Emergency?

The other night, I was laying on our couch watching tv when I heard some shouting. I muted the tv to hear what they were saying and then all of a sudden there was banging on the door to our building. My living room, is right next to that door, so it was loud and scary. There were several voices and I heard something about money being shouted. I ran to the kitchen to call the police, couldn't find the non-emergency number, tried dialing 911, got cut off, called Drew who gave me the number and finally called the police. By that time, my neighbor had come out of her apartment and yelled through the non-locked door for the man to go away, you don't live here (benefits of living in a small building). She is an older woman and I told her she was brave to open her door. She told the police that there were 3 African American boys beating up a 50 year old white man. He had cuts and blood on his face and he was the one pounding on the door. Thank God he didn't try to open it and come in. Our front door locks, but has to be relocked each and every time someone unlocks it to come in. I am going to start locking it every night. I think I will also talk to the other tenants and ask them to try to remember to start locking it after they enter.

My thoughts probably scare me the most. When I ran out of the living room, I thought that I should crawl so I don't get hit by any bullets. I hadn't heard any shots. And then I thought maybe I should get my son out of bed and hold him while this got figured out. He didn't make a peep. But he seemed safer with me than without. I didn't get him out of bed, by the way.

My question is this: What constitutes an emergency? When should I call 911 and when just the non-emergency number? I tried calling 911 on my cell, but should have called it from my home so they could trace the call. Not that I was under such stress that I couldn't remember my address.

Just another difference of living on the east coast versus the midwest. The one time my husband called the police in the midwest, we were apartment managers and there was a very loud, drunk party going on across the street. Nothing scary, just loud and annoying. We have each called the police once so far while living here. I forget why the first time, but I don't remember being scared, but Drew was here that time.