Apparent DC 911 Misdirected Dispatches Observed Amid Heightened Scrutiny
Washington, D.C., apparently incorrectly dispatched emergency medical services several times in as many days, according to our analysis of walkie-talkie radio traffic. We listened to three such incidents from this and last week. For more, see here, here and here, including the radio transmissions marked with a star. That's on top of many other such shortcomings observed in recent months.
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On Monday, a shooting rescue was dispatched by D.C.’s Office of Unified Communications to the city's Fire and EMS Department at about 3:50 p.m. to 1724 Randolph St. NE. Medical rescuers didn't appear to be sent to the apparent correct address, at or near 1724 N. Capitol St. NW, for about nine more minutes. MapQuest says the two locations are some 2.8 miles apart.
On Aug. 25, the OUC 911 office dispatched a call on a double shooting to 4201 Wheeler Road. SE at 3:51 p.m. OUC changed the location about five minutes later to 4405 Southern Ave. SE. Another five minutes later, the call to send help was apparently directed to the proper fire-medical rescue units. MapQuest says the distance between the two locations is about 4.5 miles.
Two days before that incident, someone apparently fell off the Seventh Street SW highway overpass, landing on I-395 southbound. OUC directed fire-medical first responders to a nonexistent Seventh Street SE exit along another highway, as we previously reported. Local emergency dispatching expert Dave Statter, who first publicized those incidents, told us Tuesday he had observed two additional incorrect dispatches since late August.
"No city officials have reached out to me," Statter emailed us, despite him drawing attention to the dispatching problems on social media and on his news website. "In just 6 days, @OUC_DC dispatched @dcfireems to wrong addresses for 2 shootings, a fatal collision & a crash with a person trapped," he tweeted. "That's equal to the total of bad addresses dispatched for fire & EMS in all of FY19, according to OUC stats." We independently listened to the misdirected 911 dispatches via openmhz.com.
At least two D.C. advisory neighborhood commissioners voiced concerns. "This is really getting out of control," tweeted ANC 4B06 Commissioner Tiffani Johnson Tuesday. "When will the city take notice and demand change? How many more have to die?" Like Statter, she said she hasn't heard from local officials about her concerns. Rather than waiting until the city auditor has time to schedule an audit of OUC, Johnson "would prefer it be done immediately and question the delay," she emailed us. She said previous 911 dispatching issues were also "concerning."
Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) dismisses such 911 dispatching concerns. “I’m not going to go down that rabbit hole with Dave Statter,” she said Aug. 17 (see 2008180023). Her office and the Fire and EMS Department didn't comment now. OUC said it didn't have an immediate comment. It recently responded to our Freedom of Information Act request for records on previous 911 dispatching issues, and our future report will have more information. For our last report on additional apparent 911 errors, see here.