Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The 911 employee nevertheless dispatched the police in 30 seconds and police officers were in place within 2 min.
Not to say that the 911 protocols were not violated here - the 911 operator should have stayed on the line at a minimum and listen in, keeping cool.
Wonder, if they are too- short on staff and have a lot of calls to answer…and the young inexperienced trainers are poorly training the young inexperienced new employees?
Like I noted in an employment thread I started on “brain drain” with the older employees retiring - it seems a lot of incompetent/lax employees lately. Wonder what is the age of the employee
That poor caller - feel very sorry for her, that might have been very disheartening to her in addition that she was already traumatized by the shooting.
BDE - “the brain drain” effect?
It doesn't say that the operator who hung up on the caller was actually the one who dispatched the call.
When an incident like this occurs, obviously, there are numerous calls coming in on it and the cavalry may have already been on the way. it's inexcusable for an operator to hang up on a caller in this scenario - I don't care how young, how old, how short staffed, how whatever. Even if other calls were coming in, there's an opportunity to help the caller and possibly gain additional info on the shooter to help officers responding to the call.
One of the most famous of those is the Josh Powell case. Powell's wife had disappeared (and to this day has never been found) and the situation was set up wherein a social worker brought his children, who were in the custody of his missing wife's parents, to his home for scheduled visitation.
When the social worker got there, Powell grabbed the kids and slammed the door in her face, but not before she could smell gas in the house. She went back to her car and called 911, and the 911 operator dismissed her concerns, not understanding the situation and not really listening as the social worker tried to impress on him that the lives of two children were in danger. He assumed it was an estranged wife trying to get her ex in trouble. She was still on the phone with him when the house exploded. (The kids were later found to have been killed with a hatchet before the explosion.)
That 911 operator now teaches other 911 operators how to listen.
Wow MQ. I think I vaguely remember this story. Not sure that I would have had THAT operator teaching others how to 'listen,' though. Part of the skill set is asking the right questions as well.
Wow MQ. I think I vaguely remember this story. Not sure that I would have had THAT operator teaching others how to 'listen,' though. Part of the skill set is asking the right questions as well.
Yeah, I think it's more than just listening and I probably shouldn't have said just that. I read after listening to the call on the Crime Junkie podcast how he admits he made assumptions based on his own lack of knowledge; for example, he did not know there were situations wherein a social worker would supervise children's visits with a parent, so he had it in his head that it was simply a mother complaining about her ex not letting her in the house when she dropped off her kids. The call is hard to listen to. The social worker herself is assuming the 911 operator knows what she is talking about and the guy just doesn't get it and keeps brushing her off.
......... If they're calling 9-1-1, it's at least very likely that they do have an emergency. ..........
I suspect that you are very wrong about that "very likely" concept. I think it is much more likely that the majority of calls to 911 are prank calls or stupid issue calls that should never be taken to the police, let alone calling it in as an emergency.
I don't know what happened in this case and I am inclined to be suspicious of the way the press presents things, going for the drama over presenting the truth.
Emergency dispatcher is a high stress job that isn't well paid and local governments are always looking for ways to cut their budget, so they are often under-staffed
Wow MQ. I think I vaguely remember this story. Not sure that I would have had THAT operator teaching others how to 'listen,' though. Part of the skill set is asking the right questions as well.
He's the perfect person to teach them, IMO. He's had to live with this for a long time and learned a lot from his terrible mistake.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
