County Asks for Outside Review of Center

Allegheny County (Penn.) officials have asked the state’s emergency management agency and the National Emergency Number Association (NENA) to review their comm center policies and procedures, specifically those that applied to the handling of a mother-son disagreement that ended with the shooting deaths of three Pittsburgh officers on April 4th. One dispatcher has been put on administrative leave with pay after the incident, which began with a call from the mother asking police to remove her adult son from the home. The unnamed calltaker asked about the presence of guns, and the mother told him, “Yes…but they’re all legal.” The dispatcher failed to follow up on that response or include the presence of weapons in the CAD incident information. The two responding officers were shot when they entered the home, and a third officer died as he arrived in response to calls reporting the shootings. County executive Dan Onorato said, “If we receive any recommendations, we’ll certainly make those public and implement them as soon as possible. As it stands now, our position is that this is an isolated incident of human error rather than a failing of our policies and procedures.” However, the police union president has an alternate opinion, which you can read here.