Legal News

What?s Going On With 911 Operators In Michigan?

By Chris Herring

As if their jobs aren’t stressful enough, 911 operators in Michigan are feeling the wrath of the law.

Yesterday, the Michigan Supreme Court said it would allow a gunshot victim to sue a former 911 operator from the Detroit Police Department for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Here’s an AP account of the divided Supreme Court ruling.

In the first call, Lorraine Hayes, the gunshot victim, calmly asked for an ambulance, giving her address and saying she had been shot in the head. The operator asked if she was male or female and Hayes stumbled, first saying she was male and then correcting herself.

After some more questions, the AP reported, the operator asked, “Are you a mental patient?”

“My body is numb. I’m getting ready to die,” Hayes said at one point.

The operator said she did not believe Hayes would be able to call if she was shot in the head and told her she would get in trouble for making a false report. Despite her doubts, the operator sent police to the address.

The Court was critical of the operator’s remark yesterday, saying it was insulting, and not particularly well-timed.

The Detroit Police declined to comment, saying the operator was no longer an employee with the department.

Detroit is battling another 911 response case, stemming from a 2005 call that was written off by the operator as a prank because the call came from a 5-year-old.

The child’s mother ended up dying and an attorney representing the family believes the woman could have been saved had the operator sent someone right away. Here’s a CBS News article about the ongoing lawsuit, which was filed in 2006 and seeks more than $1 million in damages.

The Michigan Supreme Court ruling Wednesday, meanwhile, comes just months after another 911 response in Michigan raised questions.

A young woman, whose father collapsed, called 911. Frustrated with how long it took someone to pick up during an emergency, she uttered a four-letter-word. That irritated the operator, who in turn told her to watch her mouth. The operator then hung up on her a number of times before finally directing her call to someone else.

The case has also drawn a great deal of attention, in part because it was featured on a Detroit TV station. It’s unclear whether a lawsuit will be filed as a result, but the episode caused the Lincoln Park Police Department plenty of grief. People wrote into local newspapers calling for the operator’s firing and one YouTube video debated whether he should keep his job.

Tom Carnes, Lincoln Park’s police chief quickly acknowledged his employee acted wrongly. “It’s not the station’s finest moment. My guy screwed up on this. He never once asked her, ‘What’s wrong?’ ” The operator was suspended for two weeks without pay.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on July 09, 2009 (boomark / email).