Losing faith in 119

At age 40, Andrew Gillings has given up on calling police emergency lines.

He took the decision three years ago after he tried calling 119 for the first time to report that thieves were breaking into a neighbour’s car outside his gate in Pembroke Hall, St Andrew.

Except for the car that was ultimately stolen, his efforts went nowhere, ending in a whirlwind of questions from the 119 operator who later advised him to call his local police in Duhaney Park to report the crime. That, too, did not end well.

Watching from his bedroom window as the criminals frantically tried to enter and start the vehicle about midnight that fateful day, Gillings said, on the instruction from the emergency operator, he tried calling Duhaney Park police. But no one answered the phone.

“So I just hung up the phone and went to my bed. What was I supposed to do?” asked Gillings. “I can’t go out there and try to stop them.

“Since then, I have never bothered to call police emergency lines, and I have had several reasons to call them since that. But I just don’t,” he said.

“As I see it, it is better to have a one policeman number on your phone and if anything happens you call him, because I don’t have any faith in the 119 number. What if I didn’t have any credit on my phone? What about persons who don’t have any credit to call the police station in their area or they don’t even know which police station is in their area or what number to call? 119 is toll free and for emergency, so I don’t get why the operator is telling me to call the station in my area. That experience was really surprising to me.”

Based on recent complaints from members of the public on social media, Gillings’ case is not isolated and the faith in the emergency system continues to wane.

Around Independence weekend last month, one social media platform was in a frenzy as Jamaicans demanded greater responsiveness from the police, as they revealed a flurry of bad experiences.

“Can we get a change to what currently exists where if you call 119 you are directed to call the local police station? Can we do this for our Jamaica 60 celebration? Please, I am begging,” one user wrote.

Another user said he witnessed a car accident and immediately called 119. “Unnuh can believe say the operator tell me that she cannot help me because the accident is not located in Kingston and I should call the police in that area?”

“I asked if she could transfer the call and best believe the woman said no. I hung up the phone immediately. Jamaica cannot be this backward. Mighty God,” continued the post.

Yet another user wrote: “This is true, I called to report a crime and the operator said I am to call the station nearest to me. I said, ‘lady, I do not know the area. I can tell you where I am’. Straight up she told me she cannot help me. I had to call my police friend for help.”

“There needs to be a policy change and allocation of resources, proper call centre system and people to man the lines. The officer in charge of the station must be held to account when phones go unanswered. Very simple things that just take the will to do this,” another user responded.

BASELESS ACCUSATIONS

Senior Superintendent Gary Francis, head of the police 119 emergency line, said he was particularly familiar with the case of the accident that was reported, which involved the death of a child near McCooks Pen on the Old Harbour main road in St Catherine.

A detailed investigation was launched, he said, and it found that the caller, and ultimately the person who made the post online, was not being truthful.

At least two other cases were investigated this year after reaching public attention. They too, Francis said, turned out to be baseless. No caller has ever been redirected, he asserted.

He explained that 119 calls are answered at four locations across the island and that information provided is fed into a computerised system which verifies the information provided by the caller. The system is also set up to answer 119 or the universal 911.

The computer then forwards the information to the officers at the command station in the crisis area and from there help is dispatched.

Many times agents answering the calls are outside the parish of the emergency, he said, and thus might not be familiar with the area. In such cases, they may ask for a landmark or the nearest police station in the area.

“The accusation on social media was false and far from the truth. Why? Because we listened to the conversation,” Francis told The Sunday Gleaner on Friday, noting that the agent followed protocols, asking detailed questions to pinpoint the location of the accident. This, he said, seemed to frustrate the caller who then hung up.

“With the limited information that the agent got, they posted the assignment, meaning that they got enough to send it off for a unit to go there,” he explained. “Nobody had asked the caller to call the station. It’s just that because people have freedom of speech they just get off and talk anything on social media.”

He said contact was made with the particular caller who is believed to have made the post, and that the person declined to speak to the police about their experience.

At intervals, Francis admitted, the telephone lines may go down because of issues on the part of telecommunication service providers, but once calls are received, they are recorded and operators have no choice whether or not to answer a call.

ROUTINE CHECKS

Because the calls are automatically recorded once picked up by an operator, in the event that a discrepancy arises, analyses can be done of the agent’s interaction with the caller. But, he said, it was not feasible to listen to 5,000 to 9,000 calls per day – only 25-30 per cent of which are serious and current emergencies – to ensure quality service is being provided at all times. Still, the quality assurance team carries out routine checks, and staff members are constantly being trained on bettering their services.

“The thing is that when people post online, you have a million other people underneath it posting and you really can’t hear who or what happened. So these turn into what you call phantoms,” Francis explained. “But I am begging the public, whenever you have an experience like that, please report it so we can do the investigation.”

Among the major challenges to police emergency response are the proliferation of prank calls, and informal communities, especially in rural areas, that have no street names or addresses for responders to follow.

In other cases, the 119 number is bombarded with multiple calls from one emergency. Then there are other times when persons call with incidents that occurred weeks ago that are not necessarily current emergencies. Others call 119 to file statements of accidents they were involved in. These matters are not emergencies for the 119 hotline, Francis pointed out.

The public can report incidents of unprofessional service to the supervisor for the 119 headquarters at 876-927-7778, Francis stated.

corey.robinson@gleanerjm.com