Family Believes Dispatcher Botched 911 Call

The family of a murdered Great Falls (Mont.) man say that had a dispatcher sent police units in response to their very first 911 call, the victim would still be alive. Jerod Williams was strangled to death by acquaintance Jaydee Haagenson just before 1:30 a.m., police say, but his family members say they dialed 911 and a non-emergency number at 9:44 p.m. to say Haagenson was violating his parole and being violent. An unnamed dispatcher at the Great Falls/Cascade County Dispatch Center questioned the caller, but concluded that since the caller wasn’t at the house, police couldn’t respond. Haagenson’s father later called to provide more first-person information, and the dispatcher then transferred him to a watch commander on an untaped telephone line, and police never responded. Only later when Williams’ body was found did police arrive. Comm center manager Pam Johnstone defended the dispatcher, saying she followed procedure, but that “a little bit of training” needs to occur with dispatchers. Johnstone told a reporter that dispatchers have to make quick decisions on how to use limited resources based on the information they have, and can’t predict the future. Read the full story and listen to the telephone calls here. Update: An internal investigation found that neither the dispatcher nor a shift commander mishandled the family’s calls for assistance. Read the follow-up story here.

Editor: This incident and another incident that occurred in Dane County (Wisc.) raise the issue of what constitutes “mishandling?” Is it enough to perform just the basic tasks required, and just not be negligent? Or is a dispatcher required to obtain information, raise questions and evaluate information in order to proactively provide service?

More to the point, in the Great Falls incident did a telephone evaluation of the incident end with a sufficiently correct decision, and might an on-scene officer have intervened to prevent the victim’s death? Might the dispatcher have decided that it was impossible to determine what service the police could provide, and that an officer should respond to make an in-person decision?

The purpose of police departments–and the dispatchers–is to provide service to the citizens, not to act as gatekeepers for the service, denying or providing.

From the Great Falls news accounts, it’s clear that the callers believed they needed some type of assistance. Committing a single officer to evaluate their statements might have been enough to prevent a death.