Posted on 04/13/2005 11:12:46 AM PDT by tuffydoodle
Mom not laughing at 911 dispatcher's 'joke'
By Leila Fadel
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
WATAUGA - Lori came home to find her daughters fighting that Monday evening. Her 12-year-old had kicked a hole in the door, and the girls were hitting and throwing things at each other. She feared one or both would be seriously hurt.
She called 911 and asked for help. Her 12-year-old daughter was out of control, she told the call-taker.
"OK. Do you want us to come over to shoot her?" the dispatcher asked, according to a recording released this week. For five seconds, the line went dead.
"Are you there?" the call-taker asked.
"Excuse me?" Lori said.
Mike Forbess, a dispatcher of five years for the Watauga Department of Public Safety, then told her he was joking and apologized. But Lori cannot get his comment out of her head.
"This is a slap in the face that my child was not important enough, my call for help, my 911 call was not important enough that he had to make a joke about it," Lori said Monday. She asked that her last name not be used to avoid identifying her daughters, one of whom has emotional problems.
Forbess immediately told his supervisor about the call. He received a letter of reprimand two days later. Forbess received a second letter of reprimand from Chief David Van Laar on Monday, the same day the Star-Telegram obtained a copy of the 911 call recording, and of Forbess' disciplinary records.
The mother, however, said her faith in the 911 system remains shaken. She said she plans to file a formal complaint.
"I do not have words to tell you how shocked I am that someone is allowed to do this," she said. "You don't do people like this, and then get a slap on the wrist."
In his letter to Forbess, Van Laar wrote: "This type of response cannot be tolerated, and this letter shall serve as notice that any future unprofessional responses while answering the 911 line will be cause for termination."
But the reprimand is not enough, the mother said.
The next time she has an emergency, she said, she won't feel safe calling 911.
"This man does need to be disciplined," Lori said. "How can a person in this line of work be so unfeeling that he asked a person who needed help, 'Would you like us to come over and shoot your child?'
"That's an interoffice disciplinary action," she said of the reprimands. "That doesn't do anything.
Van Laar made no excuses for the dispatcher.
"The reason I didn't take tougher action is, he immediately owned up to his supervisor and said he made a mistake," Van Laar said. "He's a good employee. He just made a severe mistake which is inexcusable. ... This is not something you should hear on the other end of a 911 call."
In an interview Monday, Forbess said he is sorry for his comment to the woman. In five years with the department, the dispatcher has never been disciplined for his handling of 911 calls.
Forbess has received two commendations from community members for his work. He was disciplined once with a written warning for working an unauthorized shift for a co-worker.
"I am so sorry for what I said to that lady, and I can never make it up to her," Forbess said. "I'm ashamed of my actions, what I said and what I did. I would take it back if I could, but I can't. I'm just very sorry that I did it. It was a poor choice of things to say."
Forbess said that he sometimes tells jokes or changes his tone of voice to ease the stress of a caller. In this case, he said, his words made the situation worse.
"I admit what I did. It was stupid, it was inexcusable and I'm sorry," Forbess said. "I know it's not enough for her or for the papers or for the rest of the world. I've taken the punishment that they gave."
Classic. How many other places can you be disciplined for working too much?
"But Lori cannot get his comment out of her head."
I'd be embarassed too.
Good 'ole Union Rules, I bet.
Given what appear to be her truly stellar parenting skills, I think it's more likely to be the girls' fathers.
the poor dispatcher, first of all he owned up to his error right away, he could teach Dan Rather and Bubba Clinton a thing or two, rap on the knuckles, it's on his record, he just have to behave......
and boy anyone who works with people all day long, esp listening to complaints could sympathize, I am sure one quarter of the phone calls the 9-11 dispatchers are for foolish nonsense like this woman and the Burger King broad, you hear enough of these trivial complaints you might slip, and frankly he handled it with better charm and humour than I would
Twenty bucks says this mom is repeatedly at school demanding that her out of control kids be given "just one more chance," but when a public employee (read: someone she can sue) makes a mistake she is suddenly a big believer in "no second chances." Imagine that.
Absolutely.
I remember living in an apartment in Philly years ago, in a building connected to a crackhouse, where there were always drunks and druggies urinating in the street, not to mention the robberies and shootings, and the police wouldn't even come whenever my car was broken into.
This dispatcher's comment was NOTHING compared to what we heard from 911 on a regular basis... lol.
I just listened to the actual call, that woman is a bee-yotch.
ROTFL. Actually, I found the comment hilarious.
My daughter had severe emotional problems all her life as her bio dad knocked me down a flight of stairs when I was 6 months pregnant. She killed a cat when she was 2, she was accused of molesting a 4 y/o boy when she was 7, she threatened to stab my husband and I to death in our sleep when she was 12. She was beating the heck out of us on a regular basis and of course, we were the ones that got accused of abuse even though we had done nothing but defend ourselves, and she had been in therapy most of her life. We attended family therapy, parenting classes...you name it, we jumped through the hoops. We dealt with CPS for 2 years. They even forced us into outpatient rehab and drug tested us because we admitted that we drank 3 beers/night...they classified us as alcoholics because of that. Worst part was, they placed her with a foster mother who took her to bars and was a prescription drug addict. One day out of the blue, the woman called me and told me to come get her.
The final straw for us was when she was 14 y/o...she slammed me up against the refrigerator and knocked me unconscious because I would not let her go out with a 21 y/o guy, she was 2 inches taller than me and outweighed me by 50 lbs. at the time My husband pulled her arms behind her back, pulled her off of me and put her outside and locked the door, otherwise she probably would have killed me. She tried to break down the door so we called 911. She assaulted the cop and he had to cuff her and stuff her in the car.
My husband then got accused of child abuse for pulling her arms back behind her and because she was fighting him so badly that she hit her head on the door frame. They charged me with medical neglect even though I had paperwork showing that I had spent $26,000 during the previous 6 months when I had committed her to a mental hospital. What it amounted to was that when my insurance "capped out" and she was declared "miraculously cured" by the doctors at the commercial clinic and I then forced them to commit her to the state hospital and she stayed there 3 months. Child Protective Services took custody of her again and then called me a few days later and wanted me to bring her back home. I told them no, so then they charged me with abandonment. She "aged out" of the system at 18 and they literally threw her on the streets. She is now 24, has spent the last year in prison for burglarizing my house and stealing a car. She is in recovery for meth addiction and so far has been doing well. Her favorite saying is "my mother was great, my stepdad was great...I was just a s**thead".
To those posters that said that they would "teach them a lesson"...beware of Child Protective Services. They get money for each child they take out of a home and they will lie to justify their existence. Been there, done that.
I actually giggled when I read the response.
"Yes, ma'am - I understand your kid may be having a tantrum. Stop feeding her sugar.
If that doesn't work, call us back and we'll come over and shoot her or take her away.
That's what we do here! "
funny stuff
thanks
I can't figure out why this mother wants her own two children arrested for fighting. She could find them removed from her home.
That's the part I never get.
I got my butt whipped quite severely and fairly regularly and if
anything, my self esteem benefitted from it. To let a kid run roughshod
over the parents is one of the worst disservices you can do to a child.
There were times when I absolutely hated my parents but I thank them both today.
If I'd read one tiny hint in the article that the mother had first tried and failed to separate the girls herself, and was in fear of HER life or safety, I *might* cut her some slack.
But this woman now wants a man's head on a platter for telling a joke, so unless I hear a truly stunning tale of woe, I *probably* won't change my mind.
Her anger is seiously misplaced and she should have gotten over it by now. She got her damned service, didn't she?
That reminds me of a solution we use when the dogs get into a fight and relatively normal adults don't want to intervene directly. (We raised Rotts for years and every so often, they forget they are domesticated for a few moments)
We would turn the hose on them. Worked like a charm!
That's what she should have done.
Warning #1 - Stop!
Warning #2 - Hose 'em down!
If I were the call taker, I would of said same thing. I get strange calls at work, and I am not a 911 dispatcher.
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