with all my neighbors and with the landlord at my complex. I could get evicted if the landlord claims that I damaged the reputation of this complex through my 911 call."

--"It may well be that the two young men across the street whom I am witnessing are just practicing for a boxing match. They are awfully good at punching each other, so they are probably about to turn pro as boxers in the near future. It would be a huge mistake for me to call 911, since this might interfere with their professional career development."

--"Marijuana's getting legalized all over the world, so if I see or smell any marijuana activity here in Austin, my policy is to not interfere with the trend in any way. I won't go against the tide by calling 911. A year from now, what I am observing may well be classified as perfectly legal. Those guys doing marijuana together are just ahead of their time, and they shouldn't be persecuted for it."

--"I am fairly sure there's already a Neighborhood Watch group for this section of town. If I call 911, it will just jam up APD's phone lines when the vigilant residents of this neighborhood near Westwood High can already be counted on to do a 911 call on that type of incident."

---"No one wants to get a reputation for being whiny. If I call 911, someone here in Austin will accuse me of complaining too much, since Austin is a nice town to live in, so I should instead be focused on being grateful on a year-round and 24-hour-a-day basis."

---"I'm worried that if I call 911, one of the guys I saw in that illicit youth gang doing mischief may be a relative of mine. The last thing I want to do is get a relative of mine in trouble with the law. We Hispanics are very protective of all of our relatives, even if they are cousins or distant cousins or nephews. It's part of our Extended Family Vow of silence, as I see it."

--"The only life that matters to me is my own. Unless someone is threatening to harm me, I cannot possibly see the point of pressing the 911 button on my cell phone."

---"I hate helping out hippies and homeless people. They are a blight on the urban scenery of Austin. If I refrain from calling 911 to help them out when someone is assaulting them, this is a form of negative reinforcement that encourages them to move to a city like Taos, New Mexico, which historically has been a haven for hippie types."

--"The crime victim I am seeing from 50 feet away looks like a senior citizen who was already handicapped before the attack on him by another guy. Let's face it, that senior citizen's chances of living much longer are slim to none. The individual who's attacking that senior citizen is just doing him a favor by helping to put him out of his misery. And gee, if that senior is a Christian, this also means he'll get to Heaven faster as a result. He should be very grateful for that."

--"I'm hoarse right now, so I feel sure that if I called 911 the dispatcher couldn't even hear me. Until my voice recovers, I will not be making any 911 calls. It would be a strain on my larynx that would be very harmful to my own medical health."

--"From what I can see and hear as a witness, the victim sounds far too dramatic in his moaning sounds to be believable. His cries of distress remind me of what you would see in a very weak Hollywood movie featuring very poor acting performances. So this is why I question the sincerity of the victim. He appears to be exaggerating so much that he lacks credibility with me."

---"The crime victim I'm observing from 50 feet away just came out of a nightclub, so what I'm seeing is the tail end of his interactions with the other guy that began inside that nightclub. It's likely the victim provoked the attack during an argument he had with that guy inside the nightclub. Provoked attacks aren't as sympathy-inducing as unprovoked attacks. So no, I won't call 911 on this one."

---"It looks like the woman getting raped is drunk, and I read recently that Travis County District Attorney Margaret Moore is not as likely to seek criminal conviction against a guy who rapes a woman who's drunk. If I call 911, it won't go anywhere, since the DA's Office would balk at pursuing a case of that type, so it would be a complete waste of everyone's time if I call 911."

--"Maybe if he gets roughed up enough by members of the criminal element here in Austin, he will finally figure out that he should flee to Salt Lake City, Utah. I know for a fact that crime victim has Mormon ancestry, so the Mormons would gladly welcome him to their city in Utah."

---"I notice that the crime victim I'm witnessing is not smiling, so it's very difficult for me to identify with his personality. I prefer to help individuals who appear to be people-friendly. MY theory is that individuals who are abrasive or bitchy invite physical assaults on themselves. It's a form of poetic justice. So no, I won't be calling 911 to help this particular crime victim."

---"The victim in the scene I'm witnessing is a political and religious extremist, and I hate extremists with a passion! It would be against my religion to call 911 and complain about what look to me like an attempt to punishment him without having to burden the taxpayers through the criminal justice system."

--"I am not one who supports a full longevity and the best of medical health for everyone. If the guy being hit in the abdomen across the street were an upstanding citizen, it would be different. Of course I'd call 911 for him in that situation. But when it comes to undesirables being beaten up, I have no problems with anything that accelerates their aging process and removes them from this city's human scenery ASAP."

---"I'm not completely sure that the incident I am witnessing is an actual crime case. It's probably a Hollywood production in which the cameras are well concealed. Austin is very lucky to have lots of Hollywood productions going on here. I can do my part to show my appreciation for Hollywood in Austin by refraining from calling 911."

--"I'm a heart patient and it would be very stressful and bad for my heart if I called 911 and had to talk to the police. I am under orders from my doctor to keep my stress level as low as I possibly can at all times, so calling 911 is never an option for me. If I called 911, I might get a heart attack from the anxiety it would inflict on me."

---"I'm on my way to a pot party in which everyone will be getting high. If I call 911 from inside my car while I'm driving there, the police might have follow-up questions for me. If they can tell from my voice that I sound like I'm high, APD might investigate and arrest everyone at the party site, including myself. That would be a complete disaster for me and my friends!"

--"I have a bias against our police department, since I see them as an authoritarian threat to my and everyone's privacy rights. If I have a problem with someone, I will handle that on my own, without getting the government involved. The less government involvement in my own life, the better. That's my credo."

---"I've already got a warrant for my arrest on several speeding tickets I never paid. So if I call 911 and the dispatcher asks me my name, this might result in APD arresting me. I have to stay very low-key during this period, no matter what I witness in the way of criminal activity here in east Austin."

--"I'm a criminal defense attorney, and my focus is always on helping out the suspect AFTER he gets charged with a crime. If I called 911 and got a suspect arrested, this would be a conflict of interest for me. I need that suspect's business, so I will let some other eyewitness call APD to report the criminal activity they saw. What I might do, though, is approach the suspect while he's getting arrested and hand him my professional calling card. That would be one way of increasing my getting some money out of that crime case."

--"I'm not into saving people's lives. That's not my thing. If I worked for a hospital, then of course that would be on my agenda at all times. But since I sell tobacco products for a living, I'm not into getting preachy about anything."

---"I am on my way to work, and my employer does not give me time off for filing reports with the police department. So this is why calling 911 when I'm on my way to work is always out of the question for me. I value my job security. I have to be on time for work, and every minute counts when I get behind in rush-hour traffic."

---"Maybe what I saw was just an optical illusion that was caused by the new medication my psychiatrist has prescribed for me. I would have to call my psychiatrist to find out if having optical illusions is one of the side-effects from that medication. In the meantime, I will follow the guideline that discretion is the better part of valor."

---"Whenever I call 911, the dispatcher puts me on the defensive. Instead of thanking me for the phoned-in report, they ask me for details and they sound very impatient about it. I feel they could be a lot more customer-friendly, and this is one of the reasons why I only rarely call 911."

---"I always end up debating to myself whether I should be calling the non-emergency phone number for APD or the emergency phone number for APD. Nine times out of 10, I conclude that I should be calling 311, rather than 911. This is one way in which I minimize the number of 911 calls I make. But sometimes the 311 staff member tells me they plan to transfer my call to a 911 dispatcher. At least it's a matter that one city official has decided should go to the 911 emergency-communications staff, so I feel a bit relieved that my call has been pre-screened in that way."

--"I'm just visiting here in Austin from out of town, so it would not be appropriate for me to call the Austin Police Department about anything. I live in Cedar Park, and I do make 911 calls there since I am honorbound to serve my community in Williamson County as a good citizen there. It's different when I'm in Austin for a brief visit, since this is not my community."

--"I'm from out of state and visiting in Austin on a business trip. There is absolutely no money in it for me if I make a 911 call. When I'm on a business trip, I always want to be focused on making money. Besides which, I am sure that there were other witnesses to the possibly illegal activity I witnessed last night."

--"Unless it's a life-threatening case, my policy is to avoid calling 911 like the plague. It just adds to the red tape and administrative expenses for the police department if I call 911. Besides, it's a waste of gasoline if the officers drive to the scene only to find that the suspect has vanished. This is what happens 9 times out of 10 after someone calls 911."

---"Our police department is badly under-staffed as it is, so it makes sense to only call 911 if it's a major emergency. This allows the police to avoid wasting their time with minor stuff. What I just witnessed along North Lamar Boulevard in north Austin was too minor as emergencies go to justify APD involvement. That criminal mischief I saw failed to meet the criteria that would justify my actually dialing 911."

--"I'm not sure that calling 911 about anything will do any good. The police here have lots of unsolved cases even when there are witnesses. And I can't exactly wait around for an hour until the police get here. I have plans to go shopping with a friend of mine at a favorite shopping center for each of us."

--"Wow, if what I just witnessed is what I think it is, someone is going to be in big trouble with our city's Finest! But maybe I'm actually high on drugs, so it's all a weird delusion on my part. That sounds like what's actually going on here, since I know I smoked more reefers than usual with Ted at the party tonight. But wow, it was really mind-boggling before I figured out that it was just a mirage I had under the influence of marijuana!"

--"I'm not even an American citizen, so it would be very presumptuous of me to call 911 and ask to speak with the legal authority here about the bizarre incident I just witnessed. And besides, my primary language is Arabic and my English is very limited, so the dispatcher would be unable to communicate with me if I have to use Arabic words in order to describe the crime scene in detail."
---"I don't know anyone in the police department these days. The only one I knew retired about five years ago. So if I called 911, it would be like talking to complete strangers. It always makes me very uncomfortable with I talk with complete strangers."

--"I'm very competitive, and I know from the start that if I call 911, I have a zero percent chance of winning a '911 Caller of the Year Award' and accompanying $10,000 cash prize. I have NEVER once heard of any Austinite who was publicly honored as '911 Caller of the Year', or who actually earned a financial prize for dialing 911 here. To me, calling 911 should be a bit like buying a free ticket to the Texas Lottery. If your call is a life-saver for someone, you should get paid for it big time!"

--"I am superstitious about calling 911, since it always haunts me with this very painful memory about the 9-11 incident in New York City back on September 11, 2001. I worry that if I call 911 here in Austin, it will inflict an Arab curse upon me."

--"It's not as if I would ever get a 'thank you' note from the victim, if I called 911 to ask police to protect them from that thug. So my incentive to do a good deed is always strained by my certainty that NO ONE would give me credit for the good deed I did."

---"I'm worried I might get too emotionally involved with the crime victim if I call 911. I will want to visit him in the hospital in order to cheer him up. Then my husband might complain to me with anger that I'm neglecting my spouse in order to make the day of a complete stranger."

--"If I call 911, it will raise the immediate question of why I don't volunteer my services to offer CPR to the crime victim. I just know some newspaper here would fault me for limiting my aid to the 911 call. The headline would read, '911 Caller Faulted for Negligence'."

--"If I don't call 911 to help that guy out, I'll have a sin of omission to confess to my priest during my next weekly confessional. That will put a smile on my priest's face, and he'll tell me he admires my honesty in confessing to that particular sin."

---"If I call 911, suddenly my ears get abused very badly by that shrill sound from the police siren as the police car reaches the scene. I try to minimize the noise pollution I get subjected to here in Austin, and I find that NOT inviting a screaming squad car to drive near me is one effective strategy for doing that."

---"I'm very superstitious, and I'm very aware that 911 if you add those numbers up horizontally adds up to the number eleven. Eleven has always been an unlucky number for me. This is why it would be very traumatic for me to make a 911 call and see the number eleven flash in front of my eyes."

---"If I call 911 to tell the cops about the crime scene across the street that I'm witnessing, this will cut into the time I have available for my social life tonight. Life is full of very difficult choices, and of course it's very easy for me to rationalize as my choice going with Anna to a nice Irish pub here in downtown Austin. While we're enjoying ourselves in the Irish pub, I will consider it my 'Luck of the Irish' day to have been spared from the intense anxiety of making a 911 call."

--"I hate making 911 calls partly because I always know that they are recorded and some news media company might get a tape-recording of my voice during that call, and will then broadcast that to the entire world. No one wants to be infamous for being inarticulate!"

--"I think the victim I can see from across the street is drunk. Whenever the crime victim is drunk, it's like he falls several notches in my estimation of him. I lose respect for him, since it's likely that in his drunken stupor he verbally assaulted another guy and incited that guy to commit an act of violence. I prefer to make 911 calls for sober victims, it's just a bias of mine in my 911 calls."

--"I'm in the middle of a very important conversation with my boyfriend. If I tell him I've got to get off the phone to make a 911 call about a crime scene in the background that I just witnessed, my boyfriend might think I was putting the needs of a complete stranger ahead of his own needs. Harry might be so angry that he would cancel our next date!"

---"I've already made one 911 call earlier today. That should satisfy the quota that can be expected of any good and vigilant citizen here in Austin. If I made two 911 calls today, someone at APD might ask if I was trying to land a job there as a police officer. I couldn't handle the stress from a job like that. So one call to APD is as far as I'm going to offer them for today. Let someone else make that 911 call on the second thing I saw today."

---"I don't know enough about the laws here in Austin to be sure whether what I just witnessed was actually a violation of the state penal code. It makes no sense for me to call 911, just to be told by the dispatcher that what I witnessed was in fact legal according to state and municipal laws here in Austin. Austin and Texas are very different from the rest of the United States, as everyone knows."

--"I'm assuming that the individual I see doing something suspicious across the street is himself an undercover agent for either Austin Police or the FBI. So it's NOT a real crime I'm witnessing, it's just a fake crime from an undercover agent who plans to file a report with APD or the FBI about what the criminal element he pretended to be a member of were in fact doing."

---"Watching that violent incident from across the street has just suggested to me an idea for a new Hollywood movie. If I interrupt my creative train of thought on that in order to call 911, this would completely ruin my ability to concentrate on a creative project that could earn me a million here in Austin. I'll wait until I write my memoirs as a millionaire in order to confess that I chose to ignore a crime in order to make progress on a screenplay that I knew would perform a valuable public service in its own way, an d would also have more global impact than a local call for which I get ZERO mula."

--"The assailant and the victim I'm witnessing from 50 feet away are both complete strangers to me. Who's to say that one of those strangers is a bad guy and the other one is a good guy? Maybe they are BOTH bad guys, in which case it makes no sense at all for me to call 911 for EITHER OF THEM!"

---"Whenever I see a crime victimizing someone in Austin, my first thought as a Christian is that 'Maybe this is God's way of punishing that person for the sins he has committed!' I know that God permitted that incident to take place, and that tells me all I need to know."

---"Whenever I do something of valor, I want it to be something I can brag to my grandchildren about. But I'm completely sure they won't be in awe of me if I tell them I picked up my cell phone and pressed the 911 button. 'Gee, you used your fingers at age 70 to push the 911 button,  and I already knew how to do that at age 5', that's what my grandkids might say. They want to hear about my having done something on a truly grand scale that would look very bold and super-courageous like a heroic figure in a Hollywood movie. I don't blame my grandkids for expecting more from me than a 911 call. They want me to be a SuperGrandma in a cape!"

--"I always feel like a complete idiot when I call 911 to report something suspicious I just saw. The police will ask me when it happened, and I suddenly realize that I never looked at my watch. Then the police will ask me the approximate age of the assailant, and all I can say is '30 to 50, that's my best guess'. I think I should take a class on how to call 911 and make an accurate report before I even think of dialing 911. It's not fair to the police to get a report from me that is completely lacking in the types of details they need in order to make an arrest."

--"Since the crime I just witnessed looked like a gangland-style slaying, this tells me that if I call 911 for the victim the Mafia will retaliate by cutting off my balls. They will also threaten to kill me if I testify for the prosecution."

--"If the female crime victim had been prettier, I could see myself as a knight in shining armor rescuing a damsel in distress. But she is about as ugly a female as I have ever seen! This completely ruins my ability to see myself as the heroic soon-to-be-knighted gentleman, rescuing her with a 911 call to APD! I lack incentive, since there's no way in hell I can put her in my romantic fantasies!"

---"It looks like the guy attacking her is her husband, and I know for a fact that a lot of men get very violent if they think another man meddles in their domestic dispute. If I call 911, he might see me making the call to the cops and direct his rage toward me instead of his wife!"

--"What I dread the most about making a 911 call to Austin police is that they always want to know what the suspected criminal was wearing. I am not at all fashion-minded, and I hate having to describe his clothing. A lot of the stuff that men in Austin wear is completely beyond my capacity to describe it to the police. So why bother?"

--"The incident I just witnessed appeared to have involved fraternity men, and everyone knows they have to answer to their national headquarters in everything they do. It's called a Fraternal Code of Ethics, or something like that. I will let their fraternity's national headquarters handle the investigation on that, which spares taxpayers from having to pay for an investigation of the incident by our police department."

---"Since the victim was a transsexual or transvestite, I feel challenged quite a bit on my ability to care. Here they either went through a sex-change operation or are seeking one, and I myself am repulsed by sex-change operations. They are appallingly sadistic, in my opinion. These newcomers to the female world should not act so shocked when a guy they're dating suddenly figures out that she was born a 'he' and their dating partner can't control his anger toward her."

--"To me, what I just witnessed here in Austin look more like a Family Feud. Family Feuds have a great and legendary role in American history. I always think of the McCoys and that other family in Arkansas, but now I don't remember the family they feuded with, if it did in fact all happen in Arkansas. American society never ceases to entertain with the dramatic spectacles that our citizenry can generate!"

--"If I called 911 to help out that poor lady over there, the police would need at least one hour to get to the scene of the crime. By then, it would be too late. I'm very skeptical about 911 calls. All my friends tell me that the police take forever to respond. It's like an invitation for the criminal element to savage our citizenry and then vanish without a trace."

--"Unless I feel 99 percent sure that the crime I witness involves a victim I personally know and like,  my policy is to NOT call 911. And when I do pursue a noble deed through a 911 call to the police, my priority is to exclusively help friends and relatives of mine. The rest of the world can go to hell, as far as I'm concerned."

---"I always get confused when I call 911 and they ask me if I need police or an ambulance. To me, it would be callous to say that the violent crime I just witnessed is a matter for the police. But the 911 dispatcher always presents it as an either-or proposition. Do I want the police, or do I want an ambulance? I find the simplistic nature of that question to be very frustrating. Next time I call 911, if I do anytime soon, I think I'll say I need BOTH POLICE AND AN AMBULANCE. But I'm not sure I have that option, since the dispatcher wants me to cite one or the other."

---"The crime victim I'm seeing from 50 yards away is not of my age group. I don't trust anyone over age 30, and he is definitely way over age 30. I would feel very uncomfortable about calling 911 to help out that over-30 type. Had he been age 29 or younger, yes I would have given full consideration to calling 911 on my cell phone. I can't say for sure that I would have actually called, though, even for a 29 or younger fellow. I hate to get involved in anything unpleasant like what I just saw over there."

--"It looked to me like the guy who was getting assaulted may have been an illegal immigrant. It's against my policy to call 911 and rescue an illegal immigrant from danger. Everything we can do through negative reinforcement that drives him back to Mexico, I'm all for!"

---"It's not as if I was the only Austinite who witnessed that crime scene! There were at least five other witnesses, and they should be the ones to come forward and tell the cops everything they saw. My own time is very, very valuable, since I'm a billionaire and I do trades on Wall Street every day. For a witness, they should find someone who truly needs the money they would get paid by the State to testify for the crime victim in a courtroom."

--"Since the victim is obviously a homeless bum or vagabond, my ability to empathize with him is virtually non-existent. He offends me whenever I am subjected to the stench from his body odor on a public sidewalk as I'm walking toward my bank. Here he doesn't even have the decency to take a bath every day, yet expects me to help him out with a 911 call. It would be more appropriate for another bum who feels comfortable with him to call the police with a crime report."

---"I lead an openly hedonistic lifestyle on a year-round basis here in Austin. Calling the cops doesn't turn my crank. Unless I can get high or get a sexual turn-on from whatever I do here in Austin, I have ZERO interest in doing it."

---"Whenever I watch a crime show on TV, I always identify with the bad guys more than with the cops. So why should I pretend to play cop by calling 911? It would go against my nature!"

---"How soon we forget that many of the great names of the Wild West wore black hats and were bad guys! I look upon the crime scene here in Austin as in keeping with the Wild West tradition: it's grand entertainment for everyone!"

---"I just saw it as a case of two guys slugging it out in public. Why would I want to interfere in what they're doing, when they seemed to resolve their conflict through a fistfight. This spared the taxpayers from having to pay for a police officer to stop by and attempt to mediate. Police officers shouldn't be expected to serve as mediators, in my opinion. That's a waste of their time."

--"I've always been a big believer in Survival of the Fittest. That's my motto. If you aren't physically strong enough to thwart a big heavy guy trying to assault you, then you are just the type of weakling who gets weeded out in the world of today."

--"I would hate to be the bearer of bad news about anyone here in Austin. My aunt always taught me to never say anything unflattering about anyone. 'If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all' was her credo, and I agree with her whole-heartedly. A 911 call from me would involve my saying something un-nice about another Austinite, and I would feel very uncomfortable about doing that!"

--"I'm a firm believer that if I generate some negativity through a citizen crime tip to APD, karma will take over and I'll  get punished for that negativity. Whatever goes around, comes around!"

--"I'm a big believer in 'Raza Unida'. That's my credo for living. If I ever see a crime in which the culprit appears to be Hispanic, my policy is to pretend I didn't see anything. As a Hispanic gentleman myself, I will do nothing that might be divisive within our Hispanic community. Now, if both the victim and the assailant are Hispanic, that's a bit different. I might speak up by calling 911, since I want to protect the integrity of our Hispanic Family, as I often refer to it."

--"If I call 911 to report a possible crime I observed to Austin Police, they might arrest me and charge me with filing a false complaint or false report! As the price I'd pay for being vigilant, I would then probably spend the rest of my life as an inmate at Huntsville State Prison in east Texas!"

---"I would hate to be called a racist! If I call 911 and complain about a black man who is allegedly violating the legal rights of a white man, rumors would go around town that I had racially profiled the black man and wronged him very severely!"

--"My cell phone's battery is very low, so I don't believe I can call 911 right now in order to report to APD what I just saw. I need what's left of my battery to get me through the rest of the night."

---"I always have this fear that if I make a very courageous 911 call within 30 feet of the crime scene, a loudspeaker to my cell phone will somehow get activated out of nowhere and everyone within a half-mile of me will hear my accusations against the assailant. It's like I suddenly turn into a sitting duck for the thug, since he'll run toward me and stab me for having called APD on him!"

---"I have no interest in helping a crime victim who's a spoiled white boy. Calling APD to identify a possible suspect who committed a crime against him would be against my nature as an African-American gentleman! I WILL call APD to befriend a black brother, but I WILL NOT call APD to help save the life of any white boy!"

---"I have no interest in women unless I'm in the bedroom with them. At that point, there's a tangible point of intersection with them that I as a Playboy can go for. Why should I pretend to be a gentleman of valor who strives to protect the safety of our city's ladies? It would be hypocritical of me to call 911 and complain that some other man I observed in a park was possibly having inappropriate physical contact with a lady there. I don't claim to be a hero to the ladies. And besides, for all I know it's just clever foreplay on his part, his intent being to get into bed with her ASAP, I can only assume."

---"Outlaws are intriguing to watch, they are far more interesting than the good guys. The Joker was fun to observe; Batman was a bore. So I wouldn't want to give the impression of criticizing any local member of the organized-crime community. If I called 911 and asked APD to arrest an outlaw, this would make the wrong statement to our city's often-entertaining villains!"

---"As a Christian gentleman here in Austin, I am very, very reluctant about getting involved in any secular activity. Judge not, lest you be judged, as my Christian Bible has very clearly stated to me. If I see someone committing what appears to be a possible crime here in Austin, I always remind myself that my Christian Bible urges me to turn the other cheek. We are all sinners, after all, as my Bible clearly states, and punishment of sinners is strictly a matter for God to decide. The police and court system here in Austin are of no interest to me, since my focus is on the afterlife. The bad guys will eventually end up in Hell, that's all I need to know to feel reassured that justice will be served." 

---"The crime victim I know about is a Fascist, in my opinion, so I am very opposed to helping him out in any way. If I called Austin Police to help out that crime victim, I might as well be saluting the Fuhrer in Nazi Germany or goose-stepping to Benito Mussolini in Fascist Italy!"

--"I'm heavily into humor, and calling 911 to ask for Austin police would be the exact opposite of a funny thing to do. It's very grim and earnest and humorless to call the cops, and that's why so many of us choose to abstain from that type of activity."

--"If I call the police and tell them about the crime I witnessed, that could ruin some poor young man's life after he goes to prison for that crime. The rehabilitation part of the prison system is not successful, from what I've heard. He's more likely to get raped than rehabilitated if he goes to prison! So my filing a report with APD that puts him in prison might result in his someday filing a lawsuit against me for being an alleged accomplice in the rapes he suffered while in prison!"

--"As a libertarian Austinite, I feel very strongly that many of the laws we have in our state penal code are very unjust. I do my part to help remedy that problem by refusing to call 911 and complain about anyone---unless my own self-interest is at stake."

--"I feel that many of the rape crimes that occur in Austin are crimes that occur because the victim invited that violence against them through their bitchiness. Provoked assaults are very different from unprovoked assaults. If I feel that the victim was asking for it, I follow the policy of 'Mum's the word', so to speak. I will clam up, even if the cops ask me what I saw."

---"I don't believe there is ever a crime victim who's completely innocent. They brought adversity upon themselves through their lifestyle conduct. So this is why I refuse to call 911 and ask police to send an officer to a crime scene I know about here in Austin."

---"If the crime victim is over age 10, my general belief is that they should know how to protect themselves against any assailant. They should have plenty of life experience by age 11 to know how to call 911 for themselves on their cell phone. They don't need me to call 911 for them. I'm not there to mother them or pamper them."

---"It would destroy my reputation if people were to find out that I call the cops about anything. Everyone assumes that I'm a typically mellow Austinite. Mellow Marvin, that's my nickname. Absolutely NOTHING gets me upset, and calling 911 to ask for the police would not be cool. It would make me look like a ridiculous nerd from New York."

---"The only Bible I own is a 'Good News Bible', so I don't believe in calling attention to anything involving bad news. If I called 911 and asked for the police and my church pastor found out about it, he might accuse me of a vainglorious secular pursuit that was not Biblically based. He might say I was trying to play Super Man, when the only true Super Man is the Christian God, as my pastor might point out."

--"If I offered a crime tip to APD that resulted in an arrest of an actual crime suspect, I would hate having to face the defense attorney when I testify for District Attorney Margaret Moore in a court of law here in Austin. From what I've seen on television, the attorney for the defense often succeeds at discrediting witnesses for the prosecution. It's like getting raked over the coals and having this defense attorney imply to the entire jury that I have no credibility because I'm a drug addict and an alcoholic. I don't want any publicity to come out about my being a drug addict and an alcoholic, since that could be very harmful to my career. No one at my workplace suspects that I'm a drug addict, or that I get high five times a week when I'm off-duty, and I want to keep my private life completely confidential. But the attorney for the defense would insist on publicly depicting me as a degenerate, so I would get fired from my job because of bad PR I'd get from the news media publicity about my courtroom statement."

---"If I offer a crime report to APD that results in an arrest, I would dread having to give a speech in public about it. Testifying for the prosecution is a bit like giving a speech in speech class in high school. I dreaded that class more than any other I took, since I hated having to stand up in front of the entire class and make a public statement of any type. I would get butterflies in my stomach. But if I get subpoenaed to testify in a courtroom because of the crime tip I gave to APD, I would feel so much stress that I might find it hard to even say anything. I might even ask the judge if I had the legal right to remain silent."

---"As one of the many thousands of libertarians living in Austin these days, I believe it is NOT in my self-interest to testify for the prosecuting attorney in a court of law here. I was not the crime victim, so it makes no sense for me to make a public statement about the cited crime victim having been wronged. If, on the other hand, I myself had been the crime victim, then I would of course be willing to testify. This would fit the legal requirements for me to even consider making a public statement in a court of law---if it related to an outrageous crime that had victimized myself."

---"I am willing to talk to the police if they contact me in order to interview me about what I know. But in the meantime, my outlook is this: LET THE POLICE DO THEIR JOB! THEY ARE PAID WITH MY OWN TAX DOLLARS TO INVESTIGATE ANY AND ALL FELONY CRIMES IN AUSTIN, AND IF THEIR INVESTIGATION PROMPTS THEM TO CONTACT ME, I MIGHT GIVE CONSIDERATION TO THEIR REQUEST FOR AN INTERVIEW WITH ME."

---"If I make any kind of statement to the Austin Police, they will find out that I am an illegal immigrant and will have me arrested and deported back to Mexico."

---"My attorney tells me that I am NOT required by law to contact the police and tell them what I know about that continuous-crimes case that's still going on. I can't be charged with obstruction of justice if I keep my mouth shut. So it's perfectly safe for me to stay out of this one."

---"I hate snitches, and always have. If I call the cops and tell them what I know about that felony crime case here in Austin, I would be committing an immoral act. I would be a SNITCH MYSELF, FOR GOD'S SAKE!"

---"It's obviously an organized crime case in which the victim is still being victimized by the mob here in Austin. Everyone knows that if you call the police to tell them what you know about that type of Mafia case, the Mobsters would finger you for reprisals! I would turn up as a dead body floating down the Colorado River here in Austin!"

---"I am very keen on marijuana, and the crime victim I know about is so anti-marijuana that he opposes legalization. Why should I care about the personal safety and life of someone who doesn't even agree with me on that very basic moral issue?"

--"As a drug-dealer myself, I try to have as little contact with the cops as I possibly can, for obvious reasons. If I call 911 to report a crime I saw, some police officer will ask me what I do for a living, and I will have to lie at that point. I can't tell them that I sell illicit drugs for my career. So the police could then arrest me for telling a lie to a police officer."

-----"Since it's a murder-in-slow motion homicide case that I've been witnessing, the police obviously have had plenty of time to get all the crime evidence they need on their own. It would be a waste of my time to call APD and tell them what I know, since they already have everything they need to start making arrests in that continuous-personal-injury-crimes case."

---"The crime victim in the case I know about has a reputation for being racist and homophobic, so why should I care about his own life? If his enemies succeed at killing him and removing him from this planet, the black people and gay people of Austin will all get together and celebrate ecstatically with plenty of alcohol and pot and cocaine for everyone to drink or smoke or snort! It will be one big huge party and orgy right here in Austin, and I can't wait for that historic occasion to occur here!"

---"I regard the crime victim as being an anti-Christ figure, so it would be heretical and sinful if I were to aid him by contacting APD!"

---"The crime victim is not Jewish, and I prefer to focus my good deeds on helping out other Jewish persons. As a subscriber of Judaism here in Austin, I feel that's a better focus for me."

---"If I REFRAIN from calling the police and telling them what I know about that continuous personal-injury-crimes case, maybe this will help to get the message across to the crime victim that THE PEOPLE OF AUSTIN DO NOT WANT HIM TO LIVE HERE! He should move to Dallas or Houston or New York City, where the residents like him a lot better there."

---"The crime victim in the case I know about was already warned in the summer of 2001 by the Travis County Government Civil Probate Division Director here in Austin, David Ferris, that there is an attempt by numerous persons to drive him OUT OF THE AUSTIN AREA! Why would I want to interfere in that process, since he's obviously very unpopular here in Austin! Even that infamous atheist Madelyn Murray O'Hair was more popular here than he is! Our county government knows about the harassment of him that's been going on for many years throughout the greater Austin area, and has done nothing to put a stop to it!"

--"Whenever the crime victim is an atheist, which is like saying they are demonically-inspired, in my opinion, my ability to care about their living conditions goes vamoos, as they say. For me to call APD to help protect the personal safety of an atheist being victmized by crime would be a bit like committing a sin, I feel."

---"If the personal-injury-crimes continue in the crime case I know about, the victim will turn into a ward of the state of Texas and spend the rest of his life in a state hospital somewhere in our Lone Star State. This will put the financial burden on the State Government of Texas and the Texas Legislature to pay all of his bills, after he gets fully incapacitated by the crimes he's being subjected to by home-invasion-crimes perpetrators during his sleeping hours as he lies alone on his bed inside his bolt-locked apartment unit here in Austin where he's the only tenant and only occupant! So the burden on taxpayers will shift from the City of Austin to our state government, which will work to my advantage as a taxpayer here."

---"My thinking is that the continuous-crimes case I know about is designed to help convert the victim into a Christian, even if he makes that conversion on his deathbed. I would not want to interfere in the attempt by thousands of persons here in Austin to help convert that individual to Christianity through repeated infliction of personal-injury-crimes and anal pain on him during his sleeping hours inside his bolt-locked apartment unit where he's the only tenant and only person authorized to be in there!"

--"I hate attorneys, and I try to avoid having ANY dealings with any attorney. If I contact APD with a report about a felony crime here in Austin that I knew about, a day or two later I'd have to meet with a prosecuting attorney. Then, once it got to trial, I would have to face attorneys for the defense when I testify. That is a double-whammy, as far as I'm concerned. So my solution is to NOT call APD about any crime case I know about. This eliminates any risk I'll ever have to deal with any attorney!"

---"I am an anarchist, so I am philosophically opposed to ever contacting the government about anything. If I witness a personal-injury crime here in Austin, I am honorbound as an archist to REFUSE TO EVER CALL 911 ABOUT IT. In fact, I may even have a special T-shirt done for myself that declares to the entire world, 'I AS AN ANARCHIST WILL NEVER SQUEAL ON YOU IF YOU BREAK THE LAW! I AM OPPOSED TO CONTACTING THE GOVERNMENT ABOUT ANYTHING!"

---"I am a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses religious denomination here in Austin, so I don't believe in contacting the police if I ever witness a felony crime. We Jehovah's Witnesses are opposed to reliance on the government for anything."

---"I'm an ex-convict, and my parole officer here in Austin would have me put back in prison if he found out I was at a playground for children when I witnessed a personal-injury crime. The terms of my parole require that I stay away from children's playgrounds at all times, since I was convicted on a pederasty charge."

---"The individual I saw being victimized by personal-injury crimes does not have any tattoos on his body. I don't trust anyone over age 21 who has a tattoo-less body. So why should I call 911 to protect his personal safety if I don't even trust the victim?"

----"I feel it would be unfair toward diversity in Austin if I called 911 and asked the police to arrest a suspected criminal. Everyone knows that Austinites revere weirdness in human beings more than any other city in our entire nation. If I witness an Austin resident doing something weird to another resident, my thinking is that it falls within the protected-conduct scope of our city's official credo of 'Keep Austin Weird!' By refusing to call the cops when I see weird conduct here in Austin, I help to protect diversity in all the forms of weirdness we see here in Austin. I don't claim to be a cop, so I could care less about whether the weirdness that other Austinites are into is illegal stuff."

---"The crime victim I know about is being subjected to a thought-control project that all levels of government here in Austin already know about. He is being closely monitored by every level of government at all times. Since the focus here is on a critical outlook toward himself, which explains the government-sponsored thought-control project he was subjected to against his wishes, it would be beside the point if I called 911 and stated that I believe he is also being raped during his sleep inside his bolt-locked apartment unit. The entire orientation by government here in Austin is to CHANGE OR ALTER the victim himself, based on a very, very critical evaluation of him by the local and state and federal government agencies here in Texas. They would regard it as a very, very minor and irrelevant issue that the person they are criticizing on a year-round basis is also a crime victim here in Austin."

---"Everyone knows that the crime victim in the case I know about has been persecuted here in Austin for many years. He is like a political prisoner of the U.S. Government, State Government of Texas, Travis County Government, and the City Government of Austin. I would not want to complicate matters for the government by stating to APD that the political prisoner in question has experienced violations of his own legal rights here in Austin. His status as a political prisoner makes the rest of it a moot point. Everyone knows that political prisoners have fewer rights than Americans who ARE popular with the government."


---"His living conditions inside his locked apartment unit here in Austin remind me of what Jewish people faced at Auschwitz under Nazi Germany's subjugation and plundering of Europe. If I called 911 and reported evidence I had obtained about his being victimized here in Austin by one or more criminal persons, the dispatcher for APD might just laugh from their end of the phone line."

---"I blame that particular crime victim for the United States of America having been compared to Nazi Germany during the 1990s and since then. Why would I want to call 911 to help protect the personal safety of the one individual who did the most damage to America's reputation for being a champion of human rights?"

---"I'm personal friends with a guy who tells me that he despises the individual I saw getting beaten up along Guadalupe Street. I can only assume that my friend has his reasons for despising that particular crime victim, and I defer to my friend's judgment. So of course, I won't call 911 and ask the cops to intervene. What I'll do instead is text my friend to tell me again why he hates the hell out of that guy I just saw getting beat up. Then if my friend offers me a good answer, I'll text him back that he would be elated to hear what I just saw along Guadalupe!"

--"What goes on between and among poor people here in Austin is of little consequence to me. It reminds me of the time when I lived in Worcester, Massachusetts, and a lady there boasted to me that they had had only a minimal number of 'major murders' that year. Most of the murders there had been minor, she emphasized. I can understand where she was coming from. When you watch poverty-stricken people attacking each other, your tendency is to regard it as sociologically alarming without actually dialing 911 for anyone."

--"I can't see well enough without my glasses on, but I prefer to go out in public without my glasses because I look more stylish that way. Without my glasses, I am unable to provide an eyewitness report to APD about anything more than 10 feet away from me. I did just now hear what sounded like a popping sound from what may well have been a gun, but it could also have been an automobile backfiring.  If I call 911 to report my suspicions on this, I would get cremated on the witness stand by the attorney for the defense once this case goes into a courtroom for trial. The defense attorney would have the entire jury laughing at me, since I'm legally blind without my glasses on. Then he would ask me if I had my hearing tested recently, and I would have to admit that I've sustained a lot of hearing loss here in Austin. So once again, the defense would have the entire jury laughing at me. It would be a complete humiliation for me at the courtroom proceeding!"

---"It's too dark outside for me to see anyone with any details. And besides, some of the bodies of the apparent assailants appear to be dark-skinned. It's doubly difficult to identify a dark-skinned person during the nighttime hours, as the defense attorney might point out when he cross-examines me at the courtroom trial on this."

---"I can't tell for sure who started that fistfight. If I call 911, they'll be wanting to know who started it, so I would have to tell them I'm not sure. It's likely that someone else with a better angle on that fistfight will be calling APD to identify for sure who started that fistfight."

---"I have never once had any pastor of mine tell me that if I fail to make X number of 911 phone calls per week, I will put myself at risk of going to Hell in my afterlife. So I don't see this as a religious issue at all. I simply choose to let other Austinites be the ones willing to gossip to APD about what they witnessed."

--"I agree with you that calling 911 can feel a lot like gossiping to a government agency. I've always been raised to refrain from gossiping about anyone, so I naturally choose not to make 911 calls unless it's a medical emergency situation and a relative of mine is the one I'm calling for."

---"That criminal activity I'm witnessing from 50 yards away looks like an inter-racial incident, and I don't want to be the referee on that. Inter-racial conflicts are frequent here in Austin, since there's lots of inter-racial tension here. If I call 911, it could result in race riots if the police over-react by shooting a suspect in that inter-racial conflict."

---"I'm on my honeymoon here in Austin, and the last thing in the world either of us newlyweds want to do this weekend is interrupt our blissful experience with a 911 call to APD. It's true that we just happened to see a possible purse-snatching incident as we were kissing together in the park, but this is absolutely the wrong time for either of us to phone in a crime tip to APD. It would be a bit like coitus interruptus if we did that."

---"I'm on the way to a wedding right now, so I don't have the time to call 911 and report the suspicious activity I just witnessed at a street intersection in Austin. Maybe after the wedding and reception are over I might make a courtesy call the police, but that could be late tonight when I do that. Hopefully the crime-scene evidence that I witnessed will still be intact at that time."

---"As a member of the clergy here in Austin, I refrain from ever calling the police about anything. This protects the confidentiality of the members of my congregation and prospective new members.  I look upon everyone here in Austin as a prospective new member of my mega-church, so I want to be very careful not to offend anyone. Besides, if I call 911 and complain that someone is assaulting another person in public, this would impose the laws of the secular world on them, when my own emphasis is on obedience of the commandments from God."