The Detective's Behaviour

Was the police detective's behaviour remotely realistic? No matter what information he had received beforehand, he surely isn't free to simply disregarding Neil's claim that a serious crime is in progress and lives at risk? Isn't he obliged to follow up on a report like that, no matter who he thinks is more likely to tell the truth? Doesn't his course come close to "dereliction of duty", or whatever the equivalent for non-miltary officials is?

The only possible situation in which I'd find this justifiable is if Neil had a history as a hoaxer, which is obviously not the case, or if he had already investigated further (by checking on the daughter, say), which also is obviously not the case as he would tell Neil so, right?

I might be way off, though, since nobody has complained about this point yet as far as I can see...