Milwaukee 911 review after delayed response to attack, employee discharged

MILWAUKEE - At least one employee lost their job following a City of Milwaukee investigation into the mishandling of a 911 call, according to documents reviewed by FOX6 News.

Employee discharged

What we know:

The employee was discharged on Friday, Aug. 21, the same day the Department of Emergency Communications (DEC) announced it had concluded its investigation.

The employee was one of the two universal call takers that took a pair of 911 calls from a third-party dispatch service, alerting them that a 99-year-old woman was in danger near 14th and Cudahy on the morning of July 27. The third-party dispatcher told the city's universal call taker they believed the situation could be a domestic call.

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When the dispatcher called 911 a second time minutes later, they patched in audio in which a man can be heard threatening a woman, yelling, "Shut the [expletive] up! I'm gonna beat the [expletive] out of you!"

Though the call takers told the third-party dispatcher that police were on it, they didn't arrive until more than 2.5 hours later — after the woman dialed 911 herself.

"I've been attacked. I need help," the victim said after calling 911.

The two employees — the call takers — were subsequently placed on paid administrative leave while the DEC launched its internal investigation.

Policies and procedures

Big picture view:

Documents reviewed Tuesday by FOX6 News showed the DEC told the employee they violated department policies and procedures, including neglect of duty. DEC Director Tony Bueno told FOX6 in July he thought there was enough in just listening to the calls.

When the call takers entered the call into their system, they both classified it first as a welfare check. That registers as a Level 3 on the department's call classification scale, which rates calls on the level of their severity from 0–9. Calls rated zero through two receive an immediate response.

Still, Level 3 calls require police be dispatched within 15 minutes.

While the call itself was misclassified, help still should have arrived before it did. It is unclear why police dispatchers, who receive the call from the universal call taker, did not send a police response within 15 minutes.

Len Scrima is a retired dispatcher and trainer who spent 33 years working for the City of Waukesha.

"It's unbelievable. Things happen. Can two people make mistakes that quick, one after the other? I mean, they can. But I understand the call was entered — it wasn't a call that was written on paper and not entered for a couple of hours. It was actually entered from what I understand, and in that case then, that starts the process of the team being aware," Scrima said.

FOX6's Sam Kraemer asked Scrima whether removing an employee considered to be entry-level by DEC is enough to instill confidence in the public that this issue won't happen again.

"What happened in the chain that one person, and then a second person that came in, and only those two were really involved in this and are the ones that are answering to it? I would think that there's maybe more to it," Scrima said. "So no, I don't have the confidence that that's going to handle anything. It actually makes me more nervous to wonder, well then, could this happen again?"

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Press conference scheduled

What's next:

We could learn answers to those outstanding questions as soon as Wednesday.

The DEC called a morning press conference on Wednesday where Bueno will detail the findings of his investigation. A media advisory said the DEC will also explain its "extensive training and competency requirements for emergency communications personnel."

The press conference is scheduled for 9 a.m.

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