Catania 911 Phone Call Recordings Released

911..STOP MAKING EXCUSES!
A truely well trained..customer service rep "call taker" should of/ could of been able to manage that call...get the needed info & CALM THE CALLER!
PERIOD!

no wonder DC is farked up DC Councilman at his best

Mr. Catania meant well in making the 911 call but unbeknown to him the incident had already been reported...
"cited his own frustration in summoning help." many times I have heard 911 calls on tv and am frustrated by the answerers questions but that doesn't give Mr. Catantia the right to ask the operator her or his name and try to intimidate them as I'm guessing he did and probably identified himself...too bad the operator didn't inform him the incident had been reported earlier and a response was already in progress...

You guys suck about as bad as the 911 operators in South Carolina!

Another example of name droping by an elected official, who cares who you are. As a 911 operator I need to know what you saw, is there a weapon, what type of robbery, several times citizen think if their car was broken into they will frequently call and say they have been robbed, we need info to keep responding officers safe, hurry up and come just does not always cut it. I say to you sir, respect the system and the job we have to do, answer our questions, we are asking them for a reason!!!!!!!

Dave Bradshaw wrote:

Another example of name droping by an elected official, who cares who you are. As a 911 operator I need to know what you saw, is there a weapon, what type of robbery, several times citizen think if their car was broken into they will frequently call and say they have been robbed, we need info to keep responding officers safe, hurry up and come just does not always cut it. I say to you sir, respect the system and the job we have to do, answer our questions, we are asking them for a reason!!!!!!!

EXCUSE ME...SINCE YOU APPEAR TO BE AN INSIDER..
ALL YOU NEED IS MY 1st NAME..ADDRESS OF INCIDENT..SO IF I HANG UP...YOU CAN DPO...PERIOD...
SHUT UP & DO YOUR J.O.B.!

What a prick. If you're that concerned or frantic, go be a hero or dead. I know emergency situations aren't meant to be pleasant, but gee, cut the lady some slack.

Well Mr NYWILL it is apparent you are not an insider, While I only need an ddress to dispatch, it is my job to obtain as much info as possible SO MAYBE WE CAN CATCH SOMONE!!! So---Shut up and help us!!!

Dave Bradshaw wrote:

Well Mr NYWILL it is apparent you are not an insider, While I only need an ddress to dispatch, it is my job to obtain as much info as possible SO MAYBE WE CAN CATCH SOMONE!!! So---Shut up and help us!!!

NOT AN INSIDER?
Uh..I manager a top companys call center for over 20 years So I can judge that call I heard as totally unprofesional..
The Call taker made the caller more aggrivated which didnt help the situation..
MAYBE YOU SHOULD SHUT UP!

Correction...

When you worked for the county, You WERENT that good of a dispatcher.

When you call 911, it isn't the time to try and play the judge and the jury. Why is he asking for the call takers name? All he had to do was say, I hear some lady screaming at such and such street, and I am inside at 1234 abc street. What was so difficult about that? He was just being a "BIG CITY COUNCILMAN" trying to intimidate the call taker. For what, that isn't the time to play that role you fool.

Well, being a DC Fireman, I get to see and hear the incompetence of the OUC. They are utterly unprofessional, many times being heard carrying on, laughing, and just being plain rude on the radio. They have horrible enunciation and pronunciation and many times it is impossible to understand what they say over the vocals. Our saving grace are the printouts and the CAD viewer on the computer. They many times dispatch wrong information and will not respond when called. There have been many times I have called into communications over the radio and it will be several times of me calling before I can get an answer. What about that fire in Deanwood a year or two back? There were explosions and I believe there was a mayday called. They did not identify that in a timely fashion I believe. The same was similar in the gas explosion at 2300 Goodhope Rd SE when a Lieutenant fell 30 feet into an elevator shaft. Communications had received calls that there was an explosion, but I seem to recall that they did not pass that information onto responding crews. They are unreliable and many are incompetent. My father had to call 911 because he witnessed a serious auto accident in southeast on capitol hill. He was talking to a call taker and the call taker told him that no such intersection existed. He then informed him he was looking at the sign, and read it directly back to the call taker. Fortunately, MPD came upon the scene and was able to handle it from there.
This being said, I do not think all OUC personnel are bad, but the majority of them are horrible. They do not know many aspects of what we do and this definitely shows during communication over the radio. PG county has very well trained and well versed dispatchers. DC has a few, but many are getting older and closer to retirement. What then? When is enough enough?

Anonymous wrote:

Well, being a DC Fireman, I get to see and hear the incompetence of the OUC. They are utterly unprofessional, many times being heard carrying on, laughing, and just being plain rude on the radio. They have horrible enunciation and pronunciation and many times it is impossible to understand what they say over the vocals. Our saving grace are the printouts and the CAD viewer on the computer. They many times dispatch wrong information and will not respond when called. There have been many times I have called into communications over the radio and it will be several times of me calling before I can get an answer. What about that fire in Deanwood a year or two back? There were explosions and I believe there was a mayday called. They did not identify that in a timely fashion I believe. The same was similar in the gas explosion at 2300 Goodhope Rd SE when a Lieutenant fell 30 feet into an elevator shaft. Communications had received calls that there was an explosion, but I seem to recall that they did not pass that information onto responding crews. They are unreliable and many are incompetent. My father had to call 911 because he witnessed a serious auto accident in southeast on capitol hill. He was talking to a call taker and the call taker told him that no such intersection existed. He then informed him he was looking at the sign, and read it directly back to the call taker. Fortunately, MPD came upon the scene and was able to handle it from there.
This being said, I do not think all OUC personnel are bad, but the majority of them are horrible. They do not know many aspects of what we do and this definitely shows during communication over the radio. PG county has very well trained and well versed dispatchers. DC has a few, but many are getting older and closer to retirement. What then? When is enough enough?

Thanks!

I see and understand what you are saying. I a trainer, I constantly tell my trainees to enunciate. They have to get all the letters out when they speak. A person can speakly clearly in any dialect and be understood. The problem I have seen in some PSAP's is the training. We all have on the job training however that needs to be revamped in some departments. A classroom setting in the begining to introduce the new hire to the job and job fuctions is essential. The days of just throwing them in to see if they sink or swim are over or should be over. Proper education and training are essential to doing a job well done. I believe the lack of training and care is why there are so many complaints against communications. After training, next is supervison. Supervisors needstraining too. They have to recognize when an employee is burnt out, tired or may need a break. Supervisor needs to get back on the radio and phone and help out their subordinates when necessary. It sets a good standard and helps the work environment as a whole. If some of these are done, the complaints would lessen.

just my opinion.

Ok I was typing fast but you get my point.

People need to stop being so critical about things they know nothing about!

OK-I listened to the tape again, and as I think the call taker did not do the best job at calming the caller he certainly did not help matters any, he seemed to expect to scare her with giving his name/position thats all I was trying to say, MsCitizen, thanks for the low blows,(and signing your name) hope you are well. just my 2 cents

MsCitizen does make a good point about training, how stringent should the testing process be to even hire them? How extensive is the hiring process in DC? I know only from PG several years ago that it takes several months after applying to jump through all the hoops to even get hired.

I listened to the 911 tape 4 or 5 times...Catania should be ashamed of his behavior on the phone...the operator repeatedly asked him to stop yelling at which time he continued to repeat someone was being robbed and the location..at one point the operator stated "I have the location." she asked him what did he see and he repeated over and over about a robbery taking place...would have been nice if he had given her a description of the assailant...

And his tone was like "get someone there now" when in reality his was not the first call received and a response was already in progress...shame on him for his bullying behavior and attempt to flaunt his position... is he too good to follow the instructions of a trained person receiving emergency calls?????