Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Rescuers Unable to Locate Man Who Used Cell Phone to Call for Help

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 09:24:42 -0400

Rescuers Unable to Locate Man Who Used Cell Phone to Call for Help

A man who had been kidnapped was able to use his cell phone to make two
911 calls to Philadelphia police dispatchers. The dispatch center is not
equipped to automatically receive location information on calls from cell
phones, and the man could not speak. He was later found dead inside a van. If
the incident had occurred in nearby Delaware County, where the dispatch
center has location technology, help might have arrived in time to save the
man's life, the county's emergency management director said. Many localities
say they do not have the money to upgrade their emergency dispatch centers
to receive the cell phone location information. Delaware County's system cost
about $8 million. A similar system for the larger Philadelphia dispatch operation
is estimated to cost much more.)

================================================================

Kidnap Victim Calls 911 Before His Death
Fri May 9, 4:34 PM ET

By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press Writer

PHILADELPHIA - Police dispatchers could do little but listen to Reinaldo
Zayas scream as he was tortured to death by a gang of kidnappers.

Somehow, the 25-year-old managed to dial 911 twice from his cell phone
after his abduction Monday. One chilling call lasted 18 minutes, during
which dispatchers could hear Zayas beg for his life.

Philadelphia, like most big cities, has not upgraded its phone system with
equipment that can pinpoint the location of a cell phone when someone
dials 911, even though the technology has existed for years.

With Zayas unable to speak, and no way to trace the calls, investigators sat
helpless as he was repeatedly stabbed in the buttocks and thigh, then left
to bleed to death. His body was found Tuesday inside a van.

If the kidnappers had been just a few miles away, in Delaware County,
police might have been on the scene within minutes. The suburban county
has one of the rare dispatch centers that have installed computer software
that can tell dispatchers almost exactly where a wireless (news - web sites)
call originates.

"In some cases, we can get within five feet," said Ed Truitt, Delaware
County's emergency management director. "It's possible that we could have
saved that man's life."

Police have not identified any suspects in Zayas' killing. Investigators said
one of his relatives reported that someone called the family several times to
demand money after the abduction, but detectives said they still had not
determined a motive.

Most 911 dispatch centers have been able to trace calls made from landline
phones since the 1980s, but only a few hundred of the nearly 7,000 centers
nationwide have the enhanced systems that can do the same with wireless
units, officials said.

That technology, known as Emergency 911 Phase II, pinpoints cell phone
locations using one of two methods: global positioning system (news - web
sites) chips that communicate with satellites, or software that triangulates a
phone's position using signals sent to cell towers.

Zayas' life is not the only one that might have been saved with wireless
tracking.

In January, dispatchers in New York lacked the technology to trace a 911
call made by four teenagers who died when their rowboat sank in Long
Island Sound. The case persuaded officials to accelerate efforts to upgrade
911 systems in New York.

In November, four hunters marooned after their boat capsized in Lake Erie
were rescued when Canadian authorities traced their cell phone signal to a
small island.

Many places complain that they cannot afford the upgrades.

Delaware County spent $8 million on its system, which went into operation
in September. The center handles about 500,000 emergency calls a year,
about 55 percent of which are made from wireless phones, Truitt said.

It could cost much more to implement a similar system in Philadelphia's
911 center, which handles 3.3 million calls a year.

"The big stumbling block to putting it in is money. But we've got to have it
now," said Deputy Police Commissioner Charles Brennan, head of the
department's technology division. "Cell phones are a nightmare for us."

Implementing the system nationwide could cost as much as $8 billion,
according to the National Emergency Number Association.

Only Vermont and Rhode Island have the systems in most call centers.

Not all cell phones and systems are equipped for wireless tracking, but
the federal government has ordered all carriers to include the technology
in their phones by 2005.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030509/ap_on_re_us/911_call_6

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