Mayor, councilman call for changes in 911

People calling 911 can't always get it all right. They are upset, perhaps hurt or afraid, maybe dying. The information they give may be incomplete, garbled, confusing.

"The lifeline to everyone is the communications center," said Paul McCauley, a criminology professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. "They have to make sense out of this."

When they don't, lives can be lost.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and an Allegheny County councilman yesterday demanded fixes and findings following revelations that a 911 call-taker failed to tell police that Richard Poplawski of Stanton Heights had access to weapons before he fatally shot officers Paul Sciullo II, Stephen Mayhle and Eric Kelly on Saturday.

County Councilman James Burn Jr. said he would like a comprehensive accounting of "what happened and why." Mr. Burn, D-Millvale, plans to hold a meeting of council's public safety committee at 5 p.m. next Wednesday to review the county's 911 call-taking procedures. He said Allegheny County Chief of Emergency Services, Robert A. Full, will be the key witness at the hearing.

Robert P. Harvey, the 911 communications manager, discussed operations of Allegheny County's 911 center yesterday.

Allegheny County typically uses a two-step process. A call-taker fields the call and types information on a computer screen about the address, the nature of the situation and other pertinent data. The information is forwarded with the touch of a button to a police, fire or EMS dispatcher as needed.

All large city emergency dispatch centers have separate call-takers and dispatchers, according to Dr. Jeff Clawson, who works at the National Academies of Emergency Dispatch in Salt Lake City, which accredits dispatch centers and develops and maintains dispatch protocols.

In the dual system, the call-taker can continue talking to the caller, give directions, gather information, while the dispatcher -- looking at a screen with all the information the call-taker has gathered -- gets the officers moving in the right direction with relevant information.

In Allegheny County, about 220 dispatchers and call-takers work three shifts out of the county's 911 center in Point Breeze, a large, bland, dimly lit room with banks of computers, phones and monitors.

Allegheny County is broken up into four zones -- north, south, east and central, which covers the city. Each zone has its own bank of call-takers and dispatchers. Call-takers handle all sorts of 911 calls, while dispatchers are specialized for fire, police and emergency medical services.

State law requires that 911 call-takers run through a checklist for medical problems. No such requirements exists for law enforcement or fire calls.

Having a standardized, scripted protocol is crucial, according to Dr. Clawson.

"What happens is in the heat of the battle, the call-taker might be having a good day, he might be having a bad day, he might have had his coffee, or not had it, might have had a fight earlier. Protocol becomes your safety net. Protocol itself never has a bad hair day."

The protocol is a set of scripted questions designed to quickly elicit pertinent information, said Eric Parry, author of "Managing the 911 Center", who ran dispatch centers in Canada for the Royal Mounted Police and now works for the National Academies of Emergency Dispatch.

First, the "tombstone" information -- address, call-back number, name and nature of the incident.

Next, hazards. For example, the screen would prompt the call-taker to ask, "Were weapons involved or mentioned?"

That information goes to the dispatchers, and in more and more systems, straight out to the computers of the responders themselves. "Nothing is lost in transition," said Mr. Parry.

Call-takers who handle the city of Pittsburgh have three screens in front of them. One has a city map and various agency phone numbers; another shows information about the incoming call; and the last is the computer-assisted dispatch, or CAD, screen. There the call-taker types the information about the call and transmits it to the dispatcher.

Dispatchers have extra information readily at their disposal that call-takers do not. They can instantly call up between three and six months worth of details about previous dispatches to a location.

There is also a screen for what are known as premise hazards -- 911 jargon for red flags. That information ranges widely and can cover details about residents' medical conditions, hidden driveways, protection-from-abuse orders, mental health problems, weapons on the premises, violent domestic disputes and previous encounters with police.

No hazards were listed for the Poplawski household, and no prior visits came up on the dispatcher's screen.

Mr. Harvey said the county requires far more than the state-mandated minimum training for its 911 employees. In Pennsylvania, call-takers must have at least 104 hours of training. The county insists on a total of 320 hours split evenly between the classroom and on the job.

Various dispatchers, who have already been trained as call-takers, must have an additional 16 to 156 hours of training -- the high end is for police dispatchers -- with up to 80 hours more allowed if absolutely necessary.

If 911 employees are not ready to work on their own after the maximum number of training hours, they are terminated.

All full-time employees are cross-trained. There are about 20 part-timers, including the call-taker who botched the Stanton Heights call.