Report of possible gunshots dropped by Wasilla dispatch

September 11, 2005

DAWN DE BUSK/Frontiersman reporter

WASILLA - A Wasilla police officer showed up four hours after an initial report of possible gunshots fired in a business district of the city because dispatch dropped the call Friday morning, according to Chief of Police Don Savage.

"We're dealing with human beings who can error. And we acknowledge that happened this time," Savage said during a phone interview Saturday.

Savage said computer-aided-dispatch equipment has been installed but won't will go online until January 2006. That system should give dispatchers a sharper edge, he said. He would not comment on what sort of reprimand the dispatcher may face.

The report of what sounded like gunshots near the Wasilla Business Park on Paulson Avenue came into Wasilla police dispatch at 9:10 a.m. from someone at the not-yet-opened Twindly Bridge Charter School nearby. At that time, one of the dispatchers was communicating with a police officer who was in the field. The second dispatcher was training a new employee and simultaneously taking a call when the gun-discharge report was phoned in, according to Savage.

In this case, the dispatcher forgot to contact the police officer, he said. The other report, a domestic violence problem, was fairly high priority, he said.

The oversight was discovered when City Council member and candidate for mayor Diana Straub made a phone call to dispatch after being contacted by Konnie Shuey, a co-worker of the woman who reported the shots Friday morning.

"I know there have been problems before with dispatch. I know Diana wants to see that fixed. It's one of the things that is important to her. When I told her no officers had showed up to do an investigation, that really made her mad," said Shuey, who says she is friends with Straub, but not a contributor to her mayoral campaign.

Straub spoke with the dispatch adviser, who was able to pinpoint the breakdown in communication and quickly remedy the situation. A police officer was called to the scene, but whether the source of the sounds was gunfire was not confirmed, according to Savage.

"This is a prime example of problems in the dispatch center. Our police officers and state troopers aren't safe because they lose contact with the dispatcher," Straub said. "The communication equipment needs to be better. It's poor leadership and micromanaging on the part of the mayor. The police department budget has not grown adequately for its needs.

"We aren't paying our dispatchers enough. We're losing dispatchers and training new people. We just had a dispatcher leave who had 15 years. I know lack of adequate pay was the reason," Straub said.

Mayor Dianne M. Keller disagreed with Straub's assessment.

"That's absolutely not true. Just look at the budget," she said. "If councilor Straub felt the budget was not adequate to meet the needs of the department, she had an opportunity to make an amendment."

Keller said that dispatch handles more than 40,000 calls a year. Since it's a human-based system, mistakes are inevitable.

"We are very happy that no one was injured or killed. Sometimes when mistakes are made those things happen," she said. "But it doesn't make it any less of a mistake."

Savage echoed the mayor.

"How can better pay eliminate human error?" he said.

"I don't think there's a manual dispatch system around that will tell you they haven't dropped a call," Savage said. "I'm not trying to excuse the fact the call was dropped, it was. I do apologize for that. We're taking steps toward taking care of the problem."

As far as responding to reports of random gunfire, Savage said dispatchers treat those calls equally. "We're taking the calls at face value. If someone believes that shots were fired, we believe shots were fired," he said.

Reports of weapons discharge, even within city limits, are very common, and Savage said he was unable to attach a number to those reports. Very rarely do police officers prove that shots were fired, he said.

"I don't want to minimize the nature of this call. It warranted being checked into," he said.

Karen Salisbury, the secretary at Twindly Bridge Charter School, was working at the school's new future site in Wasilla Business Park on Friday when she phoned in the report. Except for Salisbury, no people were present in the partially-completed school building, which is scheduled to open at a later date, according to Anna Roys, supervisor for charter schools services.

Twindly Bridge's current headquarters, where students and their parents register for programs and fill out paperwork, is across from ABC Travel in Wasilla, at a different location.

Roys said that around 1:30 p.m., someone from dispatch called her to apologize for the belated response. Paying for more law enforcement officers could help alleviate problems like this in the future, she said.

"The safety of our city is of paramount importance to all of us. I don't know about the staffing of the Wasilla police, and I don't pretend to know. We want our city police to maintain security in downtown," she said. "Obviously, with a school going in, I want it secure."

Dawn De Busk can be reached at 352-2252, or dawn.debusk@ frontiersman.com.