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Lives Lost As Counties Lack Systems To Trace Wireless 911 Calls
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Alpha-Omega
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Jul 30, 2003 17:07 PDT
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NBC 4
Lives Lost As Counties Lack Systems To Trace Wireless 911 Calls
Financial Woes Hinder Implementation
POSTED: 3:50 p.m. PDT May 9, 2003
UPDATED: 3:55 p.m. PDT May 9, 2003
LOS ANGELES -- Police dispatchers could do little but listen to Reinaldo
Zayas scream as he was tortured to death by a gang of kidnappers.
Somehow, the 25-year-old managed to dial 911 twice from his cell phone
after his abduction Monday. One chilling call lasted 18 minutes, during
which dispatchers could hear Zayas beg for his life.
Philadelphia, like most big cities, has not upgraded its phone system
with equipment that can pinpoint the location of a cell phone when
someone dials 911, even though the technology has existed for years.
With Zayas unable to speak, and no way to trace the calls, investigators
sat helpless as he was repeatedly stabbed in the buttocks and thigh,
then left to bleed to death. His body was found Tuesday inside a van.
If the kidnappers had been just a few miles away, in Delaware County,
police might have been on the scene within minutes. The suburban county
has one of the rare dispatch centers that have installed computer
software that can tell dispatchers almost exactly where a wireless call
originates.
"In some cases, we can get within five feet," said Ed Truitt, Delaware
County's emergency management director. "It's possible that we could
have saved that man's life."
Police have not identified any suspects in Zayas' killing. Investigators
said one of his relatives reported that someone called the family
several times to demand money after the abduction, but detectives said
they still had not determined a motive.
Most 911 dispatch centers have been able to trace calls made from
landline phones since the 1980s, but only a few hundred of the nearly
7,000 centers nationwide have the enhanced systems that can do the same
with wireless units, officials said.
That technology, known as Emergency 911 Phase II, pinpoints cell phone
locations using one of two methods: global positioning system chips that
communicate with satellites, or software that triangulates a phone's
position using signals sent to cell towers.
Zayas' life is not the only one that might have been saved with wireless
tracking.
In January, dispatchers in New York lacked the technology to trace a 911
call made by four teenagers who died when their rowboat sank in Long
Island Sound. The case persuaded officials to accelerate efforts to
upgrade 911 systems in New York.
In November, four hunters marooned after their boat capsized in Lake
Erie were rescued when Canadian authorities traced their cell phone
signal to a small island.
Many places complain that they cannot afford the upgrades.
Delaware County spent $8 million on its system, which went into
operation in September. The center handles about 500,000 emergency calls
a year, about 55 percent of which are made from wireless phones, Truitt
said.
It could cost much more to implement a similar system in Philadelphia's
911 center, which handles 3.3 million calls a year.
"The big stumbling block to putting it in is money. But we've got to
have it now," said Deputy Police Commissioner Charles Brennan, head of
the department's technology division. "Cell phones are a nightmare for
us."
Implementing the system nationwide could cost as much as $8 billion,
according to the National Emergency Number Association.
Only Vermont and Rhode Island have the systems in most call centers.
Not all cell phones and systems are equipped for wireless tracking, but
the federal government has ordered all carriers to include the
technology in their phones by 2005.
Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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