Tag Archives: emergency call center

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How many 911 calls were made?

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You mean there’s a third 911 call?

Interim Amarillo City Manager Terry Childers misplaced a brief case at a local hotel the other day and called the city’s emergency services call center not once, or twice … but three times.

This is getting a little strange.

Audio recordings of the calls have been made public. Childers’ initial call was to report that the briefcase had been “stolen.” It apparently wasn’t. He wanted the dispatcher to scramble police officers immediately to his location. He said he wanted the cops the “shut down” the hotel while they looked for the item. Childers demanded to speak to the dispatcher’s supervisor.

The dispatcher asked a series of questions, which apparently had upset the interim manager.

Then he called twice more.

Over what? A stolen briefcase. No one appeared to beĀ in imminent danger. No physical damage was done. Isn’t the 911 system supposed to be used to report criminal activity (robberies, assaults, those kinds of things), or medical emergencies, or fires?

Well, the city has enacted some changes to the 911 call center as a result of the calls. Maybe the place will run more efficiently.

I’m still scratching my head over how a missing briefcase — which was recovered, incidentally — became the source of such frantic behavior.

 

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City manager steps in it

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My trick knee is throbbing once again.

It’s not the weather that’s causing the throb. It’s this nagging sense that Amarillo’s interim city manager has stepped into a proverbialĀ pile of … well, something unpleasant.

Terry Childers placed more than one phone call to the city’s 911 call center to report — get ready! — a lost briefcase. He became agitated at the way the dispatcher handled his call. She wasn’t prompt enough, I guess, or didn’t see the urgency that Childers apparently saw.

He wanted cops sent “immediately” to the hotel from where he reported the missing item. He said he wanted the place “shut down.” He told the dispatcher she “didn’t know” with whom she was dealing.

All in all, it sounds to my ears — and I listened to one of the calls — that Childers overreacted badly.

The brief case, by the way, was recovered. No harm no foul.

But wait. The interim manager got some changes at the call center. Cops and firefighters are now on duty at the site to work alongside the personnel already on duty. Police Chief Robert Taylor said the changes will improve the operation and that he had heard complaints from residents about the call center’s operation. Well, that’s news to me … and perhaps to many others.

This all sounds like the activity that begins with the word “cluster.”

So, what now?

The city is supposed to be looking for a permanent city manager. Childers will return to Oklahoma City when the new person signs on the dotted line.

My trick knee is telling me as well that the City Council — which makes precisely one hiring decision, according to the city charter — ought to fast-trackĀ its search for a permanent manager.