Does this seem screwed up to anybody else?

[SackAttack]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/06/07/911.death.ap/index.html

Five-year-old kid's mom collapses.

Kid calls 911 for help.

Dispatchers don't send a police car out to investigate.

Three hours later, the kid calls again.

Police are sent to discipline the child and inform his parent about the seriousness of calling 911.

Mother is found dead on the scene. Young black boy, in Detroit - I don't know how affluent his family was or wasn't, but losing his mother is going to change this kid's life regardless.

The negligent dispatchers? Facing a year in prison on a misdemeanor.

Now, a wrongful death suit has been filed against the city, but am I the only one who thinks the dispatchers ought to be facing more than just a year in the clink?

[Vince]

Wow. Words fail me.

[ice4277]

This would not seem surprising if you were from Detroit.

[Joe]

I am not from Detroit and it is not surprising to me. At all.

[sterlingice]

I remember when this case came out a couple of months ago, I have an unpopular opinion on it and I still feel the same way.

It's really easy to walk away from the story and say "what a horrible person- how could they let this happen" but it's not so cut and dry if you look at more than the kneejerk 30 second version of the story.

The dispatcher asked the kid repeatedly for an adult (obviously there wasn't one as the mom was incapacitated) as their policy is to make sure there was someone who could legally request 911 service.

I'm no 911 dispatcher but I can imagine the sheer number of prank calls, drunk dialing calls, parents who don't watch their kids who call, etc on a daily basis so they have to have this policy in place or else service to everyone else who is having a legit emergency goes way up. There is a reason that policy is in place- you dispatch an ambulance every time there's a prank call to 911 and a lot of people who need legit service die.

Don't get me wrong- there's enough there to condemn the dispatcher in the other details of this story but I think people need to step away from the story for a second before jumping to the initial super emotional response of "kid dialed 911 and no one came- what a horrible tragedy" because there are consequences to that, as well.

SI

[ice4277]

I remember when this case came out a couple of months ago, I have an unpopular opinion on it and I still feel the same way.

It's really easy to walk away from the story and say "what a horrible person- how could they let this happen" but it's not so cut and dry if you look at more than the kneejerk 30 second version of the story.

The dispatcher asked the kid repeatedly for an adult (obviously there wasn't one as the mom was incapacitated) as their policy is to make sure there was someone who could legally request 911 service.

I'm no 911 dispatcher but I can imagine the sheer number of prank calls, drunk dialing calls, parents who don't watch their kids who call, etc on a daily basis so they have to have this policy in place or else service to everyone else who is having a legit emergency goes way up. There is a reason that policy is in place- you dispatch an ambulance every time there's a prank call to 911 and a lot of people who need legit service die.

Don't get me wrong- there's enough there to condemn the dispatcher in the other details of this story but I think people need to step away from the story for a second before jumping to the initial super emotional response of "kid dialed 911 and no one came- what a horrible tragedy" because there are consequences to that, as well.

SI

Maybe the first time around, but by the second time the kid called, they should have at least began to suspect it was more than some kid messing around.

[ice4277]

dola

Actually, looking at how long it took the police to show up, that wouldn't necessarily be a bad response time for Detroit these days, even in the event of emergency. They have laid off so many police and emergency workers that it takes forever for them to show up anywhere.

[stevew]

I remember when this case came out a couple of months ago, I have an unpopular opinion on it and I still feel the same way.

It's really easy to walk away from the story and say "what a horrible person- how could they let this happen" but it's not so cut and dry if you look at more than the kneejerk 30 second version of the story.

The dispatcher asked the kid repeatedly for an adult (obviously there wasn't one as the mom was incapacitated) as their policy is to make sure there was someone who could legally request 911 service.

I'm no 911 dispatcher but I can imagine the sheer number of prank calls, drunk dialing calls, parents who don't watch their kids who call, etc on a daily basis so they have to have this policy in place or else service to everyone else who is having a legit emergency goes way up. There is a reason that policy is in place- you dispatch an ambulance every time there's a prank call to 911 and a lot of people who need legit service die.

Don't get me wrong- there's enough there to condemn the dispatcher in the other details of this story but I think people need to step away from the story for a second before jumping to the initial super emotional response of "kid dialed 911 and no one came- what a horrible tragedy" because there are consequences to that, as well.

SI


I pretty much agree with this. For example, you have people calling 911 cause someone cut in line at McDonalds, eventually the dispatchers probably get numb. They definately messed up here though.

[saldana]

I pretty much agree with this. For example, you have people calling 911 cause someone cut in line at McDonalds, eventually the dispatchers probably get numb. They definately messed up here though.
sorry to disagree, but I am a 911 dispatcher. i did it for 8 years, 5 of them in a county control center for 265000 people, including a city of 80000....not exactly detroit, but i am sure there are alot more dispatchers on at a time there then there were here.....this is unexcusable.....you are trained to treat every call you receive as real. you have no idea what is going on at the other end of the phone, so you are supposed to dispatch on any contact with a verifiyable address, regardless of your opinion of the caller. there have been countless cases and situations in the past where things similar to this have happened, which is exactly why that is the training standard. I think it is a disgrace, and that dispatcher should be strung up (and i have listened to the tape of it from when it first happenend, and that kid was better on the phone than some full grown adults i have talked to)

[Lathum]

I don't kow about detroit but I am pretty sure in NJ that whenever someone dials 911 regardless of the reason the police are required to investigate the situation.

Saldana, remember your broken phone in the peach house? LOL

[Franklinnoble]

Agree with saldana... there has to be accountability.

[Coffee Warlord]

I don't kow about detroit but I am pretty sure in NJ that whenever someone dials 911 regardless of the reason the police are required to investigate the situation.

Friend of mine is a dispatcher in Chicago, and it's the same deal. All calls are treated as legit, you cannot hang up on even an obvious pranker, etc.

[gstelmack]

Sure, you can treat a "some idiot cut in line at McDonald's" differently from "My Mommy collapsed", but if someone calls and says their mother has collapsed, you send someone. If you get there and find out a kid was playing with the phone, fine, bill the parents, but you treat it seriously until then.

The answer is not to stop treating the call seriously, it's to punish those who abuse the system.

[spleen1015]

At my daughter's birthday party back in January, one of the kids called 911 from the spare room.

"Help! The house is one fire and everyone is burning up! They're dying!"

I had 4 fire trucks and 6 cops in front of my house in less than 6 minutes from the time she hung up the phone.

[Lathum]

At my daughter's birthday party back in January, one of the kids called 911 from the spare room.

"Help! The house is one fire and everyone is burning up! They're dying!"

I had 4 fire trucks and 6 cops in front of my house in less than 6 minutes from the time she hung up the phone.
I would have killed that child

[cartman]

Back in high school, we had a cordless phone at home (one of the first models) that started to flake out on us. We didn't pay much attention to it, until one morning my mom woke up to get the paper, and there were three police cars outside the house. It turns out the phone had randomly dialed 911, and dispatch didn't hear anything, since we were asleep. And since we are all deep sleepers, the first car didn't get a response from knocking on our door, so he called for backup. They were about to get the stuff to break down the door before my mom walked out. We got a new phone that afternoon. :D

[saldana]

Back in high school, we had a cordless phone at home (one of the first models) that started to flake out on us. We didn't pay much attention to it, until one morning my mom woke up to get the paper, and there were three police cars outside the house. It turns out the phone had randomly dialed 911, and dispatch didn't hear anything, since we were asleep. And since we are all deep sleepers, the first car didn't get a response from knocking on our door, so he called for backup. They were about to get the stuff to break down the door before my mom walked out. We got a new phone that afternoon. :D

this used to happen alot, to the point that if we called hangups back and the people say no one was using the phone, we would ask if they had a cordless phone that wasnt on the charger....for some reason, older cordless phones would spontaneously dial 911 when the battery was about to be dead.

[saldana]

I don't kow about detroit but I am pretty sure in NJ that whenever someone dials 911 regardless of the reason the police are required to investigate the situation.

Saldana, remember your broken phone in the peach house? LOL


yeah, that was pretty good pizza too. :)

[Raiders Army]

this used to happen alot, to the point that if we called hangups back and the people say no one was using the phone, we would ask if they had a cordless phone that wasnt on the charger....for some reason, older cordless phones would spontaneously dial 911 when the battery was about to be dead.
That's...odd. At least they don't call 1-900 numbers when the batteries are dying.

[Qwikshot]

Besides learning my phone number, I taught my daughter about 9-1-1. I had her learn how to dial it on my cell BUT

I stressed that it's only for emergencies like if mommy or her step-dad, or a family member is hurt, or if the house is on fire (I did teach to call from outside for that one), or if she gets lost.

Now she's five, but I stressed to her how much trouble she'd be in if she called as a joke.

The biggest problem I think is that kids don't know what to do, while they get the concept of what is happening, and who to call, they just don't know about urgency, they don't really panic...

It's a shame.

[sterlingice]

sorry to disagree, but I am a 911 dispatcher. i did it for 8 years, 5 of them in a county control center for 265000 people, including a city of 80000....not exactly detroit, but i am sure there are alot more dispatchers on at a time there then there were here.....this is unexcusable.....you are trained to treat every call you receive as real. you have no idea what is going on at the other end of the phone, so you are supposed to dispatch on any contact with a verifiyable address, regardless of your opinion of the caller. there have been countless cases and situations in the past where things similar to this have happened, which is exactly why that is the training standard. I think it is a disgrace, and that dispatcher should be strung up (and i have listened to the tape of it from when it first happenend, and that kid was better on the phone than some full grown adults i have talked to)

Ok, if that's the case, then I'll defer to you as you know a lot more about this than I do. I was just going by my outsider's perspective.

SI

[Young Drachma]

I heard this story a few weeks ago. It's really shameful. I know kids prank and all that, but...still. This was a really disappointing case and that dispatcher isn't even being fired. It's ridiculous.

[Glengoyne]

sorry to disagree, but I am a 911 dispatcher. i did it for 8 years, 5 of them in a county control center for 265000 people, including a city of 80000....not exactly detroit, but i am sure there are alot more dispatchers on at a time there then there were here.....this is unexcusable.....you are trained to treat every call you receive as real. you have no idea what is going on at the other end of the phone, so you are supposed to dispatch on any contact with a verifiyable address, regardless of your opinion of the caller. there have been countless cases and situations in the past where things similar to this have happened, which is exactly why that is the training standard. I think it is a disgrace, and that dispatcher should be strung up (and i have listened to the tape of it from when it first happenend, and that kid was better on the phone than some full grown adults i have talked to)

Pretty much where I fall on this one. Albeit, without the experience to make my opinion meaningful.:) I think you pretty much need to fault on the side of considering every call where there is some doubt as a true emergency.

[terpkristin]

sorry to disagree, but I am a 911 dispatcher. i did it for 8 years, 5 of them in a county control center for 265000 people, including a city of 80000....not exactly detroit, but i am sure there are alot more dispatchers on at a time there then there were here.....this is unexcusable.....you are trained to treat every call you receive as real. you have no idea what is going on at the other end of the phone, so you are supposed to dispatch on any contact with a verifiyable address, regardless of your opinion of the caller. there have been countless cases and situations in the past where things similar to this have happened, which is exactly why that is the training standard. I think it is a disgrace, and that dispatcher should be strung up (and i have listened to the tape of it from when it first happenend, and that kid was better on the phone than some full grown adults i have talked to)

This is exactly what I was thinking. I've never done 911 dispatch, but I have gone though some of the trainings and frankly, the dispatchers really did not do their jobs.

The story that always comes to mind is the person who's having a heart attack so calls 911 but has become unconscious by the time the dispatcher picks up. If they can lock on the location, they go, PERIOD.

/tk

[Karlifornia]

I agree with all who say the little boy should be strung up. Just shameful.

[Desmond]

They should just blow Detroit up already. I'd gladly donate the $20 to cover the damage.