said by IanR 
:What's weird is that I be;ieve you can use any phone, whether is service or not, to make a 911 call. If that's so why did Verizon try to charge the Police for merely switching the phone on for 5 minutes?
All Cellphones are REQUIRED to be able to call 911 even if they are otherwise disabled. There is no need to activate the phone's account for incoming or outgoing calls just to locate it. Verizon can look up the phone's location so long as it is powered on and get the cell tower it is handshaking with. If needed they can CALL the phone to get the handshake if needed (I do not know if the phone account being deactivated disables the handshake but I doubt it since to make the 911 call you'd need a dial tone and communication with the tower).
