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The call lasted for 12 minutes. During that time, the dispatcher continually assures the resident that officers will be there soon. At the four-minute mark, as officers are "still on their way," a barrage of gunfire is heard. The following is a partial transcript of the call.

The quality of the operator that you contact with a 911 call varies greatly.  Some departments start their officers as dispatchers, so that they understand what is happening on the other end of the line;  in some jurisdictions, the job is a political plum to be awarded; in others the position is a heavily protected union  job.  In many departments, the person answering the 911 call is a dispatcher; in others there are separate operators that hand the call to dispatchers.  In all cases, the operator or dispatcher is not there with you; they do not know what you...

An emergency dispatcher who made disparaging remarks about Oprah Winfrey during the Maya Angelou 911 call has been suspended. John Ruckh was heard on the 911 tape saying that Oprah, a friend of Angelou's had "fallen out of grace" after a controversial interview in which Oprah expressed her thoughts about race in America. "Unfortunately, I work in a high-profile job and everything's recorded," Ruckh told the Winston-Salem Journal. "This is in no way a racial slur, slander, associated conversation ... I really hate that this happened at the time that it did, because this is taking away from Maya Angelou's...

A heroic FDNY dispatcher went beyond the call of duty — staying on the phone with an elderly Upper East Side stroke victim for nearly eight hours while rescuers struggled to pinpoint the woman’s location. EMT Joann Hilman-Payne took the call from Mary Thomas at about 1 p.m. Monday — and kept the line open as emergency responders tried to find Thomas’ address, according to FDNY documents obtained by The Post. Rescue workers were first dispatched to an East 71st Street address based on a cellphone tower relaying Thomas’ call. But she wasn’t at that location.

A violent sexual predator is expected to be sentenced today to anywhere from 10 to 50 years in prison for chasing down, beating and sexually assaulting an 18-year-old woman on a street here two years ago. Eric Rangel, 22, was found guilty by a jury in March of committing the April 22, 2007 attack at 3 a.m. on North Beverwyck Road. At the time of the assault, Rangel, an undocumented Mexican immigrant, was employed as a cook at a pizzeria about a half-mile from where the incident occurred. In the trial in Superior Court in Morristown, Rangel's attorney, public defender...

WASHINGTON — The younger brother of Republican presidential candidate John McCain has withdrawn from campaign activities and apologized for swearing at an emergency dispatcher after he called 911 to inquire about a traffic jam on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. Joe McCain, 66, said he was stepping aside to avoid becoming a liability for the Arizona senator before the Nov. 4 election. In an interview Saturday, he described the 911 call as "the biggest mistake I will ever make in my life, at least in politics," and said he thought he had hung up the phone before uttering an expletive. The...

(Rochester, N.Y.) - A 911 dispatcher, Nadire Zelenaj, has been arrested for using computers at work to access secure government Web sites containing information about suspected terrorists. Now, the FBI wants to know what she did with that sensitive information. Agents would not comment other than to say it's part of a larger investigation. Zenelaj was hired in 2002 after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Her job enables her to access a secured police data site with criminal information. However, police allege Zelenaj accessed a terrorist watch list for personal reasons. A co-worker saw her using the site and became...

We have our home on the market so many realtors and potential buyers are coming through our home daily. If we're not home the realtor can find a secondary code to turn off our alarm in the lock box. We've had some valuable items broken since we put our house on the market. What's frustrating is we don't notice it right away because the broken pieces are cleaned up and the item moved or turned in a way that doesn't make it obvious the item is broken. All we can do is get a listing of who's been in our...