The emergency dispatcher who took the initial 911 call reporting Josh Powell’s behavior before he set fire to his Washington state home on Sunday wasted precious time and didn’t get the information needed to send help immediately.
Call logs show it took 22 minutes from when the call was made to when sheriff’s deputies arrived at Powell’s home, the Associated Press reported.
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An expert whose Salt Lake City organization creates dispatch procedures for agencies around the world criticized the dispatcher’s performance. (Read the transcripts and listen to the calls here: http://bit.ly/xAoX8c)
"From our point of view, that call went on way too long and gathered very little as far as actionable information goes," said Michael Thompson, medical and fire consultant for the Priority Dispatch Corporation and National Academies of Emergency Dispatch.
Josh Powell, 36, lit the fatal fire at his Graham-area home after locking his door against caseworker Elizabeth Griffin-Hall, who had brought his two boys for a supervised visit with their father.
After 10 minutes of pounding on the door, Griffin-Hall placed a frantic call to 911, saying she was locked out, one of the boys was crying and she smelled gasoline. The dispatcher then spent six minutes questioning her about Josh Powell and the children, her job and the car she was driving.
Even the local sheriff’s office in Washington has expressed dismay at how the call was handled.
"We’re not happy with the way that dispatcher is bantering [with the caseworker]," Pierce County Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Ed Troyer told The Seattle Times on Wednesday. "We understand that could have been handled better."
Troyer said his department is attempting to create a timeline to determine exactly how long it took for deputies to arrive on scene.
Emergency call logs show that nearly eight minutes elapsed between when a social worker called 911 to report that Josh Powell’s children were in danger and when deputies were dispatched, and it took another 14 minutes for a deputy to get to the home.
The Associated Press obtained the logs Wednesday night under a public records request.
Troyer said deputies could have arrived at the Powell home sooner had the 911 call been handled more effectively.
But Troyer also noted that the caseworker could not immediately provide Josh Powell’s home address, which made it difficult to dispatch deputies, according to The Times.
Thompson said using questioning procedures like those his company creates would have allowed police to respond more quickly.
"That call went on for almost a total of six minutes, which is completely out of scope," Thompson said. "My impression is there was no structure in pacing or questioning sequence. It was all over the board."
Thompson said a single question — "Tell me exactly what happened" — would have properly guided the conversation.
Instead, the dispatcher asked Griffin-Hall about her specific role in the situation, and the color and license plate number of her car.
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