After two fatal shootings in Ohio and Florida this weekend, questions are being asked whether dispatchers properly obtained critical information from 911 callers, and if they then relayed it to first responders. Both incidents demonstrate the importance of premise files in computer-aided dispatch (CAD) systems, and of the radio link between dispatchers and those who arrive first on-scene. In Ohio, a Cleveland dispatcher took information from a citizen that a young boy had a “pistol,” but also told the calltaker twice that, “It’s probably fake.” The dispatcher didn’t react or ask additional questions about the comment, and didn’t ask the caller to remain at the scene to point out the person. A Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association spokesperson said the radio dispatcher never relayed the caller’s information about the pistol possibly being a replica firearm. When two officers arrived at a city recreation center, they saw the boy and confronted him. The 12 year-old reached for the pistol in his waistband, police say, and the officer shot and killed him. In Tallahassee, a man with grudge against government set fire to his house, then went to a neighbor’s house to report it. When Leon County fire and sheriff’s deputies arrived, the man opened fire with a pistol, killing a deputy and wounding another. A source has told one reporter that a Combined Dispatch Agency (CDA) calltaker entered the neighbor’s address instead of the house that was on fire. The CAD premise file for the suspect’s house contained information that he had previously threatened law enforcement, the source said, and would have alerted fire and sheriff’s deputies of the hazard.
Read more about the Cleveland incident here (with logging tape). In mid-January 2015 information about the calltaker and radio dispatcher were released by the police department. Watch a video report about them here, and download the personnel file of radio dispatcher Beth Mandl here. In early Feb. 2015 the Cleveland family of Tamir Rice filed an amended federal lawsuit (pdf) against the city, officers and dispatchers over his shooting death.
Read more about the Tallahassee incident here, and listen to the logging tape of Leon County Fire here.
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