Operator at Washington DC 911 center failed to send police to school after man threatened to shoot
Washington DC Aug 30 2018 An operator at the District’s 911 center failed to send police Monday afternoon when a parent at an elementary school in Northwest Washington called to report a man outside the building threatening to shoot, according to a city spokeswoman.
Officers rushed to Lafayette Elementary School on Broad Branch Road in Chevy Chase after the school nurse called 911 with the same concern 30 minutes later. Officers arrived within five minutes, and the man in a blue Nissan SUV was no longer there.
“The incident was unsettling,” Lily Buerkle, who first called 911 at 3:27 p.m., said in an email to D.C. Council Member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3). Buerkle had just picked up her 7-year-old daughter when she saw the man. She didn’t see a gun.
She told the 911 operator that there was “a very erratic angry man outside of Lafayette Elementary and Broad Branch Market threatening to shoot someone.” The operator noted Buerkle mentioned a “strange male in vehicle was around the school threatening to kill the crossing guard . . . kids and parents still picking up children.”
Wanda Gattison, a spokeswoman for the 911 center, said the operator wrongly classified Buerkle’s call a low priority. She said as soon as Buerkle said “threaten to shoot” that “it should have prompted a priority one response. Unfortunately, the call was put in incorrectly.”
Gattison said Buerkle’s call remained undispatched for 27 minutes. By the time officials realized the mistake and prepared to notify police, the school nurse had called 911. Gattison said disciplinary action is being considered against the operator.
Buerkle told Cheh in the email that “the sluggish police and 911 response was alarming. My daughter is pretty upset at what she witnessed today. She continues to ask where that man is and if he is going to come back.”
In an interview later, Buerkle said she appreciated the city owning up to the mistake but noted the admission came only after officials initially told her the call had been handled correctly. “I asked if it would have made a difference if I had been more frantic, yelling and crying,” Buerkle said.
Buerkle’s emails to her elected representatives and other city officials sparked media inquiries and a quick investigation at the 911 center.
Police said they had three uniformed officers and two squad cars parked outside the school Tuesday afternoon.
D.C. police said they responded quickly to the only call they were made aware of — one from the school that was made at 3:58 p.m. and dispatched at 4 p.m., arriving at 4:05 p.m. They are investigating the incident as a hate crime and said the man made derogatory comments to the crossing guard, who is Hispanic.
Police said in a report that the crossing guard told them the man yelled ethnic slurs at him and threatened to run him over, then returned “and threatened to run him over again.” Police said the man threatened “to shoot you up,” referring to the guard, and that he referred to the guard as an immigrant who “did not belong working in this area around white kids.” Police said the man told the guard he was a former Marine who “used to shoot people like him at the border.”
Only a scant description of the man was available. He was described as black, with a slim build and in his 40s. He had a medium complexion and short hair. He was wearing a black or blue baseball hat and drove a blue Nissan SUV with California license plates.
Washington Post
