When I need a police report for the insurance.

In many jurisdictions you can just file a police report on a self-serve website. This avoids them showing up and shooting your dog and usually suffices for a claim.

I have no issues calling law enforcement. I actually have done so a few times in my life, for various reasons (reporting safety issues, traffic accidents, crime). And I feel quite safe with it, as I live in a civilized country, where the police is a very professional service of highly trained people, and not just some jerks who got hired because the knew how to hold a gun and then got a few weeks of (online) training on how to write tickets.

Think of it this way. You are in a courtroom and the lawyer asks 'why didn’t you call the police?"

If your home was burglarized and you don’t call the cops, the police will assume you’ve been doing something illegal. Most people will call the cops just to have a police report on file for the insurance or to claim a tax loss.

I had construction workers break into my business because they decided to work while I was closed. Called the police, they let them stay.

While walking in the bosque near the Rio Grande someone was shooting into the trees and nearly hit us. The cops’s solution was I should carry a gun and shoot back next time. This is within city limits. Same solution when I called them about hunters illegally hunting (both out of season, and within city limits).

There were meth heads squatting in the house next to my parents. They broke into the garage and stole multiple of my wife’s firearms. The sheriff’s deputies told us if the suspects turned up dead no one would really investigate it. They never investigated the theft, it took months to get a report, and even longer for the serial numbers to be entered into the database as missing.

While riding my bike a cop ran a red light and nearly hit me. He started to write me a ticket until he realized I was wearing a camera on my helmet. He told me to be more careful in the future and he was letting me off with a verbal warning.

It would likely take a dead body for me to call the police.

A traffic accident. Cops, as simple minded creatures of habit, fundamentally categorize calls into “I can shoot people” and “I probably can’t shoot people” events, and traffic accidents are usually the latter.

Plus my insurance requires it.

drunk drivers all day long

In my experience police have always been kind and helpful. Not everyone has the same experience I suppose.

Some music gear got stolen from my van parked in my driveway.

I called the cops the next day, they came over and took a report and told me nothing ever gets recovered.

Then I called around the music shops to report serial numbers and stuff. Within a day I got most of my equipment back, especially the expensive parts.

But the cop who took my report for some reason was tasked with doing the recovery from the second hand store, and he was really mad about it.

That was about 12 years ago, and since then I have come to the conclusion that I would only deploy police in conditions where I would be willing to deploy lethal force which is almost never, and ideally probably never.

Imminent threat of bodily harm and no route for escape. Calling the cops will get you an armed response. The only time an armed response is at all appropriate is if life could be lost otherwise. Any other time, it’s best not to bring a gun into the situation.

I’ve called them on my brother a few times when he’s been abusive and it starts crossing the line to physical. The last two times I had to call the dispatcher I talked to immediately asked if it was my brother by using his name.

I’d call the police for a lot of things.

I am in a relatively stable area with police who are reasonably well-behaved and under rational oversight. So… all the usual reasons?

I’ve called because I sighted a possibly rabid animal. The police didn’t arrive in a hail of gunfire which struck a bunch of innocent bystanders. I’ve had them turn up to take notes on a car accident. They were polite and not aggressive.

Like, I fully recognize I’m lucky to live in an area where the police aren’t abusive. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to call them because they are assholes somewhere else.

If I thought introducing an upredictable and aggressive person with a gun was better than not doing that.

Last time I called them, it was because I got home late and my backdoor window was shattered. I had recently broke up with an unstable person, so I phoned the cops the next day just to make a report.

They called my ex, who initially denied it at first and tried to say I was a meth dealer or something. Eventually, the cop said she admitted doing it and asked if I wanted to press charges. I declined.

I reconnected with her years later in 2021 during the pandemic. It did not end well yet again, but at least no one got hurt and no property was destroyed this time around.

“Send fire, not police. I just need someone brave to show up.”