Police Implore the Public Not to Misuse 911 Service

Asserting that the city’s antiquated 911 system is clogged by people making unnecessary calls, Los Angeles police officials Monday urged city residents to call 911 only in flat-out emergencies.

“We get calls for directions to Disneyland, ‘What time is it?,’ ‘How’s the traffic?’ ” said Police Chief Willie L. Williams at a morning news conference. “This ties up 911 lines, it ties up the operators.

“911 is the number to be used for true life-and-death or close to life-and-death and major emergencies.”

The LAPD’s public pitch to halt abuse of the emergency dispatch system comes at a time when record-breaking numbers of 911 calls are going unanswered--sometimes because jittery callers who are put on hold hang up and redial. Also, nearly half the calls to 911 that were answered last year were determined to be nonemergency and routed to secondary operators.

Williams said his department hopes to eventually offer a single, seven-digit, citywide number to call in nonemergency situations. But thus far, LAPD officials have been unable to make arrangements with Pacific Bell to provide such a number that would be free to callers.

Cmdr. Carlo Cudio, who heads the LAPD’s communications programs, said the department may eventually accept a toll-free 800 number as a compromise.

“The reason I don’t like it is there are too many numbers to dial,” Cudio said. “But we may have to bite the bullet.”

Meanwhile, the City Council’s Public Safety Committee approved an LAPD request Monday afternoon for $300,000 to install 16 new emergency dispatch consoles to help remedy the 911 overload. The measure will likely face a City Council vote next week.

The actions comes in the wake of a Times report on failings in the city’s outdated dispatch system. Last year, while many experienced operators were transferred to police stations so that more sworn officers could patrol city streets, the number of unanswered 911 calls skyrocketed.

According to newly compiled LAPD statistics, 325,261 calls were abandoned by callers before 911 operators were able to answer them in 1995. It was the first year since the 911 system was installed in the mid-1980s that more than 200,000 calls were abandoned.

Moreover, roughly one of three calls last year was not answered within the city’s goal of less than 10 seconds.

Police have not undertaken a study to determine why callers hang up, although officials concede that it frequently has something to do with the fact that the calls are not being answered as swiftly as the public expects.

At the press conference, Williams and Cudio maintained that the unanswered calls do not constitute a crisis because the department receives no complaints about calamities that might have been avoided if operators were able to answer more quickly.

But City Councilwoman Laura Chick, in voting to approve the LAPD’s $300,000 upgrade request, said the LAPD’s position appeared contradictory.

“We’re basically saying [at the news conference] we have no problem,” said Chick, who chairs the Public Safety Committee. “But we really do have a problem. That’s why we’re asking for more consoles, more dispatchers.”

In addition to the consoles, the department is seeking council permission to hire 177 new bilingual operators and supervisors to staff the emergency dispatch system.

At the Public Safety meeting, Councilman Michael Feuer asked LAPD officials if they could quantify how many additional calls could be answered if the operators were hired. “The call level is a moving target,” replied Cudio, noting that there was no “scientific formula” to answer Feuer’s query.

Cudio’s division has also asked Chief Williams to transfer more than 100 sworn officers on light-duty status to the dispatch center. But only one such officer is currently assigned and Williams said Monday that the request has been entangled in “major labor issues” with LAPD employee unions.

The city’s 911 system--the nation’s largest--has been considered inadequate since months after it was first installed in 1984. But in 1992, city voters approved a $235-million bond measure that included construction of two state-of-the-art dispatch centers--one in Westchester and the other in the San Fernando Valley.

More than three years later, the city has yet to pick a site for the Valley facility, nor has it signed a crucial contract to develop a computer system linking the dual facilities. This month, Fluor Daniel Telecom, one of three bidders for the system, urged a delay in approving the contract because of alleged flaws and irregularities in bidding procedures.

Although the 1992 bond measure included no timetable, it pledged “immediate improvements” and leading city officials have questioned the level of progress in building the new 911 centers. Williams said Monday that the project is on track, citing a 1990 bond issue rejected by city voters that had forecast a 10-year timetable for new 911 facilities.

While planning for the new centers continues, Williams and others urged the public to help lower the 911 load by using the phone book or dialing 411 to find nonemergency police numbers.

“Of the examples of the calls we [now] get, one I couldn’t believe: the best seating in the Coliseum,” Williams said. “If we get some teams back there we might be able to advise them.”

LAPD spokesman Cmdr. Tim McBride conceded that callers may occasionally “have to wait five or 10 minutes” to reach nonemergency lines. “But if it isn’t an emergency,” McBride added, “then that’s the situation we’re in.”