An unintentional mistake by a long-time Mesa County (Colo.) information technology (IT) technician allowed public access to hundreds of thousands of criminal justice records spanning 20 years, including the names and personal details about sheriff’s employees and confidential informants. County officials say the unnamed IT employee no longer works for the county, and that they’re working to identify the extent of the release and how many people accessed the records. Sheriff Stan Hilkey said the employee was part of a team that is integrating various computer systems for the region’s law enforcement agencies. During a file format conversion, the IT worker moved files from the sheriff’s records management system to another computer, which the person believed was secure. However, the computer was linked to the Internet and was not configured to prevent outside access. IT officials said the files were moved in April, and the security breach wasn’t discovered until November 24th. Computer logs show the files were accessed by U.S. and international computers starting in October. Read a story about the breach here, and follow-up on the impact of the release of data here.

The top three priorities for the nation’s cellular carrier association are spectrum, spectrum, spectrum. And in a recent interview, CTIA president Steve Largent warned that without more frequencies, the carriers must closely manage their network to avoid blocked 911 calls or emergency alerts. He told an All Things Digital reporter that carriers now have a “limited” amount of spectrum, requiring more restrictions on customer use to insure proper service, what the carriers call “network management.” Without management, Largent said, “You could have 911 calls blocked or people’s calls from their kids in college blocked or emergency alerts blocked and that’s not the system anyone wants to see.” Read the full interview here.

Someone inside Tia Hendricks’ apartment dialed 911 at 7 a.m. on Thanksgiving day, yelled the name “Caron,” and then hung up after 17 seconds. The next day family members became worried and called Columbus (Ohio) police, and officers discovered Hendricks dead inside, along with her 10 year-old daughter and 2 year-old son. Police arrested Caron Montgomery, Hendricks boyfriend, for the murders after they found him inside the apartment with a knife stuck in his neck, apparently a suicide attempt. Police officials say the dispatcher who fielded the 911 call called back the number twice, but didn’t reach anyone—it’s not clear if there was no answer or the dispatcher reached voicemail. Police were dispatched to the GPS-reported location of the wireless 911 call. But it was about one block south of the actual location of Hendricks’ apartment, and patrol officers found nothing. The dispatcher contacted Sprint to determine the phone’s subscriber and obtained a billing address. However, police said that address led to Hendricks’ former home in another part of Columbus. Police officials said no officers were dispatched to the former address and no one contacted Hendricks’ family who still live there. Read more about the incident here. Update: Lt. Brent Mull, commander of the center, defended the dispatcher and said she did “a considerable number of things” to locate the caller. Mull said it was a family member at the older address, and others, who reported Hendricks’ missing the next day, leading to police find the family dead. Read the follow-up article here.

The family of murder victim Brittany Zimmermann has reached a final settlement with Dane County (Wisc.) over a lawsuit that accused the county of improperly supervising, funding and staffing the center, and inadequately training the center’s dispatchers. The lawsuit also alleged that former dispatcher Rita Gahagan improperly handled a 911 call from Zimmermann’s apartment in Feb. 2008, and did not send police to investigate the call. Zimmermann was found murdered two hours later by her boyfriend, and her murderer is still at large. Neither the county or family would comment on the settlement. But court documents indicate the county has agreed to pay $5,000 into a reward fund for the killer, and to pay $2,500 towards the family’s legal expenses. Read more about the on-going incident and investigation here.

At a press event today, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair Julius Genachowski announced the agency will begin tackling the creation of a Next Generation 911 (NG911) network, highlighting what the FCC calls the “life-saving potential of text, photo, and video in emergencies.” Genachowski invoked the 2007 students murders at Virginia Tech (VT), claiming students tried to text-messsage 911 during the incident, a claim not supported by the official after-action report of the incident. In a press release, the FCC also claimed, “If these messages had gone through, first responders may have arrived on the scene faster with firsthand intelligence about the life-threatening situation that was unfolding.” That claim is disputed by the official state report—officers arrived within three minutes, what the report says was an “extraordinarily fast response.” In their statements, the FCC and Genachowski focused the intent of NG911 on broadband, handling wireless 911 calls and the goal of having comm centers accept photos, videos, data and text messages, despite an industry study that concluded that text messages are “impractical” for emergency reporting. The other advantages of an IP-based 911 network were omitted from the FCC’s material, including network redundancy, flexible comm center back-up, nationwide transfer and improved data handling. Genachowski’s speech and the FCC press release sparked widespread reporting in the news media that focused solely on text messaging, further leading the public to believe such a feature is essential, or even practical. read more

A Lubbock (Tex.) police dispatcher was hospitalized and several others were sickened when lethal carbon monoxide gas from the building’s boiler leaked into the comm center on Sunday. The comm center was evacuated and dispatching operations were transferred to the fire department’s comm center until the boiler problem was fixed. The dispatchers recovered, but fire officials are using the incident to remind city residents of the dangers of carbon monoxide. Police officials said a single dispatcher fell ill about noon, complaining of the typical symptoms of CO—headache, nausea and fatigue. About 90 minutes later several other dispatchers also felt ill, and the fire department responded to find high levels of CO inside the comm center. The evacuation and transfer of dispatching tasks was routine, officials said. The police department said they’ve now installed carbon monoxide detectors within the comm center. Update: Coincidentally, the IAFC kicked off a CO awareness program in early December, including a Web site.

All it took to save a 2 year-old drowning victim was an EMD-trained dispatcher and a citizen hero willing to take CPR instructions and bring the little girl back to life. Last September 65 year-old lawyer Tom Campbell heard his neighbor along the Huron River (Mich.) screaming, ran down to the riverbank and saw the neighbor’s daughter unconscious in the water. He dialed 911 with one hand and pulled the girl from the water with the other, reaching Livingston County 911 Central Dispatch dispatcher Leane Lowe. Campbell gave his location and then told Lower he didn’t know CPR, but was willing to take instructions. During the first 90 seconds, the victim’s mother can be heard yelling the background, and apparently attempting to help the child. As Lowe gets ready to provide instructions, Campbell told her to hold—”While I get rid of mom.” Campbell instructed the woman to go to the road and flag down the EMS units that were enroute. Read a very heroic story and listen to first part of the 911 call here.

After an officer-involved collision that killed a citizen, Indianapolis (Ind.) police have launched a wide-ranging investigation into all forms of officer communications, including smartphones, pagers, private two-way radios and laptops. Police officials say they want to document how officers are now using communications devices, and then establish regulations to set limits on where and when they can be used. In Feb. 2009 it was revealed that IPD officers were using their own portable radios to communicate with each other, sometimes using inappropriate language. Earlier this month a local scannerist reported hearing IPD officers using a local school district radio frequency without authorization. The officers were also using profanity on the radio channel, the scannerist claimed. Now, in the latest revelation, it’s been revealed that officer David Bisard was sending text messages on Aug. 6th to another officer within 90 seconds of a fatal crash into a group of motorcyclists. Accident investigators say Bisard was traveling 73 mph responding to assist with a non-emergency warrant service. Bisard’s text messages included jokes about food and the state fair, officials said. Read more about the investigation here.

A simple CAD error by an East Hampton Village (NY) dispatcher resulted in EMS units responding to the wrong location, delaying the response and ending with the death of a heart attack victim. Lanny Ross, 51, died at the hospital, and officials cannot say if a prompt response would have saved him. Kenneth Collum, director of the comm center, said the victim’s wife dialed 911 and gave the correct address in the town of Wainscott. However, the address is duplicated in three other jurisdictions on Long Island. When the dispatcher entered the address the computer-aided dispatch (CAD) software displayed a drop-down menu of jurisdictions, and the dispatcher selected the village of East Hampton, Collum said. He did not release exact response times, but said a dispatcher realized the mistake and sent alternate EMS units to the correct address. Collum also said the caller used a VoIP line to make the 911 call, and that the ANI/ALI did not display the caller’s address. Read more here, and view a map of the locations after the break. read more

With just five months of experience, a Charleston County (SC) sheriff’s dispatcher carefully questioned an hysterical 911 caller who yelled she had been locked in the trunk of a car by her estranged boyfriend, and was traveling down Highway 17. Dispatcher Susan Zepka was hired last July and completed training just last month, said deputy comm center director Allyson Burrell. Despite her short experience, Zepka calmed the woman down, and the victim was then able to describe the vehicle and narrow down its location. At one point the boyfriend stopped the car, opened the trunk and confronted the woman, all captured on the logging tape. Sheriff’s deputies followed Zepka’s location information about the vehicle to a truck stop, where they arrested the boyfriend, and learned that he’d let the victim out earlier up the road. Listen to the 911 call here.

A Glenwood (Ill.) police dispatcher who was convicted of tipping off her boyfriend about drug investigations did not violate a law, the state’s Supreme Court has ruled, and therefore her conviction on official misconduct must be overturned. In 1998 Carmecita Williams, 51, made several on and off-duty telephone calls to her boyfriend, giving him information that a local drug task force was roaming his area. Police learned of the calls and began an investigation, which led to Williams’ arrest on conspiracy and official misconduct. A local court convicted Williams and sentenced her to community service and 24 months probation. But her attorney appealed, and a state appellate court agreed with William’s contention that the police department’s rules and regulations about confidentiality of information were not “laws” for which she could be convicted. Even further, the court found that Williams was not “member” of the police department as defined by the city’s municipal code, and therefore wasn’t subject to the confidentiality regulations. In the latest ruling, the Illinois Supreme Court found that the city’s regulations had not been officially enacted as ordinances, and were not included within the city clerk’s official listing of the Municipal Code. The court also determined the confidentiality regulations had not been promulgated by any legislative or elected body, but only by the police chief. Therefore, they did not meet the state’s standard as being a “law.” The Supreme Court concluded that although Williams’ conduct was “certainly troublesome and unjustifiable,” the criminal charge of official misconduct wasn’t applicable. The court also suggested that other criminal charges might have been more appropriate. Download (pdf) the appeals court decisions here.

After stopping a Kentucky man for playing his radio too loud and discovering he had a warrant, Louisville police added charges when they found his smartphone had apps allowing him to monitor police radio transmissions. The police action is the first reported case of criminal charges for possessing a software application allowing access to police radio transmissions via the Internet. Police say Cory Todd, 20, was driving the vehicle without insurance, and the registration was in a different name. After arresting him on the warrant, police examined Todd’s smartphone and discovered three apps that he had downloaded. The apps wirelessly connect to central Internet servers, which in turn are linked to physical scanner radios throughout the U.S. that are scanning various public safety radio frequencies. Todd was cited under Section 432.570 KRS, making it unlawful to have in a vehicle, “any mobile radio set or apparatus capable of either receiving or transmitting radio or other messages or signals” used by law enforcement. Police did not say which specific applications were found on the handset, or if Todd was actually listening to a police channel at the time of the car stop. State and federal courts have not unanimously established if cellular phones are searchable without a warrant after an arrest, especially if the arrest is unrelated to possession or use of the phone. read more

A manhunt is underway in two states for an armed man who robbed a bank in Louisiana on Thursday, stole two cars, shot and killed a grocery customer, and then carjacked an off-duty sheriff’s dispatcher as she was pumping gas at a service station. Stephen Salsbury Jr. forced the unnamed Webster Parish dispatcher to drive him to Arkansas. At some point the dispatcher was able to shoot at the suspect with one of his guns, police say, and then escape without injury. Local, county and state police agencies are searching an area along the Louisiana-Arkansas border, and say it’s not clear if the suspect is wounded. Police say Saulsbury’s rampage began early Thursday when he broke into his ex-wife’s apartment looking for her husband. The suspect is armed with at least an AK-47 semi-auto rifle. Update: Deputy U.S. Marshals located Salsbury in Oklahoma City on Friday, sitting in the dispatcher’s vehicle at a Bass Pro store. As they closed in on him, he fatally shot himself. Police say “family problems” were the likely cause of Salsbury’s actions.

A Maryland state procurement board has approved a contract with Motorola to build an expansive statewide radio network that could eventually total $485 million and link all the state’s local, county and state public safety agencies. The state has been attempting to fund and build a 700 MHz network for almost 10 years, but is now facing a 2012 deadline for use of assigned frequencies by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). On a 2-1 vote today, the Board of Public Works approved Phase 1 of the project, and only in one region. The board is requiring the state’s information technology department to return to the board for approval of subsequent phases. The project is initially worth $345 million to Motorola over eight years, but could total $485 million over 15 years if future phases are approved. Board member Peter Franchot voted against the contract, saying it wasn’t fully funded and the decision should have been delayed until an award appeal by ARINC Inc. was resolved. The $50 million first phase of the project will involve only the state’s transportation agency, and public safety agencies won’t join the network until later phases are completed. Read the stack of radio system proposal documents here.

A complaint letter written by a Shawnee (Okla.) police union official has sparked criticism on how it was delivered and a state investigation into charges against the department’s police chief and at least one dispatcher. The accusations include a dispatcher who failed to properly review the location given in a call reporting children in a truck, kept a suicidal 911 caller on the phone for 45 minutes without notifying officers, and showed a photo of an officer’s penis to other employees. The letter was penned by Ken King, president of the local chapter of the International Union of Police Associations, and included complaints against several other people, including police chief Russell Frantz. The letter was delivered by mail to the mayor and six council members’ homes, but not to the city manager or police chief. City officials complained that King had failed to follow proper procedures for filing a complaint, saying chief Frantz should have received the complaint first. King didn’t name the dispatchers involved in the complaints. In one case, King claimed an officer took a photo of his penis and e-mailed it to a dispatcher, “who in turn showed the pictures to other (redacted) employees.” Also, King said an unnamed dispatcher fielded a call from a woman who said she had left her babies at a firehouse. “The subject said ‘firehouse’ three times. It was clear on the recording,” he wrote. “The failure to seek assistance in reviewing the call in an attempt to identify the location…resulted in a delay of several hours in finding the babies,” the letter said. Read more about the situation and view the letter here.