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Sunday, May 11 2008 |
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After collecting over 80 different audio recordings, the left sidebar grew much too long to display all of them. The narrow column also precluded including all but the barest of details about the recording. So I have moved the listings to their own Web page, leaving the link to that page under the "Audio-Video" menu. Over the next weeks I will expand the description of each item on the page, detailing when it occurred, a short summary of the incident, and why the recording is pertinent. Most of the recordings are in mp3 format, which makes them easy to download and burn to a CD for use in training. Virtually every recording is a great lesson, even for experienced dispatchers. |
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Saturday, May 10 2008 |
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Windsor (Ont.) police officials say they are investigating a set of three videos posted on YouTube that allegedly record long conversations by a male and female police officer, exchanging sexually-related banter. The videos contain shots of the scanner on which the radio transmissions are apparently being received, although no in-focus view of the monitored frequency is ever shown. The transmissions seem to almost overlap sometimes, and each of the man's broadcasts ends with a high-pitched "beep" that doesn't sound usual for a public safety radio system. The city of Windsor, across from Detroit, operates a 800 MHz trunked radio system. Watch the first video here (quick, before it's taken down), and then link to the other two videos, then draw your own conclusions. |
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Saturday, May 10 2008 |
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Police officers in Shelton (Conn.) took a local TV reporter on a tour of the area, demonstrating how many radio dead spots there are, and noting the hazard that creates. The problem is 20 years-old, the officers claim, but mayor Mark Lauretti says that he's never heard of any problems. The TV reporter obtained copies of various reports that document the radio problems. Read the full story here, and then download (pdf) the report here. |
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Saturday, May 10 2008 |
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Fellow dispatchers at the Red River (ND) Regional Dispatch Center are mourning the death of Kyle Marple, who suffered a hard landing while skydiving at an area airport. Marple was an expert-class skydiving instructor who had 2,000 jumps in his log book, and was well-known in the community of skydiving. Police said Marple, 37, was on his third jump of the day and that his parachute opened, but he landed hard. He died several days later. Marple had worked at the Red River center for the past 14 months, and had recently been accepted into the Fargo police academy to become an officer. |
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Friday, May 9 2008 |
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A Calgary (Alb.) family is mourning the loss of their 18 month-old boy after their 911 call using a VoIP voice line went to a national call center instead of the local public safety comm center. Officials said that when the couple called, they say no one answered, so they hung up. They received a call back from the call center operated by VoIP provider Comwave. However, the location records were outdated, so the call center operator sent EMS units to a former address. After 30 minutes a neighbor dialed 911 from a standard wired telephone and EMS arrived shortly after, but the infant could not be revived. There are questions about the regulation of VoIP providers and 911 within Canada. Read more about the situation here. |
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Friday, May 9 2008 |
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Kudos to Everett (Mass.) dispatcher Mary Tieri, a 5-year veteran who has used her medical training to help save two lives in just the past two weeks. Officials say the first 911 call was from the parents of a 6 month-old boy who was not breathing. She gave the couple CPR instructions and the boy was revived. During the second 911 call, Tieri again gave CPR instructions to the wife of a heart attack victim. He also survived. See a photo of Tieri here. |
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Friday, May 9 2008 |
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Police in Plantation (Fla.) are investigating the murder of Olidia Day in the front parking lot of their police station, apparently during a 911 call that she made for help. Day called as she desperately drove through the streets after being accosted at home by a man who was obsessed with her. Yelling during most of the call, Day asked for the address of the Plantation police department. The call was answered by a Sunrise police dispatcher, who transferred the call to PPD. But about two minutes and 40 seconds into the call, the connection is broken, apparently at the point that she arrived at the station and was shot dead. The suspect was shot and injured by officers. Read more and listen to the 911 call here. |
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Friday, May 9 2008 |
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Boston (Mass.) police comm center officials say they will retrain dispatchers and have more supervisor oversight of 911 call after a dispatcher mis-prioritized a 911 call from a man who had been robbed. The 76 year-old victim was bleeding from a beating inflicted by the robber. However, because the suspect had fled, the call was given a lower priority, and officers arrived 35 minutes after the attack. Read more about what steps the police are taking to prevent future mistakes here. |
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Friday, May 9 2008 |
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The union representing an unnamed Dane County (Wisc.) 911 dispatcher says the woman did everything correctly when handling a hang-up 911 call from a university student who was later found stabbed to death. At the same time, the county released a heavily-redacted 40-page report detailing how the woman's 911 call was handled. Madison police say Brittany Zimmermann was killed April 2nd in her apartment, and that she made a cellular 911 call, apparently for help. Her body was later found by her fiancé at mid-day. Her murder and the 911 call have generated fear among residents and finger-pointing among the involved agencies, who refused to release details on the timing of any of the events. County officials offered confused information on whether the involved dispatcher was transferred to other duties after the incident, and there was information the dispatcher had previously requested a transfer to another job entirely. There is also confusion over whether there were any sounds during the call indicating a person needed help, disagreement between the county and union over whether procedures were properly followed, and who hung up the 911 call--Zimmermann or the dispatcher. The logging recorder tape of the 911 call has not been released. Read about the union's support for the dispatcher here, read about the county's report here, and download (pdf) the report here, including a list of Web sites the dispatcher surfed around the time of the 911 call. FOX-TV's Greta Van Sustern has been discussing the case--check a transcript here. Lastly, check this story on 911 director Joe Norwick and his press conference. |
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Friday, May 9 2008 |
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A British government report on the future of telecommunications predicts that body implants may some day automatically alert emergency services if a person suffers a medical problem. The report by the Office of Communications (Ofcom) also foresees automatic emergency calls after vehicle accidents, a topic now being discussed by the European Union as a car manufacturer mandate. Read more about future communications here. |
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Thursday, May 8 2008 |
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Does your comm center manage special traffic enforcement units? Now there's a Web site that is compiling the locations of so-called "speed traps" across the country, including red light cameras. The information is from visitor submissions, and appears to be geographically inaccurate in many cases. You might want to check your own jurisdiction on the www.njection.com Web site. |
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Thursday, May 8 2008 |
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Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has signed an executive order that extends current statewide alerting procedures to include the broadcast of offender information for those killing or seriously injuring law enforcement officers. Crist signed the order ahead of National Police Week, which is next week. Under the order, suspect information would appear on highway message signs and other through media outlets, intended to help capture suspects through public tips. Read the full order here. |
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Thursday, May 8 2008 |
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A Rochester (NY) dispatcher was fired last December after she allegedly accessed several criminal justice computer files without authorization. Nadire Zelenaj has been charged by police with official misconduct and 232 counts of computer trespassing. Zelenaj was hired in 2002, and officials say her unauthorized access dates back at least two years. Local police alerted the FBI to Zelenaj's activities, and an FBI spokesperson said they are investigating any federal violations. Strangely, her arrest 5 months ago has now sparked stories on several personally-operated Web sites claiming Zelanaj is part of an organized, Muslim-based group that has been probing intelligence computer systems for specific information. None of those claims has been verified or even explained by the Web sites, and local police haven't made such a connection. |
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Thursday, May 8 2008 |
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The latest electronic edition of DISPATCH Monthly Magazine is now available for registered users. Subscribers to the E-Edition should have received an e-mail describing the log-in and download (pdf) process. E-mail
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if you encounter any problems in retrieving the issue. |
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Thursday, May 8 2008 |
 Industry sources have told The Wall Street Journal that Sprint/Nextel has been in talks with Morgan O'Brien about a possible sale of Nextel that O'Brien would broker by assembling investors to fund the purchase. The irony is that O'Brien co-founded Nextel, which Sprint then purchased in 2005 for $35 billion. Lately Nextel customers have been defecting to other carriers by the millions, raising the possibility that Sprint would unload the Nextel portion of its business. The Journal noted that O'Brien founded Cyren Call to push for a nationwide public safety radio network, but a recent auction resulted in no successful bidders for spectrum to create the network. According to the Journal, O'Brien hopes that private investors will buy the Nextel network and frequency assignments, "and use them for public-safety purposes." He also hopes the group would bid on the spectrum when the FCC holds another future auction for the D Block frequencies that didn't previously sell. Read about O'Brien's attempts to convince rural cellular companies to bid on the D Block here. |
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Friday, May 2 2008 |
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Madison (Wisc.) police chief Noble Wray says that an investigation has revealed that murder victim Brittany Zimmermann dialed 911 on April 2nd, apparently just before she was killed, and that there was enough information on the call for the dispatcher to create a police response. However, no incident was created, he said. "It would be accurate to state that there is evidence contained in the call, which should have resulted in a Madison police officer being dispatched," Wray said during a news conference. Zimmermann was found dead in her apartment, apparently the victim of an invasion attack. Read communications director Joseph Norwick's remarks about the incident and some debate over 911 call-answering policies here. |
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The Buzz
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The U.S. Department of Justice offers a toolkit for compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), including a special chapter covering 911 centers. Surf the toolkit or download (pdf) the chapter. |
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