Dispatchers at the Waynesville (NC) police comm center were apparently the first to report at least 100 telephone calls asking about a gang-related killed planned for some Wal-Mart store, which is an Internet hoax at least four years old. Several other agencies across the country have subsequently reported receiving citizen inquiries based on the same e-mails. In the hoax scenario, an unspecified gang is making its members kill someone at an unstated Wal-Mart store as part of a gang initiation. This fake message first appeared in Internet e-mail messages sent as early as 2005, and there has never been any truth to the “facts” quoted in the messages.

Kathleen Malone won’t make 28 years as a Ballston Spa (NY) dispatcher, because the town will eliminate its dispatching operation by the end of the year. The village will soon adopt a budget that includes no money for the operation, and will instead transfer it to Saratoga County’s comm center, which isn’t charging for the service. The village will save over $250,000 with the move, but four dispatchers–including Malone–will lose their jobs in the process. Read more and watch a TV report here.

Responding to a complaint by Vail (Colo.) dispatchers, an audit by the federal Department of Labor (DOL) found that the city wasn’t paying dispatchers for extra time they spent arriving at work and getting ready for the job. According to the DOL, the dispatchers spent about seven extra minutes a day, but were not paid overtime as required by federal labor laws. As a result of the audit and the DOL’s findings, the 19 current and 14 former dispatchers will split about $30,000 in overtime pay, to be paid over a two-year period. Krista Miller, HR manager for the city, explained, ““What happened is that we have these highly committed employees who really care that 911 calls are being answered. So people came a few minutes before their scheduled shifts.” She said the city will adjust the dispatchers’ schedules to bring them into compliance with federal labor laws. She said shifts would either be shifted to accommodate preparation time, or dispatchers would be paid overtime for early arrivals and late departures.

Meridian (Miss.) police have arrested a city E911 Commission dispatcher on charges of identity theft, and police believe the crime occurred while she was on-duty. Polly Crocker, 26, was charged with obtaining and using the personal information of another person. She was released on $2,500 bail pending a July grand jury hearing. According to police, Crocker used personal information to apply for and obtain a credit card in early March. They did not say how Crocker obtained the information used for the credit application, or if the information was obtained from law enforcement sources. So far, police say they know of only one victim. Crocker faces up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine if convicted.

A county judge has ruled that the city of Stockton (Calif.) must comply with the county’s EMS policies on handling emergency medical incidents that send all related 911 calls to AMR’s comm center for dispatch. San Joaquin changed the procedures in 2006, but the city refused to follow them, saying they wanted local control and handling of EMS incidents within the city. Both sides went to court when an agreement couldn’t be reached. In the ruling by a judge in adjacent Stanislaus County, Stockton police dispatchers who field 911 calls related to medical incidents must transfer them to the Lifecom center, who will then notify the Stockton fire department for their response. Under the old procedures, the police dispatcher would transfer medical calls to Stockton fire, and Lifecom would be notified by a direct computer connection. Several other cities in the county had similar disputes with the county EMS agency, but settled their differences and now route 911 medical calls to Lifecom. The city is considering an appeal. Read more about the situation here, and download (pdf) a copy of the lawsuit decision here.

A Lebanon (Ohio) police dispatcher has resigned after being accused of performing oral sex on her boyfriend, who was visting the comm center with a friend. Rebecca Hughes voluntarily resigned her job, and police say no charges have been filed against her. She is a 7-year veteran of the agency. According to police, in early March Hughes invited her boyfriend to the comm center during the night shift, accompanied by a male friend. At some point, the friend went outside in the police station hallway, police said, and Hughes then had sex with her boyfriend. During the encounter, a sergeant walked into the comm center. In a taped interrogation, Hughes later denied that sex actually occurred. “As soon as the radio traffic stops, I go down real quick to make it look like I was giving David (oral sex), which I wasn’t. I will swear to you I wasn’t,” she said during the interview. City attorney Mark Yurick said, “Luckily it doesn’t seem that any calls were missed. It certainly had the potential to distract her from dispatching duties.” In an understatement, Yurick said no 911 calls were missed. “It was not a particularly eventful evening.” Read the full story here.

An investigation by a local newspaper has discovered that Atlanta (Geo.) has the longest police response times among seven similar-sized cities–an average of 11 minutes and 12 second for high-priority incidents. The newspaper obtained statistics from the other departments to make the comparison, but noted that all use a different method of determining “response time,” which makes an actual comparison difficult. When the reporter talked to the police department and 911 center to discuss the response times, both pointed to the other as a possible reason for the long times. Dep. police chief Pete Anderson cited “getting proper information” from dispatchers as a delay in responding, while 911 director Miles Butler said, “You’ve got to have officers available.” Read the entire article and see the figures here.

After weathering public criticism over dispatching mistakes, Dane County (Wisc.) officials have named the head of the Minneapolis comm center to head their 911 operation. John Dejung, 52, is a native of Wisconsin and attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison to earn his master’s degree in 1988. He’s headed the Minneapolis center for the last 12 years, and was there during the 2007 bridge collapse disaster. The Dane County center has been under fire after the mishandling of a 911 call from murder victim Brittany Zimmermann’s apartment, and for the handling of telephone calls reporting a fight where a man was found murdered in a city park. Dejung will start his new job on June 1st.

The Web site operated by the National Emergency Number Association (NENA) has been completely redesigned and re-engineered to look much cleaner, be more organized and to insure the information you see is up-to-date. See the new site here, and poke around the site to see all the great information they have posted. Since NENA’s Web site is so valuable, there are at least 68 links on the DISPATCH Magazine site pointing to NENA’s Web pages. Those links are now broken, since NENA changed the URLs. I’ll be working on updating the links here to insure they point to the new, correct NENA pages.

A Steuben County (NY) 911 dispatcher has been arrested and charged with official misconduct after police learned that suspects under investigation were obtaining confidential information from her. Jacque Stetler, 49, faces up to a year in jail on the misdemeanor charge, and she was immediately fired from her job as dispatcher. A joint investigation by the sheriff, district attorney and Hammondsport Police Dept. uncovered contacts between Stetler and “targets of investigations,” said sheriff Joel Ordway. He said the incidents occurred in Nov. 2008, which was “giving people a heads up” on law enforcement investigations. Ordway said she was a five-year veteran of the comm center, and was released after booking. Comm center officials have not commented on her arrest. The arrest is similar to at least three others in the past year where dispatchers allegedly provided information to criminal suspects, but were discovered and arrested.

The victim of a house fire is crediting a veteran Cheektowaga (NY) fire dispatcher with saving her life by keeping her focused while she was trapped by flames on the second floor of her home. Dispatcher Robert Fetzer took over the 911 call from Kylelsha Monterro, who is nine months pregnant, as she tried to avoid the smoke pouring into her bedroom. Fetzer directed the woman to a small front window, where firefighters erected a ladder to rescue her. Listen (mp3) to the 9-minute call, from when a firefighter answers the phone, then hands it off to Fetzer, to the sound of sirens, and finally to the rescue. [commentary]

Commentary: This type of call is one of those that can sound very bad, or very good on the logging tape. The beginning of this call is slightly confusing, as a firefighter(?) answers the call, and then apparently asks Fetzer, “Can you take this call?” when he realizes that it’s an in-progress fire. Fetzer then comes on the line to handle the remaining 8 minutes, through to when the woman is pulled outside the home and onto a ladder.

In general, the woman is hysterical, and Fetzer gives her as much attention as he can while he performs other dispatching duties related to the fire.

As Fetzer points out in a TV report, he had to used a “repetitive” technique to get the woman’s attention at one point, telling her to listen, “If you want to help your father.” The victim believe her father was also in the home, although it turned out he had already left.

One key to this type of incident is providing the caller with continuous assurance that help is enroute, that they are going to be okay, and to give them continuous safety instructions appropriate for the incident.

As in this case, counteracting the caller’s hysteria is difficult, but possible. By giving them instructions and reassurance, you’ll help keep them focused on helping themselves and providing valuable information that could assist their rescue. Using first names–both yours and the caller’s–can help create a connection so the caller is listening to you.

When a person in the UK needs help, they dial 999 and reach a trained dispatcher–unless they’re out of range of their registered carrier. That’s because since the mid-1990 the British Office of Communications (Ofcomm) has turned off so-called 999 “roaming” in response to a high number of hoax and nuisance calls. Now the Ofcomm is proposing to turn the roaming service back on to insure that all 999 callers reach a dispatcher, no matter which network is available. In a report (pdf) on “Access and Inclusion,” the Ofcomm says the service could be implemented by the end of this year.

A 2007 shooting by an off-duty Spokane (Wash.) police officer has more facets than a diamond, including testimony by a police dispatcher that cannot be confirmed by logging tapes because they were erased. Off. Jay Olsen was acquitted by a jury on Monday, but the controversy over his shooting Shonto Pete, a Native American he met in a bar, is not over. Olsen claims that Pete stole his truck, but Pete was acquitted of that charge back in 2007. The district attorney charged Olsen with assault and reckless endangerment, but the jury determined the shooting was self-defense. Key to the decision was testimony by comm center supervisor Marvin Tucker, who appeared for the defense. Tucker said a neighbor dialed 911 and put Pete on the phone. Pete stated that he had stolen Olsen’s truck and that he’d been shot. But the neighbor disputes that conversastion, and Tucker only came forward with his testimony recently. Try to decipher the many other facets of the complicated case here, and read more specifically about Tucker’s testimony here.

In a word, the Pulaski County (Mo.) sheriff’s comm center is on the verge of collapse. There are just four dispatchers, and they are accumulating lots of overtime while they try to cover all the shifts because of position vacancies, sick leave and vacation. A news story says the comm center has “struggled” with compensation issues for several years. It also explains that dispatchers make an average of $8.72 per hour ($1,511 per month), and oddly, “does not pay overtime to employees until 
they leave their position or until they have reached 480 hours of 
overtime worked.” The sheriff’s department paid about 1,000 hours of overtime during 2008, officials say, and that rate continues into 2009. “You can’t run a 24/7 operation with four people, said sheriff J.B. King. He wants to hire three additional dispatchers very soon. Read the complete story here. Update: The county commissioners have additional questions for the sheriff about his need for dispatchers. Read more here.

A four-year veteran Illinois dispatcher has been fired after officials learned that she purchased marijuana, despite explaining that she purchased it for her 60 year-old aunt, who suffers from breast cancer. Laura Llanes, 28, is angry at her co-workers at CenComm E911, to whom she admitted making the $20 marijuana purchase from a friend. “I feel so betrayed by them. I do not understand it,” she told a reporter. “I thought I could trust them. I was ratted out.” Llanes said her aunt had no appetite and was “whittling away to nothing.” She purchased the marijuana to increase her appetite and, Llanes says, the MJ worked. The comm center serves eight public safety agencies northwest of Chicago. Illinois is not one of the 13 states that have a medicinal marijuana law, allowing personal purchases with a doctor’s approval. Llanes says she was fired March 4th, but has not been contacted by police or charged with any crime. read more