CCSO Dispatchers

How many dispatchers does it take to forget to dispatch a 911 call that could have possibly saved a 21 yoa mother of two? 3 and a supervisor. And for this they get a grand total of 96 hours off and probation for 6 months. Wow Sheriff you showed them!

OK wait a minute?? First where is CCSO? Second THEY FORGOT TO DISPATCH A CALL???????????????? How on Earth did that even begin to happen? Please share.

There was a lady who was a witness in a kidnapping of a 21 yoa mother of two (daughter of a 25 year LEO with Charlotte S.O.) She followed the vehicle down the highway for over 3 miles while on the phone to the 911 operator. The dispatcher forgot to dispatch the call because she said they were very being busy. The young mother was later found to have been shot and buried in a shallow grave within several miles of the call. When checking the GPS records of the on duty units it showed there were four deputies within minutes of the call. One was less than a quarter of a mile from the intersection where the vehicle turned on.

Oh yeah, the dispatchers was allready aware of the abduction of the young mother and that she was possibly in a vehicle similar to the one that the lady called in. Such a shame.

Article from www.heraldtribune.com (http://www.heraldtribune.com)

Squad cars near during kidnapping
By John Davis, Zac Anderson and Maurice Tamman
STAFF WRITERS
Published Saturday, Feb. 16, 2008 at 4:30 a.m.

CHARLOTTE COUNTY — Multiple breakdowns in Charlotte County's emergency communications center let Denise Lee and the man who abducted and killed her slip through law enforcement's fingers, according to an internal investigation and data released by the Sheriff's Office on Friday.

INVESTIGATION DETAILS
(click here to read more)
The reliability of Charlotte County's 911 system came into question Friday after more details were released about an emergency call that might have saved the life of slain North Port mother Denise Lee.

An internal Sheriff's Office investigation revealed breakdowns that can be common if employees are not properly trained and retrained, according to one emergency response expert.

No sheriff's squad cars were sent to investigate what the caller described as a potential abduction, and Lee's alleged murderer escaped into the night.

The internal investigation report identifies human error as a major culprit, but also shows potential weak spots in the system that may have been fatal in Lee's case.

A shift change in which one group of employees was leaving and another was arriving partly explains why the call was lost.

The report concludes that the 911 call's importance was not properly communicated to employees on the incoming shift, though Sheriff John Davenport refused to answer questions about whether any changes or training have been mandated to ensure better communication in the future.

Naples-based law enforcement expert William Gaut said that shift-change errors can be a common problem if police departments are not careful.

"It happens too many times," said Gaut, who supervised 130 detectives as a police captain in Birmingham, Ala., and testifies about police procedures in legal cases. "Most police departments try their best to convey that a dispatcher needs to stick with the call, even if it means an extra 15 minutes of work, but it can require some retraining."

Gaut said other actions in the 911 center connected with Lee's case deserve more scrutiny.

Before the shift change, 911 call operator Mildred Stepp stood in the call room and told radio dispatcher Susan Kallestad that she had an important call that needed to be relayed to deputies on the road.

That is another breakdown in the typical procedure, Gaut said.

With most 911 calls, the operator sends a computer alert to the radio dispatcher. If the call is high priority, the 911 operator can flag the computer message as a "priority one call."

Stepp told investigators it was quicker to walk over and speak with Kallestad directly.

But Gaut said radio dispatchers are trained to read the computer messages. Verbal communications can be lost amid the constant radio chatter.

"Put it in writing rather than just yell it out," Gaut said. "Spoken words to a radio operator are meaningless if the operator is talking to other dispatchers or a patrol car."

The report shows that Kallestad and another dispatcher who was told of the call, Elizabeth Martinez, were busy with a variety of tasks at the time and may not have comprehended the seriousness of the call.

A computer alert might have caught their attention more quickly, Gaut said.

Stepp typed the information into Charlotte's Computer Assisted Dispatch system after the call ended at 6:39 p.m.

Gaut said the errors add up to a major breakdown in Charlotte's 911 system, and suggested the Sheriff's Office should have every 911 call operator and radio dispatcher undergo more training.

"It needs to be done to reassure the public that they'll get the service they deserve in the future," he said.
Sheriff's officials had the information needed to intercept Michael King,, who is accused of killing Lee, as he allegedly drove on U.S. 41 last month with the young mother tied up in his Chevrolet Camaro. And the deputies needed to do so were virtually around the corner.

At least four squad cars were only minutes away when an alarmed citizen phoned 911 to report a suspicious vehicle at 6:30 p.m. on the day Lee was kidnapped. But deputies were never sent to look for the Camaro.

Lee, a North Port mother of two and the daughter of a Charlotte sheriff's sergeant, was later found murdered.



Upon releasing results of a three-week internal investigation into his department's handling of the call, Sheriff John Davenport announced that he was disciplining four employees for the failure.

Davenport refused to comment on the report or answer questions about his agency's performance at a press conference, but the suspensions of two employees did not satisfy Lee's family.

"They said everyone was busy," said Denise Lee''s husband, Nathan. "I don't care. That's their job."

The internal report paints a disturbing picture of a 911 communications center that is at the heart of the county's emergency response system.

In dispassionate language, it recounts a gut-wrenching missed opportunity to save Lee. When driver Janet Kowalski phoned 911 from her cell phone, she described seeing a blue or black Camaro with a child screaming inside.

The scene prompted Kowalski to question whether an alert had been issued for a kidnapped child.

The 911 operator who answered the call realized the potential connection between what Kowalski saw and an intensive search unfolding a few miles away, in North Port, for Lee and a green Camaro.

The veteran operator, Mildred Stepp, passed the information to Susan Kallestad, a dispatcher communicating with deputies in their squad cars. But Kallestad did not direct a deputy to search for the car, saying she did not think she could use her radio at that moment because it was being "patched" to communicate with North Port police.

Officials in Charlotte were working to connect to North Port's radio system to aid interagency communication in the search for Lee.

"I knew that I screwed that up and that that information needed to have gone out," Kallestad told investigators.

But the internal investigation, assisted by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, shows that Kallestad was not the only one who knew about the Kowalski call and that others failed to respond.

The report describes a chaotic scene as the participation by the Charlotte County sheriff's department in the North Port Police Department's search for Lee was escalating. Minutes before the Kowalski call, Lee made her own call to Sarasota County's 911 center, confirming that she had been abducted.

That call would soon lead authorities to identify King as Lee's alleged abductor.

Meanwhile, Charlotte's communications center buzzed with alerts for a green Camaro and Lee. A shift change was also under way.

Kallestad told Sgt. Floyd Davis about Kowalski's report, and memos show that Davis asked Kallestad to check back with North Port police to confirm the color of the Camaro being sought. Davis told investigators he never heard back.

Documents also show that dispatcher Elizabeth Martinez knew about the Kowalski call, but Martinez, who was ending her shift, told investigators it was not her responsibility to send a unit to respond.

Kallestad told incoming dispatcher Katie Beasley about the Kowalski call, but Beasley never dispatched a car and Kallestad did not follow up to ensure that she did.

Kallestad, who has worked for the agency for 18 months, has been suspended for 60 hours, and was ordered to take remedial training. She will also be on probation for six months.

Martinez, a two-year employee, will be suspended for 36 hours, put on probation for six months and given remedial training.

While not facing suspensions, Stepp and 911 supervisor Laurie Piatt have been ordered to receive remedial training for their role in failing to get the information in Kowalski's call to deputies in squad cars that night. Piatt told investigators "she was busy answering phone calls and trying to patch radio channels" and did not follow up on the Kowalski call.

Lee's father, Charlotte Sheriff's Sgt. Rick Goff, and Nathan Lee attended Davenport's press conference but declined to comment afterward.

But after being briefed on the investigation findings in a two-hour meeting with Chief Deputy Bill Cameron, they expressed disappointment with the disciplinary action.

"We're going to give them a second chance?" Nathan Lee said, referring to the suspensions. "Denise didn't get a second chance."

Goff said: "Obviously we're not happy. There were mistakes made, and we'll just leave it at that."

Several squad cars were in the northwest Charlotte County area where King was allegedly driving when Kowalski called. One crossed Toledo Blade Boulevard and U.S. 41 as Kowalski was on the phone with the 911 operator.

Information on the location of patrol cars was compiled and analyzed by the Herald-Tribune using Global Positioning Satellite data supplied by the Sheriff's Office.

King was caught on Interstate 75 near Toledo Blade by a Florida Highway Patrol trooper at 9:16 p.m.

The investigative report was Davenport's first acknowledgment that his agency had mishandled the call from Kowalski. He deflected questions over the past few weeks, citing the pending investigation. On Friday, he said he could not answer questions because of potential appeals from the disciplined employees.

Davenport also criticized a "lack of patience" among members of the media in waiting for information about the handling of the Kowalski call.

He said a tape of the 911 call could not be released because of the ongoing investigation in the Lee case.

King, 36, is in Sarasota County jail on charges of capital murder, kidnapping and sexual battery. Investigators in North Port continue to build the case against King; they have found no link between King and Denise Lee,, a 21-year-old stay-at-home mother of two.

North Port investigators did not learn of the existence of the Kowalski call until Jan. 19, two days after Denise Lee''s abduction. Kowalski's subsequent interview with investigators contributed to the capital murder case against King.

North Port police Chief Terry Lewis declined to comment on Charlotte County's handling of the Kowalski call.

"All of my concern right now is with the family," he said.

All I can say to that is "OH MY GOD". I cant even begin to....wow! We would have been fired IMMEDIATELY after the investigation. Thanks I will share this with my coworkers.

I can't believe they wont resign on their own. How could they show their faces in the department where they made such a screwup and possibly caused a young mother to loose her life. Resign - Resign - Resign

DO OTHER AGENCIES REQUIRE THEIR RADIO OPERATORS NOT ONLY TO WORK A RADIO BUT TO ANSWER NON-EMERGENCY AND 911 CALLS? DO YOU HAVE DEDICATED CALL TAKERS AND RADIO OPERATORS AND HOW MANY DISPATCHERS DO OTHER AGENCIES HAVE WORKING ON AVERAGE PER SHIFT? YOU SEE OVER HERE AT CCSO THE DISPATCHERS ARE REQUIRED TO ANSWER THE PHONES EVEN WHILE WORKING A RADIO AND IF IT'S A 911 MEDICAL CALL THEY ALSO HAVE TO GIVE EMD INSTRUCTIONS TO THE CALLER AND STILL LISTEN TO THE RADIO TRAFFIC. IF THEY ARE LUCKY AND THERE IS ENOUGH MANPOWER IN THE ROOM (WHICH USUALLY ISN'T THE CASE) THEY CAN POSSIBLY HAVE SOMEONE ELSE TAKE THE RADIO OR THE EMD CALL BUT IF THERE'S NO ONE AVAILABLE THE ROAD UNITS ARE TOLD TO STAND BY ON 911 AND THERE'S ONLY A FEW ROAD SUPERVISORS WHO WILL SPEAK UP AND TAKE WHATEVER RADIO TRAFFIC THE ROAD UNIT NEEDED TO GIVE. YES A HORRIFIC THING HAPPENED OVER HERE THAT NO AMOUNT OF WISHING OR TEARS WILL EVER ERASE. THE PEOPLE INVOLVED WILL HAVE TO LIVE WITH WITH HAPPENED AND THAT IS A BURDEN THAT I PRAY WILL NEVER BEFALL ANYONE ELSE.

Whats up with them beefing up security in Central?