Agency to probe 911 call from fatal fire
TACOMA, Wash. – A social worker pleaded with a 911 dispatcher throughout a nearly seven-minute call to quickly get police to Josh Powell’s house after he locked himself inside with his two sons.
It took almost two minutes from the start of the call for the dispatcher to learn Powell’s address and more than three minutes to understand that she was there to supervise a child custody visit. Near the end of the call, she asked how long before officers could get there.
“I don’t know, ma’am,” he said. “We have to respond to emergency life-threatening situations first.”
She responded: “This could be life-threatening ... I’m afraid for their lives.”
Authorities said the call could have been handled better, and that it was unfortunate for the dispatcher to leave the social worker with the impression no help was immediately on the way. The agency that runs the call center said it would review the matter and start a disciplinary investigation if necessary.
Still, the recordings raise questions about an emergency response to a custody visit that ended with Powell killing himself and his boys.
Pierce County Sheriff’s Department Det. Ed Troyer said deputies appeared to have been dispatched during the call, and he did not believe the conversation caused unnecessary delays.
“Are we unhappy with the etiquette and the manner? Yes,” Troyer said. “Did it affect the response time? No. Dispatchers are typing information and addresses while they’re on the phone with callers.”
Troyer said his department is waiting for a copy of the “call-and-dispatch” log from the 911 center to see exactly how long it took for deputies to respond.
The details of the emergency calls emerged in audio recordings released by the department late Tuesday. They did not include time stamps, and the call center did not immediately respond to a public records request from The Associated Press for the dispatch log.
The social worker had driven the Powell boys, 5 and 7, from their grandparents’ home to their father’s house Sunday. Josh Powell had lost custody of the boys in the fall after his father, with whom they lived, was arrested in a child pornography and voyeurism investigation.
When she arrived, the boys ran into the house, and Powell slammed the door in her face, then locked it.
She called her supervisor and 911 using her cellphone, reaching the call center in Tacoma about 10 miles away from Powell’s house just outside Puyallup, authorities said.
In the first minutes of her first 911 call, the woman quickly laid out the situation. Nearly 20 seconds into the call, the dispatcher asked her for the address. The social worker didn’t know and needed to look for it. It took her about 90 seconds to find it in her car.
At one point, she asked, “You can’t find me by GPS?”
He responded, “No.” And then there was a pause of approximately 10 seconds.
Pierce County, the second largest in the state and home to about 800,000 people, has an enhanced 911 system that is designed to give police an approximate location of the cellphone caller. It wasn’t immediately clear if the call center used that feature to locate the social worker.
While she was still looking for the address, she said, “But I think I need help right away.”
The dispatcher proceeded to question her repeatedly about who she was and her role.
“Who is there to exercise the visitation?” he asked.
“I am,” she said. “The visit is with Josh Powell. And he’s the husband of ...”
“And who’s supervising?” he asked.
“I supervise.”
“So you supervise and you’re doing the visit? You supervise yourself?” he asked.
“I supervise myself. I’m the supervisor here.”
“Wait a minute. If it’s a supervised visit, you can’t supervise yourself if you’re the visitor.”
After getting it straight, the dispatcher said, “We’ll have somebody look for you there.”
“OK, how long will it be?” the woman asked.
That’s when the dispatcher responded by saying he didn’t know.
Moments later, the house erupted in flames.
