The Brief
- The Milwaukee Common Council may end its August recess over a mishandled 911 call investigation.
- Ald. Scott Spiker called for answers from emergency communications, police and fire leadership.
- Dispatchers’ delayed response for two-and-a-half hours after a third-party caller reported a domestic threat.
MILWAUKEE – The Milwaukee Common Council is on its August recess, but the investigation into the mishandling of a 911 call last month may end that break early.
Ald. Scott Spiker chairs the city’s Public Safety & Health Committee. On Wednesday, he said he’d already introduced a communication file that will require leadership from the city’s police, fire and emergency communication departments to come before the committee to explain what happened and why.
99-year-old woman beaten
The backstory:
On the morning of July 27, a third-party answering service called 911 on behalf of a 99-year-old woman they thought was in danger. The third-party employee first told the city’s universal call taker they believed the situation was a domestic call.
Calling back a second time just minutes later, the third-party service patched in audio in which a man can be heard threatening a woman, yelling, “Shut the [expletive] up! I’m gonna beat the [expletive] out of you!”…