The Utah Supreme Court has upheld a DUI conviction of a man reported by his girlfriend through a 911 call, saying the caller provided enough reasonable suspicion as a witness to justify a sergeant’s stop of the suspect. The decision points out how comprehensive questioning during a 911 call can be a valuable legal asset after an arrest is made. Jose Roybal had appealed his 2005 conviction, claiming the dispatcher didn’t ask the girlfriend several key questions, including how much alcohol Roybal had consumed and over what period of time. The appeal also raised the issue of the girlfriend’s reliability, since she was involved in the incident However, the state Supreme Court ruled the 911 call information was sufficient to justify the stop. The girlfriend’s personal involvement, “neither weakens, nor strengthens,” her reliability, the court said. She gave her full name, provided first-hand observations and fully described the vehicle. “Once a reasonable suspicion is reached by the originator of the information–-in this case, the dispatcher–-the responding police officer is entitled to rely on the information unless the officer’s personal observations or interaction with the suspect present indications to the contrary,” the court wrote. Download (pdf) the Supreme Court and appellate court decisions here.

With over 100,000 telephone calls pouring in to the DeKalb County (Geo.) 911 center and one-third of dispatcher job positions unfilled, officials say dispatchers must work overtime to handle incidents and often don’t get bathroom breaks. Over 300 people applied to fill the vacant job positions, officials say, but it could take several months to process the applications, test, hire and train 38 new dispatchers and supervisors. A news account says six dispatchers were disciplined during a recent one-month period for various offenses, including arriving at work late. Read more about the staffing problems here.

Allegheny County (Penn.) officials say a dispatcher’s typing mistake sent EMS units to the wrong street, creating a seven-minute delay that ended with a three week-old baby dead. The county medical examiner is investigating the cause of death, and says it’s not clear if a prompt response could have saved the child, who died about an hour after arriving at the hospital. The unnamed dispatcher has been put on administrative leave. According to county Emergency Services chief Bob Full, the dispatcher properly entered the 911 caller’s address on Crucible Street into the county’s Tiburon CAD software, and pressed the key to verified the address. Full said the dispatcher then returned to the address field to enter an apartment number. However, instead of entering the “pound symbol” (#), the dispatcher entered an “at symbol” (@). For some reason, that revision changed the street name to “Crane Avenue.” The dispatcher did not notice the change, and EMS units were sent to the wrong location. Upon arriving, the mistake was discovered and EMS units were redirected to the correct address. Full pointed out that the dispatcher did stay on the phone with the mother and gave her CPR instructions. Read more about the incident here.

The Cleveland (UK) Police Authority has approved a plan to privatize several support services, including finance, human resources, purchasing, information technology and the agency’s communications center, including 999 call handling. The police authority signed a $258 million, 10-year contract with Europe-based IT services company Steria, which the agency says will save nearly $74 million over the life of the contract. Under the contract, Steria will staff and operate the existing comm center, continuing the current training requirements and operating regulations. Current employees will not lose their jobs. The union that represents the 470 affected employees claims that the public wasn’t sufficiently consulted, and is still considering what action to take. The comm center fields about 1,000 telephone calls per day and handles 700 incident daily. Read the Authority’s announcement of the plan here.

The city of Evansville (Ind.) and surrounding Vanderburgh County merged their public safety comm centers back in 1988, but since then the agency has employed an African-American only twice—an office manager and a dispatcher who failed to complete training. That issue of minority hiring came up as the city and county are grappling with plans to merge all city and county agencies, including the county sheriff’s office and city police department. Comm center director Jo Anne Smith said the minority hiring pattern is simply a reflection of the few candidates of color who apply, and the high standards for accepting candidates. She pointed out that 29 of the comm center’s 37 dispatchers and clerical personnel are women, another hiring pattern that is just coincidental. The city and county now manage the comm center through an advisory board of representatives from all participating law enforcement and fire agencies. But a merger subcommittee recently recommended that the future comm center be operated under the sheriff’s department. Read more about the city-county merger here.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released what it calls “a comprehensive analysis” of network capacity for its proposed nationwide public safety broadband network, saying 10 MHz of spectrum will provide the necessary channels for day-to-day work, and setting out a concept to provide additional spectrum available during major emergencies. The unique 36-page White Paper was written by four FCC staffers, and documents the background of the Commission’s National Broadband Plan, and the allocation of “significant” spectrum to public safety over the past 13 years. The authors explain that in addition to the amount of allocated spectrum, capacity is also determined by network architecture, number of cell sites, sectors per cell site, and “sound network and spectrum management.” The paper describes today’s public safety wireless networks, and note that they “consume a large amount of spectrum per user” because of legacy design and technical consideration. “It would be a huge mistake to design a network based upon the public safety’s past experience in using spectrum,” the authors state. The authors describe how spectrum could be shared during major emergencies, and how video and other bandwidth intensive applications will affect public safety in the future. In the appendix of the document, the authors set out several incident scenarios, and calculate how much spectrum might be used for various voice and data applications. Download (pdf) the White Paper here. Update: Tech guru Andrew Seybold attended a panel at which FCC chief technologist John Peha spoke, during which Peha reiterated many of the points made in the FCC paper. Read Seybold’s account of the panel discussion and Seybold’s own thoughts on Peha’s talk and the use of spectrum. Two groups issued reactions to the FCC’s paper, including APCO and NPSTC.

A Maui (Hi.) police dispatcher’s home was destroyed by fire just after midnight on Saturday, but her two young children and their grandmother managed to escape unharmed. Terryn Cabigas was working at 12:01 a.m. when a co-worker fielded a 911 call reporting the fire in Kahului on the north shore. Cabigas later said she immediately recognized the house was hers, and then contacted her parents to drive her to the scene. Firefighters say the house was engulfed in flames when they arrived, but that the 5 year-old and 4 year-old boys were safe, along with Cabigas’ 71 year-old mother-in-law. Fire investigators said the fire was started by one of the boys playing with a lighter in the bathroom. Besides the house, the family’s SUV and truck were destroyed. The family is staying with relatives, and the Red Cross is helping them after all their belongings were destroyed by the fire. Read more about the incident here.

A DeKalb County (Geo.) man suffering from an allergic reaction had to wait 34 minutes for an ambulance, and county officials just revealed why—there are potentially hundreds of addresses missing from the public safety CAD software geofile. The problem is one of several that have recently occurred in the county, spotlighting problems in the county’s comm center. In the current case, the county upgraded its CAD software last April, and officials believe that some streets and house number ranges weren’t included in the data migration. The county is now auditing the geofile to make sure all addresses are listed. Earlier this year three dispatchers were disciplined and a private ambulance provider was fired after a response delay to a sports injury. Read more about the latest incident here, and watch a TV news report about the overall problems here.

The federal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has created a comprehensive guide to the agency’s resources to make it easier for private businesses to participate in keeping the country safe. The 52-page document includes listings for every unit of DHS, a short description of what they do and the resources they provide, and a link to the unit’s Web pages. Although intended for non-government agencies, the unit listings include many focused on public safety and communications, including those related to critical infrastructure protection, Project 24 radio systems, EDXL data exchange, video surveillance systems, and more. Download (pdf) the guide here.

The union representing Calgary (Alb.) police officers has asked the department to increase the presence of sworn officers inside the communications centers to help eliminate on-going dispatcher mistakes that have led to response delays and other dangerous situations. In a memo, union president John Dooks said there are “chronic safety issues that keep resurfacing” at the center. A police sergeant now works at the center weekdays, but daily operations are managed by Steve Dongworth, a civilian employee. Ironically, it was Dongworth’s daughter who handled the latest incident that sparked the union letter. Two officers at a downtown office were stabbed by a witness they were interviewing, and the union claims it took 19 minutes for paramedics to arrive. Read more about the union’s complaints here.

The California state legislature is considering a bill that would allow telephone companies to no longer maintain active connections to unsubscribed residential phone connections, so-called “warm lines.” The bill is opposed by the state’s chapter of the National Emergency Number Association (NENA), who says it could cut off 911 access to those homeowners who can’t afford to pay for telephone service. Right now, phone companies are required to provide 911 service to every residential service, whether or not an account is established at the residence. According to phone companies, there are 2 million of these lines, and they generate thousands of false 911 calls because the physical lines aren’t being maintained by the property owner. The state’s Public Utilities Commission estimates that just three percent of the 911 calls from warm lines are actual emergency calls. The legislation is intended to help eliminate the false calls, but has a side effect, CAL-NENA points out. In an e-mail to member, the groups says 911 service should be provided to “all California citizens.” Download (pdf) the bill and the group’s talking points here. Update: The state Senate passed the bill June 1, 2010 and the bill now moves to the Assembly for consideration.

During a city-wide sweep for gang members and drug dealers last week, the Oakland (Calif.) Police Department confiscated several cellular phones loaded with an application that could stream the department’s police radio system. The software app is one of several available for iPhones and other smartphones that stream public safety radio audio obtained from scanner radios via the Internet. OPD has not said if the apps were actually running on the smartphones, or if any suspects were able to avoid arrest from hearing police radio broadcasts. However, in a bulletin notice to officers, the department warned officers that criminals are able to monitor the city’s 800 MHz trunked radio system from smartphones, and to use caution when transmitting confidential information.

One of a series of seven tornadoes struck Wood County (Ohio) southeast of Toledo on Saturday night, killing at least seven persons and destroying scores of homes and commercial buildings, including a PSAP in Lake Township where the roof was torn off. None of the Lake Township police dispatchers was reported to be injured, but the center’s 911 system was not working, and calls had to be routed to other centers for handling. Township police chief Mark Hummer was on the phone with a police dispatcher when the tornado hit.”She started saying, ‘The building is shaking,’ and then another dispatcher came on and said, ‘The roof just blew off,” he told a reporter.

Selected 2011 model Ford vehicles will have an upgraded version of the SYNC telematics system that will transmit the vehicle’s location during an auto-dialed 911 call. SYNC offers several music, cellular phone and driving direction features using the driver’s handset linked by Bluetooth. Like the original 911 calling feature, the new SYNC 911 Assist feature will activate when an airbag is deployed or the fuel pump shuts off. The system auto-dials 911 through an occupant’s linked cellular handset and indicates an emergency with a synthesized voice call. With the new location feature, the vehicle’s on-board GPS system determines the exact location of the vehicle. When the system is activated, the synthesized voice gives the PSAP dispatcher the latitude and longitude of the incident. There is also an option for the dispatcher to be connected directly to the cellular phone in the vehicle. Read more about SYNCH here, and watch a video about 911 Assist after the break. (more…)

The mother of the man accused of murdering three Pittsburgh (Penn.) police officers last year is suing the city, claiming a dispatcher’s mistake led to a shoot-out that damaged her home, reducing its value and forcing her to live elsewhere. Margaret Poplawski says she told a Pittsburgh dispatcher that there were guns in the house, but that information wasn’t relayed to officers. When three officers arrived, her son Richard Poplawski fired at the officers, killing them. A subsequent stand-off included hundreds of shots being fired into the home before Richard surrendered. Evidence technicians later removed porch railings and other pieces of the home, rendering it uninhabitable, the lawsuit claims. Margaret Poplawski says she was forced to move out and now the home’s original $64,500 value has been reduced. The murder trial is scheduled to start later this year. Read more about the lawsuit here.