A logging tape of telephone and radio traffic after the March 15th shooting death of Elyria (Ohio) Off. James Kerstetter reveals the sadness and chaos of the moment, but also the strength and expertise of the dispatchers who handled the incident. Kerstetter was dispatched to investigate reports of a naked, deranged man in a residential neighborhood, and was shot as he entered the suspect’s home. Arriving back-up officers confronted the suspect and killed him as he pointed a gun at them. Dispatchers coordinated an EMS response for both Kerstetter and the suspect, including an EMD helicopter, and dealt with phone calls from off-duty supervisors asking for information. The logging tape documents the sad result—news from the hospital that Kerstetter did not survive. Read more about the tragedy here, and listen to the logging tapes. 

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A Livingston County (Mich.) dispatcher Debra Laberdie has many childhood memories—some of them very bad. In the most recent edition of APCO’s Public Safety Communications, Laberdie tells of watching her father physically abuse her mother. Laberdie originally told the story during an in-house training session last year, but was convinced by a co-worker to take her experience to a wider audience through APCO’s monthly magazine. A local newspaper has now spotlighted Laberdie and her magazine story, noting that an aunt who was a dispatcher pointed her to a comm center career in 1995. Read about Laberdie’s experience here.

As Erie County (NY) sheriff’s investigators searched their law enforcement databases to learn the identity and locate a woman linked to a 2006 murder, down the hall in the comm center, a dispatcher was closing in on the same information by using social Web sites. As detailed in an edtion of “20-20″ on ABC, the unnamed dispatcher found out the true identify of a woman who had carried on a Internet relationship with two men, ending with the murder of one of them. On the show, then-sheriff Ron Kenyon said, “One of our young dispatchers was very fluent with…I’m not sure what Internet meeting site,” he said, and found a Facebook page while investigators were coming up empty using the local, state and NCIC databases. View the episode here.

The District of Columbia’s Office of Unified Communications (OUC) has been honored by several public safety and 911 groups for their performance in handling the inauguration of President Barrack Obama last January. The groups made the award during the annual “9-1-1 Goes to Washington” conference. The groups also honored Blackhawk County (Iowa) comm center director Judy Flores with a  Government Leader Award, primarily for her center’s adoption of 911 text messaging, the first in the country. The DC center was formed with the merger of separate police, fire and EMS comm centers in 2004, and now use Intergraph CAD to handle incidents and track field units. In a press release, Intergraph says 1.8 million people visited Washington to witness the inauguration, resulting in a 50 percent increase in 911 call compared to an average day, or about 6,000 calls for assistance. Despite the increase, 96 percent of 911 calls were answered within five seconds, the company says, while calls to the 311 non-emergency number were answered within 30 seconds. At the peak, more than 300 OUC personnel, including calltakers and IT professionals, were on-duty. Flores helped implement 911 text messaging (SMS), which allows anyone to contact the comm center without dialing 911 and making a voice call. E911 Institute executive director Gregory Rohde said the link would allow, “greater access to emergency services for more people, especially those with special needs.” (more…)

A decision by a San Jacinto County (Tex.) sheriff’s captain not send deputies in response to several calls about a deranged man turned deadly—the man shot and killed three relatives and then himself. The incident spotlights how an unnamed sheriff’s dispatcher was put in the middle of calls from people who felt they were in danger and who wanted help for Oliver Bills, and a supervisor who told the dispatcher, “Ohh, no! We don’t want to do that!” Bills may have had psychiatric problems last November, and his mother called on a non-emergency line to report him behaving erratically. The sheriff’s dispatcher said he would send a deputy, but first consulted with Capt. Carl Jones about a “welfare check.” But upon hearing that suggestion, Jones emphatically said, “No!” and explained to the dispatcher, “All you going to do is wind up creating an issue…that may hurt us in the long run.” So instead, the dispatcher told subsequent callers to ask a judge after the weekend for a mental health warrant for Bills. A deputy wasn’t dispatched until seven hours later, despite several calls from Bills’ mother and others. The deputy found the four bodies. Jones later told reporters that the four on-duty deputies were too busy to respond to the initial calls, but dispatch logs contradict that claim. Sheriff James Walters said no one has been disciplined, and defended the response. He noted that dispatchers called the family several times to check on their welfare. Read the entire story here, and a follow-up story about the sheriff’s call for more training.

The Speaker of Florida’s House of Representatives has withdrawn his support for proposed legislation that would have restricted the public release of 911 call logging tapes, virtually killing the bill. A spokesperson for Larry Cretul said he still believes in the purpose of the bill, but withdrew his support so a political battle over the bill wouldn’t become a “distraction.” Logging tapes in Florida are subject to the state’s open records laws. The proposed changes would have restricted the release of audio tapes, but would have allowed printed transcripts of calls. Newspapers, TV stations and media groups opposed the bill, while the families of some victims supported keeping crisis moments confidential. Interestingly, the family of murder victim Denise Lee opposed the bill, saying it would help conceal errors and misconduct by public safety personnel that should be exposed. Read more here.

An off-hand remark by a Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) driver about a motorist has led to an inquiry, officials say, although they won’t name the dispatcher or provide any details. FHP officials did release logging tapes of 911 calls that reported an erratic driver on the I-295 Buckman Bridge near Jacksonville in February. Several persons called to report the car, which moments later swerved into an SUV, which flipped off the bridge into the water. The driver of the vehicle died. At one point, an FHP dispatcher was talking to a Jacksonville County sheriff’s dispatcher, and stated, “I wish that guy would go home.” In fact, a witness followed the Honda driver as it continued across the bridge to the driver’s home. However, it isn’t clear from the tape if the FHP dispatcher was referring to the suspect driver or the witness. Officials said their inquiry would look into the response time and to the dispatcher’s remark. Read more here, and listen to the logging tapes.

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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has sent a massive report to Congress intended to spur legislation that would improve the nation’s access to broadband-level access to the Internet, but which also contains a wide range of recommendations on public safety that could lead to federal funding for NG911, a nation-wide wireless network and improved citizen alerting systems. The 376-page report goes well beyond its most obvious purpose of bringing high-speed Internet to rural, poor or other under-serviced areas of the country. The report delves into how the Internet could be used to improve the daily lives of Americans, including how emergencies are reported by the public, how public safety agencies communicate with each other and the public, and how these systems can be hardened to prevent outages. The report noted that nearly one-third of Americans have no broadband access, including 10 million children, and that many industries and businesses are hampered by lack of Internet access. The FCC issued six broad goals, with #5 being, “To ensure the safety of the American people, every first responder should have access to a nationwide, wireless, interoperable broadband public safety network.” The report noted the 9/11 Commission report of 2004 that noted lack of interoperabile communications among public safety agencies. “It remains a problem more than five years later,” the report states. (more…)

Welcome to the remodeled Web site for Dispatch Magazine On-Line! It was a little bumpy over the past few days, but now the site is running faster on a new server using new software, and the intent is the same—critical information to help you work better. The homepage looks different and is organized more efficiently. News stories and headlines are at the top so you can quickly find out what’s happening in the world of public safety dispatching. You can easily comment on the news stories and share them via e-mail or various social networking sites. The forum is still active and waiting for your exchanges with fellow dispatchers. Further down the homepage is an opinion poll and all sorts of useful links to other Web pages and sites. You can continue to follow major stories using RSS (the link is to the upper left of the page), and now you can find new stories announced on Twitter at dispatchmag. I’ll be remodeling other non-news pages over the coming weeks to further streamline the site. I hope you find the site easy to use and useful. Send me your feedback via e-mail.

According to several public safety groups, drivers in California won’t be able to use their cellular phones to dial 911 if the state gives final approval to new vehicle glazing standards intended to reduce fuel consumption and exhaust emissions. Under the new regulations, by 2012 car manufacturers must provide front windshields on new cars that reflect more solar radiation, reducing the need to use air conditioning and, thereby, reducing how much fuel the car consumes. But the California Police Chiefs Association, California State Sheriffs Association, Crime Victims United of California and other groups claim the glass, which would have metallic coatings to comply with the regulations, will interfere with a variety of radio signals, including GPS units, cellular phones, garage door openers and parolee tracking devices. Not so, says the state’s Air Resources Board (ARB). The board says it’s tested a variety of radio devices from inside fully-shielded vehicles and found no change in radio reception. The board also notes that the regulation only applies to the front windshield by 2012, so there is plenty of “open space” for radio signals to reach devices inside the car. Read more about the objections here, and read Q&As from the ARB here (pdf).

The death of 43 year-old woman in her Spotsylvania County (Virg.) home last month has sparked an investigation of how the woman’s 911 call was handled, and how firefighters searched the house as she was still on the phone with a dispatcher. Sandy Hill was located 20 minutes after firefighters arrived, upstairs in the 1950s home that investigators say was a maze of doors and stairs. Hill could not open any windows to escape or get the attention of firefighters outside. The dispatcher kept her on the line and relayed location information to firefighters at the scene. “I’m going to die,” Hill told an unnamed county dispatcher at one point. County fire chief Chris Eudaily says smoke and the confusing layout of the home kept firefighters from quickly locating her. Two other occupants of the house escaped. Read more here, and listen to the radio radio traffic and 911 call.

Fire radio: here

Hill’s 911 call: here

When three men invaded his Norwalk (S. Calif.) home, a 7 year-old boy fled to a bathroom with his sister and dialed 911 for help, telling Los Angeles County Sheriff’s dispatcher Monique Patino that his parents were being threatened with a gun. Patino, who has two children of her own, skillfully handled the frightened boy, who told her, “Bring cops…a lot of them…and soldiers, too!” During the call, one of the suspects burst into the bathroom and grabbed the boy, who then said he had dialed 911. The suspects fled as deputies were enroute the home. The family, which hasn’t been named for their safety, visited the sheriff’s station the next day to meet with Patino and thank her. Read more and listen to the 911 call here, and watch a CBS video report here.

In a letter to Congress, a group of 35 public safety and consumer advocacy organizations has called out nine states who have diverted their 911 funds to other purposes, and has asked for more stringent sanctions to discourage states from draining money intended to support comm centers. The four-page letter was signed by NENA and APCO officials, and by several individual comm center officials, and was addressed to four members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The writers applauded past efforts by Congress to limit diversion of state 911 funds through withholding certain federal funding. But the letter said that Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Nebraska, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin, “ignored Congressional intent and raided or diverted” their 911 funds. “We are calling on Congress to do more,” the letter said, including additional legislation that would withhold even more federal funds from offending states. The letter writers also asked Congress to revise the current FCC reporting procedures for monitoring state 911 raids to better identify offenders. Download (pdf) the full letter here.

A rookie San Diego region California Highway Patrol (CHP) dispatcher received a 911 call straight from the front pages—a man said the engine of his Toyota Prius was racing, and he couldn’t stop the vehicle traveling at 94 mph. The driver survived the scary 20-minute ride after a CHP arrived, told him over the patrol car’s loudspeaker to apply the emergency brake and put the car in neutral, the car slowed to 50 mph and the man pressed the engine shut-off button (Prius has no traditional key ignition). At a later press conference, the driver said he was afraid to perform two actions that would have quickly stopped the car: put the car in neutral (he was afraid the car would go into reverse), turn the car off (he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to steer the car). Instead, he waited for a slower speed. As his car stopped, it gently into the back of the CHP that had pulled in front of him to warn off other vehicles—the CHP officer never tried to slow the Prius down by braking in front of it. The incident highlights the need for runaway car advice: immediately tell the driver to put the car in neutral, apply the brake and carefully steer to a safe spot off the roadway. Alternatively, tell the driver to turn the car off via key or button, warning them they will lose some steering and brake assist.

Not only have the nation’s local cities, towns and counties created their own 911 systems, but they’re all based on non-standard and sometimes odd methods of addressing properties in their jurisdiction. Facing the possibility of a future integrated, national 911 network, a federal group is now working to create a standard way of assigning addresses to help public safety pinpoint incidents, and also improve mail delivery and other related activities. The Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) held a meeting last month to approve the final draft of the standards, comprising 605 pages of basic definitions and terminology, and an attempt to corral all the various addressing methods into a single, meaningful standard. It’s an amazing collection of the familiar and the arcane. Download (pdf) the full document here, and follow the committee’s work here.