Dispatch Magazine On-Line

911 Caller Describes Family Massacre

Gary Allen — Tue, 08 May 2012 23:00:17 +0000

When a Gilbert (Ariz.) dispatcher answered a 911 call last week, she was immediately swept into an horrific murder-suicide that took five lives, with the lone survivor on the phone hiding in a bedroom and sobbing uncontrollably. Over the next eight minutes the unnamed dispatcher worked to obtain information from the 19 year-old caller, whose mother, sister and two other relatives lay dead at the front of the house of gunshot wounds. Also dead was Jason Ready, who killed himself. On the dramatic logging tape of the call, the dispatcher tries to balance the safety of the caller and the need for information as officers arrive. The dispatcher’s questions move from basic to specific, eventually leading to what Ready looks like and what he’s wearing, as officers arrive and need to confirm the shooter is dead. The call ends as it began, with the caller crying and sobbing, being led from the house by an officer. Listen to the daughter’s 911 call here, and also a dispatcher’s call-back to a neighbor who dialed 911 to report that he heard gunfire.

NYC Mayor Releases 911 Report Critical of System

Gary Allen — Mon, 07 May 2012 22:01:08 +0000

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has released a consultant’s 134-page report critical of the city’s $2.1 billion 911 calltaking system—after a judge ordered its release—and critics immediately said the original document had been heavily edited by the mayor’s office to delete even more criticism by the consultant. The report confirmed what critics and even the city’s auditor have said previously about the system, including poor call handling by calltakers, lack of standard calltaking policies, poor performance analysis, and a lack of complete integration of the city’s public safety communications. The analysis by Winbourne Consulting LLC also clearly demonstrates the complexity of creating an effective and efficient emergency response system in America’s big cities. The report was ordered after response probles to the 2010 blizzard that hit the city. However, after Winbourne delivered the report to the city last year, Bloomberg refused to release it to the public, saying that its release would inhibit his administration from making decisions on the recommendations. A state judge disagreed with Bloomberg’s position and last month ordered him to release the report. Last Friday Bloomberg’s office released only paper copies of the report, and said it was the complete Winbourne analysis. However, the city firefighters’ union and other critics claim the as-delivered report was 216 pages, and that pages were removed. City officials have denied that claim.

The city consolidated its three separate police, fire and EMS dispatching operations into one building last year, a process that took almost a decade. Previously, anyone dialing 911 would reach a calltaker who would question the caller about their emergency. That calltaker would then transfer the caller to the appropriate agency’s comm center, where a second dispatcher would question the caller and obtain information for a response.

The original intent of the consolidation was to eliminate that second step of collecting information. However, as the Winbourne report points out, despite moving the three agency’s dispatching teams to one location, call-handling remains a three-agency operation, adding seconds to the response time of all incidents, as calls are transferred and callers must repeat information.

The 911 calltakers have not been adequately trained, the report states, particularly for handling fire-related incidents. The fire department’s dispatchers are also inadequately trained, according to the report. The three public safety agencies use different mapping systems, the report notes, and much of the technology they use is duplicated among three agencies.

The report also notes that police, fire and EMS use different formulas to calculate response times. Winbourne notes that most cities combine answering, call-handling, dispatching and travel times to create a total response time. However, the report notes that NYPD does not track any of the call-processing time, and states its response time only as the combination of incident dispatching and travel times. The police department says their current technology does not allow them to accurately track from when a 911 call is queued to when its entered for dispatch. (see p. 62).

New York does not track one segment of its overall response time: the time from when a call is answered by a calltaker to when it’s queued for dispatch. In New York City, the clock begins when a call is queued and stops when units arrive on-scene. Critics say it is accepted practice among other major cities to include this time, and that the Bloomberg administration deliberately excludes it to make response times look shorter.

The report also criticizes other aspects of the calltaking process, including that calltakers answer the phone by giving their personal ID number, which Winbourne claims wastes valuable time. The report notes that dispatcher IDs are logged electronically and don’t’ have to be spoken to be recorded on the phone logging tape.

According to Winbourne, a staggering 39 percent of the 1,071,121 calls to 911 during 2011 were so-called “short” calls, accidentally made from cellular phones. The consultant recommended collecting more information about these calls and devising a plan to lower the number through a public awareness campaign.

Winbourne issued 20 recommendations with the report, and Bloomberg said he would move quickly to form a committee to study those recommendations.

Download (pdf, 50 Mb) the Winbourne report here.

Verizon Selects 911 Text Message Partner

Gary Allen — Sun, 06 May 2012 13:52:51 +0000

Ready or not, public safety comm center will begin receiving 911 text messages from some Verizon Wireless customers starting early next year, the company has announced. In a press release last Thursday, Verizon said it has selected TeleCommunications Systems Inc. to “participate in an initiative” to allow its cellular customers to send SMS text messages requesting emergency assistance. The press release did warn its customers they should, “always first try to contact a 911 center by making a voice call,” but said SMS text messages, “will offer an alternative for customers on the Verizon Wireless network who are deaf or hard of hearing and cannot make voice calls or who could be placed in additional danger by speaking.” Verizon spokesperson Marjorie Hsu described Verizon as, “at the forefront of 911 public-safety innovations.” However, Hsu did also not describe the many identified problems with using text messages to transmit emergency messages, including no intelligent routing, no guarantee of delivery, no guarantee of timely delivery, no acknowledgement to the sender, and no location data sent with the text message. There are just a handful of comm centers now accepting text messages sent to 911, and there are no standardized policies and procedures for handling emergency text messages. Some comm center managers are afraid 911 text messaging will dramatically increase the number of prank and accidental messages to comm centers. Read a comparison of a 911 voice calls and 911 text messages here, and on that Web page also download (pdf) a study of text messaging limitations written by an independent group.

FCC Waives Narrowbanding For T-Band Users

Gary Allen — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 20:25:55 +0000

As expected, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has waived its long-standing narrowbanding mandate, but only for public safety agencies that will eventually have to vacate T-Band frequencies under new legislation. The ruling last Thursday means that cities that are assigned 470-512 MHz frequencies can now focus their time and money on moving to other frequency bands—possibly 700/800 MHz—and not on the process of upgrading their radios to allow narrowband transmissions. The FCC issued its original narrowbanding orders in 1995, and set a deadline of January 2013. The order requires users of 150-173 MHz and 421-512 MHz frequencies to move from 25 kHz-wide channels to 12.5 kHz channels. For medium and large-sized users, the process can be time-consuming and expensive, especially since the radio systems must be in continuous use. The narrowbanding process has been complicated by passage of tax legislation in February that also funded a nationwide public safety wireless network, but also mandated a give-back of the T-Band spectrum. In its waiver last week, the FCC acknowledged the dual requirements for T-Band users that the legislation crated: narrowband by next January and vacate about nine years later. “Continuing to require narrowbanding could force many licensees in the band to invest in narrowband systems that may subsequently have to be relocated,” the FCC noted. “We conclude that it would be inequitable and contrary to the public interest.” The commission said it’s still committed to a “timely” transition to narrowband technology relieve spectrum congestion, and will consider how long waiver relief should remain in effect. Download (pdf) the FCC’s order and read a news story about one agency’s reaction.

Dispatchers Fired For Inappropriate Messaging

Gary Allen — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 20:48:53 +0000

Officials of the Hamilton County (Tenn.) Emergency Communications District have confirmed that 11 dispatchers have been either fired or suspended without pay for violation of the comm center’s policy on using the an instant-messaging system. According to an attorney representing two of the fired dispatchers, the inappropriate messages contained criticism of other employees, including supervisors. In a press release, officials of the center said that last October they that some dispatchers might be misusing the instant messaging system that is part of the center’s computer-aided dispatch (CAD) software. They began reviewing messages created on the system, totaling 8,700 pages of text. At the end of the investigation, center director John Stuermer said that 11 dispatchers were found to have violated the center’s policy on use of the messaging, and were disciplined. He declined to release specifics, including the names of the dispatchers. “Further details into the investigation and disciplinary actions will be made available after the employee’s right of appeal process is finalized,” officials said in a press release.” Officials stressed that the inappropriate messaging never affected emergency operations. “We found no evidence that the District’s ability to provide timely emergency service to citizens or first responders was impaired or jeopardized,” the press release stated. Attorney Jerry Tidwell, who told reporters he represents two of the fired dispatchers, said one of his clients questions why some dispatchers were fired and others were suspended. All the dispatchers have 14 day to appeal their discipline. News video after the break.

911 Caller Threatens To Shoot Students

Gary Allen — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 19:59:36 +0000

Police in New Jersey have still not been able to trace the origin of a 911 call made last month by a man who said he had an AK-47 across from a school and intended to start shooting students. “I’m at Hackettstown High School and watching the kids,” the man told a dispatcher during one of two disjointed calls. The man used broken English and told the dispatcher he was at various locations during the call. Because of the various locations the caller gave, police sealed off the high school and six other city schools for four hours, along with the city library. Investigators say the call originated from a cellular phone, which has complicated tracing the caller. Also, the logging tape of the second call had “problems,” police said, affecting the production of a transcript. Officials didn’t provide a further explanation of the problem. Download (pdf) the full 911 call transcript here.

Dispatcher Persuades Driver To End Pursuit

Gary Allen — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 19:01:59 +0000

A quick-thinking and persistent Michigan dispatcher was able to convince a motorist to pull over and surrender to police, ending an 80 mph chase with no injuries and an arrest. Luis Bonilla-Machado, 25, had been reported as suicidal by his wife, and failed to yield to an officer who spotted him running a red light. Apparently scared to stop, Bonilla-Machado dialed 911 and reached Allegan County Central Dispatch dispatcher Tammy Gane. Over the next eight minutes Ganes gave the driver specific instructions to pull over, including “Hit your brakes,” and, “Put your car in park.” Center assistant director Tammy Bruce told a reporter that Gane was, “empathetic to the situation, thinking of his safety as well as the officers responding.” Police said they found cocaine in the car and on Bonilla-Machado’s face after his arrest. Listen to the logging tape of the 911 call here.

‘Faulty’ Radio Put Firefighters In Danger

Gary Allen — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:52:36 +0000

Four East Cleveland (Ohio) firefighters were forced to bail out of the second story of a vacant home last week after their portable radio call for water wasn’t heard by the pump operator, and flames nearly cut off their escape route. Fire officials say two firefighters fell 15 feet into a side yard, while the other two crawled onto the front porch roof and were rescued by colleagues with a ladder. One firefighter was taken to a hospital but later released. Fire officials said a faulty radio may have contributed to the problem. In fact, video of the radios shows that East Cleveland is using a business grade model of Motorola radios. More significantly, the two pictured radios both had major antenna damage that appears to have occurred from use before the fire, not during the incident itself. The city’s mayor says new radios have already been purchased and will be put into service immediately. He didn’t explain why the new radios hadn’t been distributed earlier. View the radios and watch a video after the break.

One radio appears to be a Motorola Radius P1225.

Both radios appear to be older, business-grade, Motorola Radius model radios, and both have damage to the antennas, apparently from prior use.

A closer view of the radios shows that one antenna has been "repaired" with tape.

Dispatcher Reprimanded After Murder-Suicide

Gary Allen — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 01:22:05 +0000

Officials at a regional Washington state communications center have issued a mildly-worded letter of reprimand to the dispatcher who handled a 911 call from a social worker last February, minutes before the parent she was supervising set fire to his house, killing himself and two young children. The Tacoma-based Law Enforcement Support Agency (LESA) delivered the letter of reprimand to 18-year veteran dispatcher Davd Lovrak for allegedly violating the center’s mission statement, and three statements from the center’s operations manual on trust, “concern and courtesy,” and responsiveness. The agency found that Lorvak did not actually mishandle the 911 call or violate more substantive sections of the operations manual. In fact, the reprimand letter written by LESA assistant director Diana Lock said Lovrak correctly prioritized the incident, had no premise information on which to rely, and correctly did not rely on Phase II 911 location information because, “it can be extremely inaccurate.” Much of the letter recounted a “fact-finding” that Lock had with Lovrak, during which he admitted his errors and justified his actions. Lock summed up, “Could you have handled this call better? Yes, and you have been the first to admit that.” Lock concluded that a written reprimand was the appropriate discipline. “If the outcome had been different I feel a Written Record of Counseling would be warranted,” she wrote without explanation. The social worker dialed 911 to report Josh Powell, who was the focus of several police investigations and was in the midst of a custody battle with his wife. When the social worker delivered the children to his home for a supervised visit, Powell slammed the door shut. Shortly after, the house erupted in flames. Download (pdf) Lovrak’s letter of reprimand here., and read more about the original incident here.

Victim’s Family Urges Call-Taking Changes

Gary Allen — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 23:22:44 +0000

The sons of a 67 year-old Berkeley (Calif.) man who was bludgeoned to death last February have called for improvements in the way dispatchers handle incidents, especially during times when police responses are restricted. Peter Cukor was struck with a ceramic pot and killed by a man who was later declared incompetent to stand trial because of his psychiatric condition. Cukor called police to report the suspect was on his property and acting erratically. At the time police were preparing for an Occupy Oakland march and were only handling Priority 1 incidents—the calltaker classified Cukor’s incident as Priority 2. Police did not respond until Cukor’s wife dialed 911 to report he was being assaulted. During a press conference last week, Cukor’s adult sons said police calltakers should inform callers of the assigned priority of their incident and given an approximate response time. Dispatchers should also receive training to better evaluate the circumstances of incidents reported by citizens, the sons said. The Cukors also called upon Alameda County adopt a law that would more effectively handle people with psychiatric conditions, saying the suspect should have been locked up “years ago.” Download (pdf) the family’s statement here.