In Praise of the Emergency Dispatchers Who Handled the Amanda Berry 911 Calls
...an emergency dispatcher shouldn’t be expected to be a counselor. While Dispatch Magazine does say that a 911 operator “should sound sympathetic and never make light of a caller's situation,” a crime victim isn't primarily calling 911 to be validated by the person who answers the phone. They are calling because they want the police to come and help them. And, in this situation, that happened really quickly. As Martin Flask told the Plain Dealer, “Within one minute and 18 seconds from the time that the call-taker answered the call our dispatcher was broadcasting the assignment to available police units.” Police were on the scene within two minutes of the initial call, Flask claims.
Berry and the other two women have been freed, and three suspects are in custody—a job well done, more or less. So why are people getting so upset about the 911 operators? I think it’s because news organizations now have the ability to post recordings of 911 calls. The people listening to these recordings have already had time to develop empathy for the victims, and they think the dispatcher should share their empathy rather than focusing on getting the proper information. But the dispatcher’s job isn’t to empathize—it’s to send the police. That’s exactly what happened in Cleveland. Bravo, dispatchers.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2013/05/08/cleveland_kidnapping_911_call_the_emergency_dispatchers_who_handled_the.html
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