When Seconds Count...

The police are multiple minutes away, and the dispatcher will place your emergency call as "routine" even though you've told them there's a gas smell at the house...

8 minutes pass before cops got sent to Powell home

TACOMA, Wash. — Emergency call logs show that nearly eight minutes elapsed between when a social worker called 911 to report that Josh Powell's children were in danger and when sheriff's deputies were dispatched. By the time officers were on their way, the home was exploding in a gas-fueled inferno, with Powell and his two young boys inside.

The priority of the dispatch Sunday was "routine" instead of "emergency," which cost several minutes of response time, and when the deputies arrived 14 minutes later, there was nothing they could do.

Think about this the next time some bleeding heart tells you that you don't need a gun for protection, that the police will be there to help you. Fill them in on clues like this:

The worker detailed how Powell had locked her out of his house during what was supposed to be a supervised visit with his sons, that she could smell gas, and that she feared for their lives.
...
The recordings showed that the man who took the 911 call engaged in nearly seven minutes of questioning that ended with him saying he didn't know how long it would be before deputies could arrive. "We have to respond to emergency life-threatening situations first," he said.

I hope that dispatcher hears the screams of those little boys in his nightmares, I really do. Had he given that call the priority it deserves, the police might have made it to the house in time to save those boys. Rather than bicker with the social worker over whether there was danger, or what the priority of the call should be, had the dispatcher sent a cruiser and fire equipment immediately they might have been able to save the children.

Instead, two kids burned to death during a supervised visit because some dispatcher couldn't be bothered to do his job.

I understand that I'm engaging in a bit of armchair quarterbacking here, as well as taking the social worker's statements at face value. Assuming that everything went down as presented, it appears as though the emergency response was delayed, possibly even to the point where it could have saved lives, and it's hard to see why. What's interesting to note is that there are consequences to making a phony 911 call, in the very valid interest of not tying up the emergency line - there's simply no reason to not treat the call as immediate and legitimate.

The larger picture, why I am hammering this point home, is that this is Exhibit A in the "the police are not bound to protect you". By all accounts, this is exactly the type of call that should have been given top priority - the social worker who was supposed to supervise the visit was forcibly prevented from doing her job in a home where there had been child pornography issues; she smelled gas; she called 911 to report what could have been - and turned out to be - a life-or-death situation.

No different than a 250 pound meth addict pounding on your front door...

So think about that when the gun grabbers say you don't need a gun in the home, because you can call 911. Think about spending 8 minutes - or longer; I know there are at least two DGC additions where the person who killed the goblin waited 20 minutes or more for the police - with someone hammering on your door while you argue with the dispatcher over whether it's someone who wants to kill you or just a confused drunk.

911? No. 1911.

That is all.