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February 9, 2012 in City
911 call taker broke protocol with homicide-related call
Mishandling prompts review of center’s procedures
Spokane county officials said an investigation into the December homicide of a Deer Park woman revealed a call to the 911 communications center from the victim’s cellphone was not forwarded to the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office for investigation, a breach of protocol that has prompted a review of the center’s procedures.
The call was handled by a longtime 911 call taker, according to a Spokane County 911 Communications news release. When the center received a hang-up call from Chanin Starbuck’s cellphone, the call taker should have followed up and called back twice and forwarded the information to the Sheriff’s Office.
However, the call taker, who was not identified, only tried to call back once, the news release said, and the information was never given to authorities to investigate.
The body of Chanin Starbuck, who had been strangled, was found Dec. 3 at her rental home at 509 N. Reiper St. Police have accused her ex-husband, Clay Duane Starbuck, 47, of the homicide; he is in the Spokane County Jail and faces aggravated first-degree murder and first-degree burglary charges.
Lorlee Mizell, 911 director for Spokane County, said her office learned of the mishandled call while making “evidential recordings” for detectives.
The detective who reviewed the 911 call determined there was a “short high-pitched guttural sound of a female followed by rustling noise consistent with a struggle in the three seconds before the 911 call taker answered the phone,” sheriff’s spokesman Deputy Craig Chamberlin said in a news release. The system begins recording calls immediately, even if a call taker has not picked up the call.
Mizell said she believes the incident was isolated; the call taker was not fired.
“This is a 17-year veteran with an absolutely exemplary record with us, and quite frankly this was addressed through the lowest level possible in the discipline process,” she said.
In the wake of the error, Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich on Wednesday asked Mizell to review the agency’s hang-up call procedures. Spokane County 911 is a separate organization from the Sheriff’s Office and links citizens in need of help with the Sheriff’s Office and other public safety agencies in the county.
“911’s responsibility to provide this critical information is a vital link to ensuring a safer Spokane community,” Knezovich said in the news release.
All call takers and supervisors will receive a hang-up call refresher on Monday, and the issue will be addressed again at an upcoming supervisors’ meeting, Mizell said. A third session on how to handle hang-up calls will be held at the next monthly training meeting.
Starbuck’s 911 call was what is called a Phase 2 call, meaning the 911 center was automatically given her latitude and longitude.
The 911 center received more than 1,700 hang-up calls in January, the news release said.
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oldarmy on February 09 at 6:11 a.m.
Break out your checkbook Spokane. Appears there wil be another million dollar law suit the taxpayers will have to pay for our local law inforcements incompetancy.
lewis8457 on February 09 at 7:34 a.m.
i wonder if they had fired the 911 operator if they could sue the city like the cops do?
Adelaide on February 09 at 8:41 a.m.
I”m going to repeat what I said yesterday.
Because she called from a cell phone, they did not have an exact location. Just what the closest cell tower was and an approximate latitude and longitude. If the call taker had called back a second time it likely would have gone unanswered or Mr.Starbuck would have answered it and said it was a mistake and everyone was ok.
If the call did make it to the Sheriff’s office for investigation and they did send a deputy out they would have had to knock on at at least several houses due to the lack of an exact location. The current system can give ranges that cover a block or more, and that is a lot of houses in a residential neighborhood. If no one answers the door, they move on. Following protocol would not have changed things.
The only thing that would have truly changed how the 911 call was handled is if Mrs.Starbuck’s phone was equipped with a GPS chip and the Spokane 911 center was fully GPS enabled, allowing them to get an exact GPS location on any 911 call, and the nearest address to that GPS location.
Just a few days ago there were articles in the news reporting on how there is currently a county employee manually going around and collecting to coordinates of every house in the county to create a database for when the GPS 911 system is in place in 3-4 years.
According to the numbers they receive more than 2 hang up calls an hour. No one is going to be able to follow protocol 100% of the time, humans make mistakes. The only reason this has become public is because it is a high profile case.
nslopeofw on February 09 at 9:00 a.m.
Had they checked, perhaps her cell would have been listed with an address, so the “exact location” thing isnt an absolute. None the less, if one hears a scream, one needs to follow up. Better safe than sorry. In this case, it may not have saved he life, but maybe it would have. If Clay Starbuck heard the cops, he may have fled before he could finish.
None the less, this is a tragedy, with extenuating circumstances that need to be looked at.
Adelaide on February 09 at 9:34 a.m.
The call taker did not hear the noises on the phone. The article clearly states that the noises happened before the call taker answered.The system starts recording before the phone is picked up in the 911 center.
It also says that her 911 call fell under “phase 2”. If there was an address connected to her phone I’m pretty sure that would have been reported in the media.
The call taker made a mistake and has been punished. If the call taker had followed protocol and forwarded the call to the sheriff’s office and they declined to follow up everyone would be calling for the person who made that decision to be fired. Its kind of absurd.
valleyman on February 09 at 9:52 a.m.
@oldarmy: While we’re paying for this with our checkbooks, should we also settle with you for your clear lack of education at the hands of our public schools?
RedCedar on February 09 at 10:00 a.m.
Adelaide makes many good points. Whenever there’s a heinous and very public crime, I think it’s natural to want to take our anger out on someone. When the perpetrator is dead, the available targets of opportunity usually include police, parents, dispatchers, social workers, etc.
Police are a limited resource. We can’t have them doing a totally thorough investigation of every 911 hangup call. Everybody has to use their best judgment, which means that occasionally they will be wrong.
The_Seer on February 09 at 10:08 a.m.
valleyman: How do you know oldarmy attended “public schools?” Plenty of poor spellers emerge from private schools as well. Being a good speller is rarely an indicator of intelligence either. It just shows that one can follow rules. What about oldarmy’s post was unintelligible? Did you understand what he/she wrote? Isn’t that the purpose of communication rather than reliance upon a system that at times makes absolutely no phonetic sense?
valleyman on February 09 at 10:57 a.m.
@Seer: Spoken like a true non-conformist… Why bother with a written language at all anymore? We have texting, and ebonics, and computers, and books that read themselves to us, and “educators” who believe rules like spelling and grammar are so old fashioned…
Again, why aren’t you teaching?
gyrusx on February 09 at 11:47 a.m.
@ Seer
“Being a good speller is rarely an indicator of intelligence either..”
That sounds more like an opinion than a fact.
RedCedar on February 09 at 12:15 p.m.
As long as we’re off on that tangent, it occurs to me that the way things are going, with “you knew what I meant” being sufficient justification for any whimsical combination of words and letters that might bear some resemblance to a language, why don’t we just give up entirely and simply go back to grunting and pointing like cave men? It was obviously good enough for them. They got food and sex. What else really matters?
valleyman on February 09 at 2:31 p.m.
@smittysturn: Not appropriate in the least… Flagged…
samvimes on February 09 at 4:17 p.m.
Absolutely correct, valley. I’ve also flagged this. Lewis can be over the top, but that is uncalled for.
RedCedar on February 09 at 4:25 p.m.
Sigh…
lewis8457 on February 09 at 7:59 p.m.
samvines what are you talking about i only post under my real name lewis. i am not smittysturn i am not a coward like valleyman i use my real name and no aliases only the piglets need to use fake names.