An Arlington (Tex.) police dispatcher fired earlier this year for violating several department policies during the fatal shooting of an officer told investigators she didn’t send officers to a child’s report of the incident because she didn’t believe the child. That’s what 9-year veteran dispatcher Joan Ware told police investigators, according to testimony this week before an arbitration board that is considering her appeal of the firing. Off. Jillian Smith was shot and killed when she arrived at an apartment complex, and managed to key her microphone once. But Ware waited 15 minutes after hearing the “click” to send officers to check on Smith. Ware then didn’t tell the dispatched officers about the child’s previous 911 call, detailed description of what she saw—an officer shot and an empty police car with number “422″ on the side. Ware’s attorney calls her firing an “overreaction.” But city officials say both mistakes delayed a response to the shooting and put arriving cover officers at risk. Read more about the arbitration here.

An independent investigation of the demotions of three Delaware County (Ohio) 911 dispatchers has determined the action wasn’t taken in retaliation for the women making claims of sexual harassment, race and age discrimination against the comm center’s director. Instead, human resources consultant Felicia Bernardini reported the demotions were part of long-planned cutbacks within the center to meet budget constraints, and improved efficiency due to new technology. The women, all older than 52 years-old, complain that now-retired comm center manager Bob Greenlaw created a hostile work environment by making sexually-related comments to the women. But Bernardini noted the woman had not formally complained to their supervisors or managers, or to the county’s human resources department. The woman have filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the state’s Personnel Board of Review, and are awaiting dispositions from both agencies. Read more about the complicated employment situation here.

A coroner’s inquest into the death of two Montreal (Canada) college students has included testimony from fire investigators and dispatchers, who have pointed to a faulty fire alarm system at the victims’ apartment, and incorrect unit recommendations generated by computer-aided dispatch (CAD) software as contributing to the deaths. The two women died March 2nd while trying to escape a very smoky fire in a three-story building, whose fire alarm system did not sound, possibly because of an electrical failure. Wrong unit recommendations also delayed the fire response, possibly up to two or three minutes. Last Friday, dispatcher Marlènon-emergency Thibault testified she first typed “21500″ at the street address, but then quickly changed it “2500 Van Horne.” She told the coroner that the software then recommended fire units that were nearly 30 minutes from the fire. Thibault said she only looked at the recommendation list, which indicated the units’ estimated response times, not at the unit IDs. “If I’d looked at the number on the truck, I would have known,” they were too far from the fire, she said. A second calltaker fielded a 911 call about the fire, noticed the existing CAD fire incident and realized the responding units were incorrect. Mathieu Laroche said he changed the assigned units when he noticed the error. Dispatch supervisor Michel Asselin also noticed the wrong recommendations, which he described as “bizarre.” Laroche said CAD glitches have occurred when handling previous events. The city installed the Artemis brand CAD software three years ago, supplied by EDS, now a Hewlett-Packard business unit. Read more about the inquest here. and background on the CAD glitch here.

The prestigious Museum of Modern Art (NYC) has included a new concept of computer-aided dispatch (CAD) software in its latest “Talk to Me” exhibit that highlights the art of design, but linking to information and data in new and interactive ways. The CAD concept screens were developed by Philadelphia-based Electronic Ink, an award-winning firm that has also tackled several other  man-computer interfaces, including ATMs. The company studied the tasks that dispatchers perform, considered the priority of actions and came up with panels, screens and colors that present information more effectively. The result is, “Unlike traditional interfaces, which present an overwhelming amount of high-stakes information with equal weight, Electronic Ink’s design uses color, animation, and relative sizing to make critical calls more prominent and render priorities intelligible at a glance.” The company’s work is among 194 entries in the museum’s exhibit. View the on-line 911 Command Center here, and view two screens and a video after the break. read more

The cities within Santa Clara County (N. Calif.) are duplicating the functions and costs of providing emergency communications, according to a civil grand jury, and more importantly, “middle-men” in handling 911 calls delays responses from 20 second to three minutes. The grand jury also noted there is no regional radio communications, leaving first responders with no way to communicate when handling mutual aid emergencies. In its report issued last May, the grand jury recommended that dispatching be implemented on a county level, and that radio communications be streamlined. Now the county’s local jurisdictions have submitted their official responses to the report, generally agreeing but noting they are already working on issues the report highlighted. Each city submitted a response, pointing out a few inaccuracies in the grand jury report. They all noted there is a computer-aided dispatch (CAD) data interchange program now underway, and there is also action to build a county-wide public safety radio network. Download (pdf) the grand jury report and all the responses from each jurisdiction here.

A team of consultants hired by the island city of Alameda (N. Calif.) to analyze a drowning incident has issued a report that criticizes the city for eliminating a rescue swimmer program to save money, and notes that fire officers and dispatchers were unfamiliar with available resources from surrounding jurisdictions that might have saved the victim. Raymond Zach, 52, waded out into the water at Crown Beach last May in an apparent suicide attempt. Passersby dialed 911, and arriving police then requested fire department assistance. However, arriving firefighters had no boats and weren’t certified to enter the water because the department’s water rescue program had been cut in a 2008 budget reduction. Firefighters and police officers stood on shore for 31 minutes and could only watch, while city dispatchers requested a Coast Guard response, and telephoned surrounding agencies to determine if they had boats to rescue Zach. The consultants learned that dispatchers used the term “RHIB” when requesting a shallow-water boat from the Coast Guard, which is pronounced the same as “RBS,” a Coast Guard term for a larger rescue boat. When the Coast Guard arrived on-scene, their 25-foot boat couldn’t move into the shallow water to reach Zach. Zach collapsed in the water, and a passerby eventually waded out into the water to pull him to shore. The consultants recommended improved communications between the city’s police and fire departments, improved awareness of available mutual aid resources, and the use of plain English when communicating with other public safety agencies. Download (pdf) the consultants’ full report here.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has officially declared an end to talk about Next Generation 911 (NG911) and the start of action, asking for the first input on how to implement text-to-911 service, both short and long-term, taking into account political, regulatory, funding and technical issues. They also asked for feedback on the necessity of prioritizing 911 telephone calls during serious emergencies, and how it might technically be accomplished. The FCC also asked for input on deadlines for public safety answering points (PSAP) to accept text message 911 “calls,” public education, and how the commission’s work on improved communications for people with disabilities can be accommodated with NG911. In its Report and Order, the FCC makes a distinction between voice, text messages and TTY calls, calling them “primary media types,” and photos and videos, calling them “secondary media types.” The FCC further breaks down text messages into three types: SIP-based pager mode, MSRP messages, and other IP-based protocols, and provides a chart of their capabilities. Download (pdf) the entire Report and Order here. read more

Just 15 months before a federal government deadline to convert to narrowband radio communications, a New York legislator has introduced a bill in Congress that would offer local agencies $400 million to finance the upgrades. Rep. Steve Rothman (D) introduced the Help Emergency Responders Operate Emergency Systems (HEROES) Act (pdf) last week, and now hopes to have it attached to other legislation that already has support. Back in 2004 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ordered (pdf) public safety agencies to upgrade their radio systems to 12.5 kHz technology, and gave them eight years to comply. However, like many federal mandates, most jurisdictions have delayed funding for their upgrades and upgrading their radios. Now thousands of agencies are scrambling to find ways to finance the replacement of older radio gear that can’t be converted to 12.5 kHz technology, or upgrade more recent equipment. Th $400 million allocated by the proposed bill would fund only a small percentage of the nation’s narrowbanding cost—the city of Taneck (NJ) says it would cost them $500,000 to upgrade its radio system.

Quite simply, the city of Vallejo (N. Calif.) is tired of handling 911 hang-up calls, but more significantly has just ended bankruptcy and is looking for ways of supporting the cost of dispatching officers to investigate about 4,500 hang-up incidents a year. So starting October 1st, the city will begin charging residents $200 for dialing accidentally, unintentionally or negligently dialing 911, and then failing to stay not the line or accept a callback from a dispatcher to explain the call. The city council passed the ordinance in 2009, but has chosen not to implement until this year. The program will begin with a 30-day warning period, and after that the telephone subscriber is responsible for hang-up calls. Parents of juvenile children who call are legally responsible for the cost-recovery fee. Cellular callers aren’t included in the program because they can’t be easily traced to the owner, and large businesses also are exempted. The ordinance also provides for an appeals process by the police department’s comm center manager and chief. Read more about the program here, and download (pdf) the full ordinance.

On the path to turning around the American economy and putting more people back to work, President Obama has proposed wide-ranging legislation that includes allocating the 700 MHz D Block to public safety, creating a non-profit corporation to administer the band, and provides $50 million in funding to get the project going. The President introduced the bill last week amid growing calls from politicians and voters calling for his administration to focus more on jobs as a way to solve the economic crisis. The purpose of the American JobsAct is simple, the President said—”Put more people back to work and put more money in the pockets of working Americans.” He explained that the proposed projects will not add “a dime” to the deficit. Besides extending unemployment benefits, small business tax cuts and cutting the payroll tax, the bill proposes certain work projects to provide employment. Download (pdf) the entire 199-page proposed bill here, or download just the public safety-related sections here.

A consulting firm headed by an admittedly sympathetic D Block promoter performed a real-world test of public safety broadband wireless, and concluded that 20 MHz of contiguous spectrum is needed, and recommended those frequencies come from the 700 MHz band of D Block. The San Francisco Bay Area Urban Area Security Initiative UASI hired Andrew Seybold Inc. earlier this year to perform the testing from several locations and under several different conditions. Andrew Seybold has been a vocal supporter of legislation that would allocate the D Block to public safety, which in turn would provide more spectrum for wireless broadband. That additional spectrum would, again in turn, provide more advanced capabilities for field units to handle complex, multi-site or multi-agency incidents. During the Seybold tests, the company took Panasonic laptops connected via USB to LTE wireless modems, which had exterior-mounted vehicle antennas. The test involved three scenarios: a bank robbery with potential hostage, a multi-story fire and a multi-vehicle accident. All the scenarios included multiple units from several public safety and allied agencies and private companies, all needing high-bandwidth data carrying video and data streams. The consultants analyzed how the LTE network could handle the needed data streams, and graphed the results. On a 10 MHz network, the system would only handle the data load if units were located close to a cell antenna. Read Andrew Seybold’s explanation of the study, download (pdf) the entire study here, and view a results graph after the break. read more

As part of the long and on-going effort to fund, design and deploy a nationwide public safety radio network, a federal technical agency is requesting input on the future network’s features and how they might be implemented. The radio network would not only link every participating agency across the country to provide The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) request for comments was formally printed in the Federal Register on Monday, a follow-up to a forum held in August 2010 that generated 15 operational requriements that would provide resiliency, availability and reliability, security, affordability and what the NIST calls “commercial alignment.” Now the NIST is asking for more specific technical input on each requirement, including possible research and development that could take place to close technical gaps, the importance of a multi-vendor environment, and how to engage public safety official to develop prioritization of NIST’s efforts. Download (pdf) the 2010 forum summary here, and the Federal Register pages with the NIST comment request here.

Not only would a national public safety radio network provide communications for first responders, constructing and maintaining it would create 100,000 badly-needed jobs, two economists hired by a telecommunications group have reported. According to the study commissioned by the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), the federal government’s proposed $10.7 billion radio network would also produce estimated “spillover benefits” of between $4 billion and $8 billion per year. Authors Robert Shapiro and Aparna Mathur released the study this week, outlining how much the information and communications technologies (ICT) industry contributes to the American economy. Specifically, the authors examined how ICT affects economic growth, worker productivity, job and prosperity. According to the study, ICT overall accounted for 3.5 million jobs during 2009, with an average compensation of $107,229, which is 80% higher than the average for all full-time workers. Looking at the proposed public safety radio network, the authors said about $8 billion would initially be spent on wages and salaries for 107,000 workers. Another $3 billion would be spent on capital investments supporting another 20,000 jobs. Interestingly, the authors said a new radio network would increase police and fire productivity by “at least 1 percentage point per year,” creating efficiency savings of $2 billion per year. Indirect benefits from the new network could total $2 billion to $6 billion a year, the study found. Download (pdf) the summary of the author’s findings here, and read a statement from the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO) after the break. read more

A Sutter County (N. Calif.) sheriff’s dispatcher has been charged with embezzlement, according to the county district attorney. Annette Medeiros is accused of taking up to $10,000 over 12 months from the Sutter Sheriff’s Deputy Association bank account while she served as group’s treasurer.

The city of Lincoln (N. Calif.) was the country’s fastest-growing at the 2010 census, but its budget leaves it with only enough money to staff one on-duty dispatcher at all times. So when 911 calls started ringing in last month to report a leaking propane railcar had caught fire, only Lincoln dispatcher Teri Leedy was in the comm center to field the calls and dispatch emergency units. She quickly notified the city’s police and fire departments, coordinated the response of surrounding agencies, and sent EMS units to treat a propane facility worker who injured by the initial explosion. The fire chief and interim police chief credited Leedy’s experience as one factor in the safe handling of the incident that forced the evacuation of 4,800 of the town’s residents over two days. Fire chief Dave Whitt added that the city should have at least two dispatchers on duty at all times, and that many 911 calls were never answered because Leedy was busy coordinating emergency units. Read more about the incident here.