Dispatchers Honored for 2 Valley Calls

Two dispatchers who responded to emergency calls in the San Fernando Valley won the two top spot-performance citations at an awards ceremony Thursday night for the best Southern California dispatchers of 1994.

Margaret Peters of the Los Angeles Police Department accepted the police performance award for her handling of a five-hour standoff during which a Canoga Park gunman held his live-in girlfriend and her four children hostage last September. Matthew D. Johnson of the Fire Department accepted the fire/paramedic performance award for his response to a drowning accident involving a 5-year-old Granada Hills girl last May.

In the Sept. 23 incident, Peters received a 3:30 a.m. call from a woman whose boyfriend was holding a .38-caliber revolver to her head. The dispatcher talked with the woman while Peters sent police and a hostage negotiator to the scene.

Later, the boyfriend, Ron Adams--who had let the woman and her children go--threatened to commit suicide and hung up on the negotiator. Peters called him back and spoke with him for more than two hours. He eventually surrendered.

In the drowning accident, Johnson fielded a frantic call on May 6 from a mother who had discovered her daughter floating face down in a pool.

Johnson sent a fire engine and ambulance to the scene, then calmed the distraught mother enough to guide her through CPR measures in an effort to resuscitate the little girl, Kamber Malta.

Although the girl died three days later, the mother later thanked Johnson, a Calabasas resident, for helping to extend her daughter’s life long enough to be able to hold her in her arms “for one last Mother’s Day.”

A third dispatcher who responded to a Valley call won second-place honors in the performance division.

Mark Curry received a plaque for his handling of a suicide call in Sherman Oaks.

In all, 27 dispatchers from Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties were honored at the awards ceremony, which was held at the Inn at the Park in Anaheim.