Subject: [NEXTEL-1] 911 Supervisor To Face Disciplinary Action

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 16:56:11 -0500

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-miss0129,0,7061790.story

911 Supervisor To Face Disciplinary Action

By Melanie Lefkowitz and Bryan Virasami
Staff Writers

January 29, 2003

The 911 supervisor who failed to notify rescue units after an operator received a call
from one of four missing teenagers saying,
"We're on the Long Island Sound in a boat off the coast of City I ... we're gonna die,”
will face disciplinary action, police
officials said yesterday.

Meanwhile, as the clamor about the misrouted call grew and the search for the four boys
continued, two of their families
gathered yesterday to listen to the staticky, devastating 12-second SOS.

"It was absolutely decimating,” said Henry Badillo, whose son and namesake is among the
missing. "Absolutely, physically,
spiritually draining.”

Much of the brief recording is unintelligible. According to a transcript released
yesterday, a male caller says, "... ing on water,”
before the operator says, "Police operator No. 1067, where is your emergency?”

"Oh my God ... hello,” the caller says.

"Hello,” says the operator.

"Hello ... uh ... we're ... listen ... we're on the Long Island Sound in a boat off the
coast of City I ... we're gonna die,” the caller
says, before the connection breaks.

That call, which was made at 9:58 p.m. Friday and first received by a New Rochelle
repeater, was answered by a New York
City dispatcher. The operator called her supervisor because she could not enter "Long
Island Sound” into the system as a
location after three tries. The call was logged but no rescuers were notified.

The search for the four boys did not begin until 14 hours after the 911 call, when Charles
Wertenbaker's family found his guitar
at a City Island cemetery and reported him missing.

"A preliminary investigation by Internal Affairs has recommended that disciplinary action
be taken against the 911 supervisor for
violating protocol,” police spokesman Michael O'Looney said. "The supervisor failed to
notify the Harbor Unit as required by
department regulations.”

The charges and penalties against the supervisor, whose name was not released, have not
yet been determined, O'Looney said.

The union representing the dispatcher and her supervisor criticized Police Commissioner
Ray Kelly yesterday for saying the
dispatcher and operator had erred before the probe was complete.

"It is irresponsible and unfair to make judgments in public before the parties involved
have been questioned and the investigation
is completed,” Eddie Rodriguez, president of Local 1549, part of District Council 37, said
in a statement.

Part of the problem, Kelly and several elected officials have said, is that cell phone 911
technology has not been updated to
allow operators to track the calls even though New Yorkers pay a monthly surcharge for the
service.

According to an NYPD policy implemented last September, the dispatcher should have entered
the code for the Harbor Unit in
the location field, which would have alerted the air and sea units. The procedure was put
in place after the fatal crash of two
boats in Little Neck Bay in July because operators had trouble pinpointing the water
locations given by several 911 callers,
police said.

Police officials said yesterday that though the whole incident is being investigated,
there is no immediate plan to alter the system.
Asked if the 911 operators received enough training about the new procedure, officials at
Local 1549 said they were still
looking into it.

"We're checking all these avenues out,” said Ron Arnero, of District Council 37. "This is
all unfolding minute by minute.”

Nearby jurisdictions deal differently with water distress calls. For example, both Nassau
and Suffolk counties' emergency
dispatch systems would identify Long Island Sound as a location.

"If [a caller] told us ‘Long Island Sound' we would immediately send out a helicopter and
a boat,” Nassau police spokesman
Det. Sgt. Anthony Repalone said.

In Suffolk, the 911 dispatcher would not only enter it into the computer system, but can
hand-deliver the information to a
marine bureau dispatcher across the hall, said Suffolk police spokesman Dan Frass. "We're
a much smaller department than the
city so it's easier,” he said.

Friends and relatives yesterday continued their vigil at the City Island pier, breaking
into teams to search along the shore for a
sign of the boys or their eight-foot rowboat. Badillo, reached at his Bronx home, said he
is struggling to come to terms with the
catastrophe.

"You try to give your children all the tools necessary to cope with life -- what's safe,
what's not safe -- and eventually, when
they become young adults, you have to trust them,” the elder Badillo said.

"I just felt that nothing would ever happen, but you never know. You can't second guess
anything at this point. We're
supporting each other. The families are very close. We find things out, and we take it
from there.”

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