Sheriff's office: 911 caller was unclear about theft aboard bus
»Play Video
SEATTLE -- Passengers are angry and want the reasoning behind a 911 dispatcher's decision not to send a deputy to a robbery aboard a bus.
Dafarus Coleman, 14, was jumped on the bus. Thieves surrounded him and took his jacket.
Kat Gray, a Metro bus driver herself, happened to be a passenger on that bus. She called 911.
"I'm reporting a theft and robbery on a bus," she told the dispatcher.
But help never came. And when the dispatcher told her why, Gray was shocked.
"You can not report a theft that did not occur to you," the dispatcher told Gray. "The person who the items were stolen from has to report this."
"They were very irresponsible," Gray said. "I don't know if they were just going by protocol."
Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. John Urquhart says what happened on this bus was clearly the dispatcher's fault, but he also understands why it happened.
"She was a little bit unclear, because she kept talking in the past tense. The impression I got and I think the call receiver got, was this was over and done with," he said.
Urquhart says during the call, Gray became increasingly emotional. That, coupled with the dispatcher's lack of experience, created one huge misunderstanding.
"When human being communicate, oftentimes there are problems because they're on different levels. And that's what happened in this case," he said.
Urquhart says the dispatcher is brand new; he'd just completed six months of extensive training at the time of the incident. He has since been counseled and will be re-trained.
Callers like Gray say the dispatcher's mistake left innocent people like Coleman-- twice victimized.
"The worst part -- a 14-year-old boy felt like nobody cared," Gray said.
Coleman never got his coat back, but police did arrest four suspects a short time after the incident.
Dafarus Coleman, 14, was jumped on the bus. Thieves surrounded him and took his jacket.
Kat Gray, a Metro bus driver herself, happened to be a passenger on that bus. She called 911.
"I'm reporting a theft and robbery on a bus," she told the dispatcher.
But help never came. And when the dispatcher told her why, Gray was shocked.
"You can not report a theft that did not occur to you," the dispatcher told Gray. "The person who the items were stolen from has to report this."
"They were very irresponsible," Gray said. "I don't know if they were just going by protocol."
Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. John Urquhart says what happened on this bus was clearly the dispatcher's fault, but he also understands why it happened.
"She was a little bit unclear, because she kept talking in the past tense. The impression I got and I think the call receiver got, was this was over and done with," he said.
Urquhart says during the call, Gray became increasingly emotional. That, coupled with the dispatcher's lack of experience, created one huge misunderstanding.
"When human being communicate, oftentimes there are problems because they're on different levels. And that's what happened in this case," he said.
Urquhart says the dispatcher is brand new; he'd just completed six months of extensive training at the time of the incident. He has since been counseled and will be re-trained.
Callers like Gray say the dispatcher's mistake left innocent people like Coleman-- twice victimized.
"The worst part -- a 14-year-old boy felt like nobody cared," Gray said.
Coleman never got his coat back, but police did arrest four suspects a short time after the incident.
A note to users about commenting changes