Troubling audio of 911 calls reveals Milwaukee emergency service dispatchers apparently failed to act on clear signs of an attack on a 99-year-old woman.
On one call, the 911 dispatcher is patched into a live feed from inside the woman's house and can hear the attack, punctuated by the woman's cries of pain.
"It was horrific," Ald. Scott Spiker said after hearing the audio. "This poor woman was being beaten and you can hear her anguish. It boggles the mind to hear that and not think help is needed immediately."
The woman was eventually hospitalized. The two dispatchers involved have been suspended and are the subject of an internal investigation.
Milwaukee's Department of Emergency Communications released audio from three 911 calls, from during and shortly after the July 27 attack on the woman. According to the calls, an emergency alert company employee told the city's 911 dispatchers of an ongoing attack on the woman, but the dispatchers who handled the first two calls did not send emergency responders to the scene. Instead, they classified the calls as not requiring an immediate response.
The alert company employee re-dialed Milwaukee's 911 center at 5:20 a.m., about four minutes after their initial phone call was classified as a welfare check and threat.
"I just don't feel right about this one," the national alert company employee can be heard telling the 911 operator on the second call.
The employee then connects the dispatcher to audio from the woman's home. She can be heard audibly in pain, saying "I can't get up." A man screams at her to "shut the [expletive] up."
"I'm sure you hear that?" the alert company employee asks the city dispatcher.
The call is just under four minutes. The 911 operator asks if the woman can hear her. The man can be heard yelling at the woman as the operator attempts to speak to the woman, who doesn't respond.
The 911 operator tells the alert company caller there is a call for service to the woman's address and says she will try to call the woman back directly.
"Thank you for calling this in," she tells the caller. "Bye bye now."
The dispatch records show no action was taken at this point.
Spiker vowed to get answers as to what went wrong and will hold a Public Safety and Health Committee meeting as soon as he can. Spiker said the third call, when the victim herself is heard, was "heartbreaking."
"This is a woman who is left defenseless against an attacker and she calling for help. How long did she have to endure this? It is unthinkable. That could be your mother or your grandmother. It is just heartbreaking and infuriating."
"Given we are in the business of helping people and the cry for help was made, you can hear and the response wasn't there. It is really disappointing."
Mayor Cavalier Johnson listened to the calls and vowed to fix whatever problems resulted in the delayed response.
"For someone to be crying out. You could hear her on the line ... My heart goes out to that family. That audio is extremely, extremely difficult to hear," he said. "We need to make sure this doesn't happen again."
The release of the audio comes two days after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel first reported about the three-hour delay in the woman receiving help.
The director of the city's Department of Emergency Communication Tony Bueno declined to go into specifics of what went wrong on the calls, saying an internal investigation of the incident is ongoing.
However, he acknowledged the audio shows it was mishandled.
"My initial impression of the audio only, tells me we should have given this a higher priority and necessitated a more urgent handling than what it was given," Bueno said. "I just want you, your readers and that family to know that we're going to do everything we can to make this right and correct problems we encounter."
It will take up to 10 days before officials can interview the two employees due to their due process rights.
A third call was made by the injured woman. Records the Journal Sentinel reviewed showed that call was made around 7:50 a.m., nearly three hours after the initial calls.
She tells the dispatcher — who did not handle either of the earlier calls — that she crawled on the floor to get to the phone.
"I'm so weak," she tells the dispatcher.
Medical responders were dispatched at 7:55 p.m. and arrived two minutes later. Police responders were dispatched around 8 a.m. and arrived about 23 minutes later.
As the injured woman waits for police to arrive – who have to ensure a scene is safe before medical personnel can enter – she tells the dispatcher she can't hear them and that she may faint.
"Do you hear anybody?" the dispatcher asks. "No," she responds.
"OK, they're there. Just letting you know they're there," the dispatcher said.
David Clarey is a public safety reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He can be reached at [email protected].
John Diedrich is an investigative reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He can be reached at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee releases 'horrific' 911 calls of attack on elderly woman