In the space of two days we learned of some heroic work by dispatchers in Binghampton (NY), and then of disappointing work of dispatchers in Plant City (Fla.) and Pittsburgh (Penn.). How could these incidents be so far apart? In the first case, kudos to the staff of the Broome County comm center who fielded calls from people who had been wounded, including receptionist Shirley DeLucia, who stayed on the phone with dispatcher Kenny Hayes for 54 minutes, giving him valuable information about the situation inside. They also had to handle all the non-emergency telephone and radio traffic, including helping coordinate the response of scores of other units from dozens of law enforcement and other agencies. And yet, at almost the same time, police officials in two cities are saying that their dispatchers failed to properly handle 911 calls. In Plant City, a dispatcher resigned and another was fired for mishandling a 911 call last Nov. from a kidnap victim who was later found murdered. In Pittsburgh, it’s the unthinkable–police say a calltaker didn’t relay information about weapons to officers. Three officers died when the caller’s son opened fire on them when they entered the house. I wish there were new lessons here, or something new to take away from how they were handled. But we already know it’s a serious business. Now, everyone else does, too.

The Plant City (Fla.) police department has taken a hit after information released by the state Attorney General’s office showed that no one investigated a 911 call from a woman who was kidnapped and put into the trunk of her car, and later found murdered. Sgt. James Watkins retired, dispatch supervisor Rita Lipham and Capt. Darrell Wilson resigned, and dispatcher Amanda Hill was fired. Police chief Bill McDaniel said all the actions were in response to mishandling the 911 call and mis-information later released by Wilson, the department’s press officer. Watkins and Lipham were 20-year veterans, Hill was a 3-year employee, and Wilson had 16 years with Plant City. Jennifer Johnson talked for 73 seconds before the connection ended, but Hill failed to ask sufficient questions to obtain critical information. McDaniel said she also claimed in press accounts that police policy didn’t allow her to call back such a caller, so as not to put the caller in danger. McDaniel said that is incorrect–the policy is to call people back. Lipham failed to have Hill call back the person after being told of the call, and took no further action. Watkins took no action after being notified by Lipham of the call. McDaniel said Wilson lied to reporters, saying that Johnson’s call didn’t display her telephone number of cellular tower location–it did. McDaniel said the dispatcher did have limited information. But he added, “I am deeply disappointed that a failure is apparent in the actions taken by people in the department during this situation. Perhaps the outcome could have been different had we found out in a timely fashion the who, what, where and why Miss Johnson was calling.” Read more about the chief’s remorse here.

A reminder that nominations are open until June 1st for the annual PSAP’s Finest Awards, given out by recording technology company NICE Systems at the APCO conference each August. In a press release, the company explains that recipients are selected in four categories: Telecommunicator of the Year, Line Supervisor of the Year, Technician of the Year, and Communications Center Director of the Year. In its fourth year, top award winners will be judged and selected by a panel of their public safety peers. “Candidates will be evaluated based on their exemplary achievements, depth of knowledge, innovative thinking, involvement and years of service to public safety, as well as other key criteria,” the company said. Nominations can be submitted on-line here.

It was a 911 call to the Allegheny County (Penn.) comm center that began the showdown between three Pittsburgh police officers and an ex-Marine that ended with three officers dead and the suspect wounded. The mother of Richard Poplawski dialed 911 when she awoke last Saturday to find her 23 year-old son’s dog had urinated on the carpet–she wanted him removed from the house. As Off. Paul Sciullo and Stephen Mayhele arrived and entered the home, Poplawski opened fire with an assault rifle, killing both officers. When Off. Eric Kelly arrived in response to neighbors’ calls of gunfire, he was also fatally shot. So far police have not released a more specific timeline of the 911 call, dispatch and arrival times, nor have they been specific with what the dispatcher and Poplawski’s mother said during the call. None of the logging tapes have been released. Later on the day of the shooting, officers held a “final radio rollcall” for the three officers–read more here. read more

Despite their inexperience with the English language, and their relatively short stay in America, a group of 14 immigrants knew they could dial 911 from a basement boiler room when an intruder began shooting at the American Civic Association in Binghamton (NY) last Friday. The gunman eventually shot and killed 13 students at the center, wounded another four and then killed himself. When the shooting began, a large group of people were practicing their English lessons on the ground floor. Several ran downstairs to escape the gunfire, eventually finding the boiler room and its thick, insulated door to protect them. One person had a cellular phone and–thankfully–there was signal coverage from the room. Teacher Katherine Gruss stayed on the phone through five batteries to give information to a dispatcher and to, finally, receive instructions on their rescue by SWAT teams. Read more about the incident here. read more

Proving that dispatchers must be informed about all methods of communications, San Jose (Calif.) police say they received “numerous” calls from around the world warning them of a woman in that city who was using Twitter to make suicide threats. Police said they located the woman unharmed, and took her to a psychiatric facility for evaluation. The threats came to light as the woman was following the “tweets” of actress Demi Moore. You may know that Twitter allows members to send/post messages (140 characters or less!) to the Twitter computers. Twitter members can also subscribe to other members’ accounts, creating a vast, complex and sometimes crazy network of posters and followers. In this case, the San Jose woman was following Demi Moore’s tweets, and then posting her own messages, which were then visible to others who were also following Moore’s messages. Beyond personal communications, Twitter is now being used by companies, associations and other groups to quickly communicate with their members (CNN, Martha Stewart, Ustream TV, John Mayer, NBA…and the list goes on). Read more about the suicide incident here.

The CEO of Verizon Wireless has a suggestion on how to allocate the portion of the 700 MHz band that didn’t attract bidders last year–give it away directly to public safety agencies. During the annual CTIA conference in Las Vegas this week, Verizon Wireless CEO Ivan Seidenberg told an audience, “We cannot afford to wade through another round of auctions and redundant network construction.” Instead, he said that state and local public safety agencies could partner with local network providers “to create the robust interoperable system this country needs.” The FCC attempted to auction off 10 MHz of 700 MHz spectrum last year for a public safety network–the so-called D Block–but it attracted only one bid that fell far short of the commission’s $1.3 billion minimum bid. The FCC is now considering whether to re-auction the spectrum, or come up with another method of creating a public safety network. Read Seidenberg’s entire speech here.

When tragedy struck, the dispatchers of California stepped up to help. That’s the lesson from the murder of four Oakland (Calif.) police officers last month, an event that plunged the city into grief and stunned law enforcement officers and their dispatchers from around the state–and even around the world. The shooting occurred on a Saturday, and by 6 a.m. the next Wednesday, over 100 dispatchers from 46 agencies across the state were in place to take telephone calls and enter incidents into CAD. That gave OPD’s comm center staff of 80 a chance to take time off, attend the Friday memorial service, and to re-group as individuals and a unit before returning to work. read more

Among all the multi-billion dollar work to reband the 800 MHz band to help prevent interference to public safety 800 MHz radio systems, the city of High Point (NC) had one complaint–the 129 radios that Sprint offered to replace for free didn’t have the same “look and feel” as their current radios. The FCC mandated the rebanding in 2004 in response to several proposals to reduce interference, and Nextel (later purchased by Sprint) offered to fund all costs in exchange for various spectrum. [more]

In the current situation, High Point officials objected to Sprint’s proposed replacement radios–XTL5000 models in place of XTL2500 models–and complained to the rebanding administrator. The city said the control head layout of the proposed model was different, and officers would having trouble operating the new controls. They also said there were some technical differences between the two radio models. But the administrator ruled in Sprint’s favor, and High Point then appealed to the FCC.

The Commission has now affirmed the administrator’s ruling, saying its rules don’t require Sprint to provide replacement radios, “that have the identical control head and microphone configuration as High Point’s existing radios, so long as the replacement radios provide comparable ease of use.” The FCC also warned other 800 MHz system users that “comparable” does not mean “identical.” The commission explained, “Small differences, such as the ‘look and feel’ of equipment as professed in the case here, do not
justify what amounts to “upgrading” to a more expensive alternative at Sprint’s expense.” Download (pdf) the entire FCC ruling here.

The residents of Clarksville and Montgomery County (Tenn.) are one lucky group of people–when they need help and dial 911, there is 87 years of experience concentrated in just four of the center’s 28 dispatchers. An article in The Leaf Chronicle newspaper profiles Bonnie Heflin (25 years), Phyllis Booth (20 years), Debbie Patterson (20 years) and Marjie Frost (22 years) and the “love for the job they do for the people and emergency personnel.” Read about their very personal backgrounds and motivations here.

The Florida State Attorney’s office has released 700 pages of documents related to last year’s murder of Jennifer Johnson, ahead of the trial of her accused murderer. The materials include an 80-second logging tape of a 911 call Johnson made while she was trapped inside the trunk of a car moving through Plant City. The call did not generate any ALI/ANI information, and she could not describe her location or the vehicle. The unnamed Plant City police dispatcher did not send officers to investigate. After Johnson’s body was found, police claimed an officer had been dispatched to investigate after the 911 call. The court documents now dispute that, saying no one was dispatched. The officer who was assigned after the incident was actually sent to an unrelated incident. Read more and listen to the 911 call here.

Radio manufacturer M/A-COMM has fired the next shot in a long battle between the company and the state of New York over a contract to build a statewide public safety radio network. In mid-February the company filed a claim with the state’s Court of Claims asking them to reverse the state’s termination of a $2 billion contract to based on non-compliance. M/A-COMM was awarded the contract in 2004, and the company began installing test sites in two counties. However, once both sites were operational, the state and M/A-COMM disagreed over whether the performance of the radio systems met the state’s contract terms. Final testing occurred last summer, the state said the system failed, and issued M/A-COMM a default letter. Then in Jan. 2009 the state terminated the entire contract. Read more about the background and M/A-COMM’s claim here.

The state of Pennsylvania has turned to the FCC for help in convincing wireless carrier TracFone Wireless Inc. to resume paying 911 surcharges that it collects from its subscribers. According to a filing with the FCC, TracFone is a wireless services reseller, but feels that it has a “unique business model” that does not make it liable to collect the surcharges. But the state says that the company does fall under the definition of a wireless carrier who must collect the monthly $1 surcharge for 911 services, and to pass that along to the state. The company stopped paying the surcharges to the state back in 2005, and now Pennsylvania is asking the FCC to consider withdrawing TracFone’s authorization to operate as a wireless carrier. Download (pdf) the full state complaint here.

During their annual Washington (DC)-based conference, the National Emergency Number Association (NENA) distributed their “talking points” and priorities for the 111th Congress, including funding for legislation that was passed in 2004, but never fully funded. NENA urged that all legislative and federal homeland security policy should, “take into consideration the critical role of 9-1-1 in our nation’s homeland security.” The group said that coordinated state planning among all emergency response professions, “should be required with a goal of the establishment of nationally coordinated regional and state IP -based emergency services networks.” Topping the association’s list of priorities was funding the ENHANCE 911 Act that authorized up to $250 million a year in funding, but which never actually received the money from a Congressional authorization. NENA has also targeted increased support and funding of the National E911 Implementation and Coordination Office created in 2004, and reauthorization of the ENHANCE E911 Act that is set to expire this October. NENA also says that 911 access by multi-line telephone systems (MLTS) is, “one of the most over-looked areas” of availability, and that Congress should “lead by example” by requiring federal office buildings to have an MLTS solution, and require the FCC to study the issue for a national solution. Download (pdf) the talking points here.

A conflict between two New Jersey jurisdictions over public safety dispatching was spotlighted when two workers installing an antenna on a water tower were told by police to stop work and come down. Buena Borough has provided dispatching services to Buena Vista Township for 30 years, but now the township wants to pull out and move its dispatching to Mid Atlantic, an independent comm center in Egg Harbor. But borough officials say they were tricked into allowing the antenna installation. Borough mayor Joseph Baruffi said Atlantic County officials approached him for permission to install the antenna, and didn’t say it was actually to improve township radio coverage after they moved to Mid Atlantic. The township has filed a lawsuit to allow installation of the antenna after they workers were ejected from the water tower site. Read more about the unusual conflict here.