MJK2660@ritvm.bitnet (Mike Koziol) (07/26/90)
A small city (Olean - pop 19,000) in Western New York state is going to start up their E911 system soon. Currently, idle, on-duty fire fighters are calling each phone in the city to verify the address information that the phone company has provided them. They started doing this without any advance notice to the public and the local police received many calls about suspicious phone calls. On another note I attended a presentation at an APCO (Association of Public Safety Communications Officers) national conference two years ago that dealt with 911 horror stories. In one case a store owner called 911 to report that a customer had just been shot in the head 3 times. The telecommunicator would not send an ambulance until she spoke with the victim! The victim was able to babble a few incoherent sounds over the phone and help was dispatched. One of the presenters was a retired Chicago police officer that had headed their 911 center. For the life of me I can't recall his name but he did bring along some video tape of his appearance on the Donahue Show.