911 caller 'hassled' by dispatcher when he reported a beating
Allan Simon and his wife, Meredith, were heading into a grocery store in northwest Calgary last week when they saw a man suffering a dramatic beating.
They watched anxiously as the man fell to the ground after another man punched him in the face. The aggressor then put a knee on the victim's chest and continued punching him in the head before getting up and kicking the victim on the ground.
Worried the fight could leave the man seriously injured or dead, Simon phoned 911.
"I said, in a kind of excited voice, I guess, 'Quick, send police to the Safeway at North Hill. There's a fight going on, and I think somebody's getting badly hurt," recalled Simon, who is in his 70s.
The response he got from the operator would leave him "exasperated" — and even triggered an apology from Calgary 911.
According to Simon's account, the dispatcher asked repeatedly where the attack was taking place and didn't appear to be dispatching anyone to the scene.
"She said, 'Where is this?' I said, 'Safeway; North Hill Centre.' She said, 'Where is this?'
"'North Hill, on 16th Avenue.' She said, '16th Avenue, what quadrant?'" Simon recalled.
"The fight was going on, and I was getting a bit exasperated. I thought, you should be sending somebody instead of quizzing me like that.
"I said, 'Don't you know where North Hill is?' and she said, 'I know where it is, but I want you to tell me.'"
Then, he said the operator asked for his name. He asked why she wanted it, and she replied she was following protocol for 911 calls.
"At that point, the fight ended," Simon said.
The victim managed to escape and ran away.
It really makes us feel like if something like that happens again, maybe I won't call 911 if I'm just going to be hassled. - Allan Simon
"With the benefit of hindsight, I guess, it probably wasn't as serious as we feared, but we didn't know that. And she sure couldn't have known that," Simon said.
"I just hung up."
The Simons had walked into the shopping centre when the operator called Allan back asking for his name and address, which he provided.
The ordeal left him dumbfounded.
"It really makes us feel like if something like that happens again, maybe I won't call 911 if I'm just going to be hassled," Simon said.
The dispatcher did notify police, but everyone involved with the fight was gone by the time they arrived at the scene.
Calgary 911 reviews call
After Calgary 911 staff reviewed the recording of the call, they apologized to Simon, commander Doug Odney told CBC News.
"Our communications officer didn't meet that service level expectation and, in this specific case, wasn't as helpful as she could have been," Odney said. "I can appreciate Mr. Simon's frustration."
Odney said dispatchers must follow a process to verify the exact location of emergencies, noting Calgary 911 takes calls from several communities outside the city and most of its calls come from cellphones.
Dispatchers normally send first responders immediately after they have a general idea of the location, Odney said. They assure callers that help is on the way, while they narrow down the exact address using caller information along with other tools, such as wireless location services, the commander said.
Odney said it's important for callers to stay on the line to answer questions.
"We don't expect citizens to know the street address to public facilities," he said.
"Calgary 911 receives over a million non-emergency and emergency calls every year, and our goal is to get them all right.
"Sometimes we fail in that. And if we do that, we want to acknowledge that we can do a better job. And our apologies have gone out to Mr. Simon."
