As a former 911 call-taker, I understand time pressure. It can be frustrating waiting for a 911 caller to provide the address of their emergency or for a police officer to arrive at the scene of an incident. It also can be deadly.
We have witnessed the devastating consequences of police waiting 78 minutes before stopping the gunman at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, despite reportedly having received at least eight 911 calls “covering a span of 50 minutes” from students inside the school about the active shooter.
Texas-mandated active school shooter curriculum says that an arriving officer’s “first priority is to move in and confront the attacker.” The reasons why officers did not move in quickly still are under investigation, but as the Department of Justice recovers the police’s decisions they must include the dispatch center’s role in managing incident communication.
The actions of 911 call-takers and dispatchers often are ignored in the aftermath of critical incidents yet impact entire incident trajectories. Research has found that decisions by dispatch can shape officer action, but incident reviewers often are so concentrated on analyzing events in the field that they neglect unpacking decisions made inside dispatch that preceded the police interaction.
Overlooking the role of dispatch in police responses is not unusual. The 2015 President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing Report — the most prominent recent police reform agenda — fails to mention 911 or dispatch in their recommendations for improving police-public relations. A review of Department of Justice consent decrees that call for improved use of force, citizen oversight, officer training and early intervention systems to monitor officer behavior make no mention of 911 or dispatch.
One reason why dispatch centers are overlooked is that those who work inside them frequently are perceived as clerical workers, rather than decision-makers. A 2020 Sentinel Event Review in Tucson of two in-custody deaths offers a glimpse into what can be learned by viewing call-takers as more than clerical staff.
It is too soon to know precisely what happened inside dispatch the day of the Uvalde school shooting or how it affected police officer actions in the field, but the first step in learning what went wrong requires incident reviewers to ask the right questions.
First, how did dispatch relay information between the multiple responding law enforcement agencies? Officers with Uvalde’s Police Department, Uvalde’s Independent School District, along with additional state, local and federal law enforcement agencies all responded to Robb Elementary.
According to the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District’s safety plan, the school district employs four officers, a detective and a chief, and “key staff have been provided radios to support campus communication processes.” It’s not clear whether dispatch was able to communicate directly with UCISD officers or if all responders were on the same radio channel, nor is it clear if the chief /incident commander even had a radio with him that day. Best practices during an active shooter situation include, “Establishing a common radio frequency where practical and use of common terms to describe actions, locations, roles, etc.” Investigators should probe the nature of interagency communications and whether those best practices were followed.
Second, what caller information did 911 call-takers pass on to officers in the field, and who heard it? A 911 call readout shows that a student caller “advised there were multiple dead” in room 112. Video footage captured dispatchers relaying information to officers at the scene about the room being “full of victims,” but early reports question “if anyone heard the calls coming in from the dispatchers.” Texas Department of Public Safety director Steven McCraw said that the on-scene commander was under the impression that “there were no more children at risk,” which was clearly false. Investigators should interview all involved call-takers, dispatchers and responding officers to ascertain what information each had throughout the incident.
Third, how did police view the role of dispatch during the incident, and how should they do so moving forward? Video footage from the incident in Uvalde captures a dispatcher asking police over the radio, “Is anybody inside of the building?” Clearly, officers had not found it necessary to apprise dispatch of their actions or lack thereof, yet dispatchers may have emphasized the fact that children were still alive in the classroom if they had been made aware that officers still were not inside. Investigators should confront the question of what the appropriate role of dispatch ought to be in critical incidents and whether all responders understand it.
Until our country can enact lasting gun reform to prevent mass shootings from happening in the first place, sadly all we can do is try to extract lessons from each tragedy to better prepare for the next. As investigators uncover the reasons why officers did not confront the shooter immediately, they must not only open lines of inquiry into the training, hiring and decision-making of the police and their leaders, but they also must give communications their due.
Jessica W. Gillooly is an assistant professor at Suffolk University in the Department of Sociology & Criminal Justice. She can be reached at jgillooly@suffolk.edu.