The River Forest Police Committee will convene at 7 p.m. Thursday night to receive a written report on recent problems with delayed and inaccurate dispatching of police and fire personnel by the West Suburban Consolidated Dispatch Center (WSCDC).
Committee Chairman Steve Hoke has been unhappy with the pace of an investigation into a delay in dispatching River Forest and Oak Park units as backup to a fire in Forest Park during the middle of the night, Oct. 3. A similar delay of a dispatch, not involving a fire, reportedly occurred the following week.
“[WSCDC] promised me the report two weeks ago, and I still don’t have it,” Hoke said.
Village Administrator Steve Gutierrez informed Hoke Monday that he had been told by WSCDC Executive Director Greg Riddle that an investigation into the two incidents had been completed and a written report would be available late today.
Hoke also expressed frustration at what he termed discrepancies between audiotapes of calls to WSCDC and reports generated by the facility’s Computer Assisted Dispatch (CAD) system, saying he doesn’t trust their integrity.
“As far as I’m concerned, we don’t have reliable information,” said Hoke.
Hoke and trustees Steve Dudek and Patrick O’Brien are also scheduled to discuss a September incident involving a hammer-wielding female assailant. A formal complaint was forwarded to WSCDC by Deputy Chief Dan Dhooghe in early October, outlining concerns over information radioed to police during the incident.
In that incident, WSCDC dispatched a call of “Subject beating a female with a hammer” at 11:42 and 37 seconds, Sept. 15. Responding police hand cuffed a man holding a hammer on the scene less than two minutes later. However, six minutes after the initial dispatch, WSCDC radioed the officers that the attacker was, in fact, a woman, not a man. The man had, in fact, taken the hammer from the woman attacking another victim.
“This complaint is in regard to the lack of information that the calltakers and/or dispatchers relayed to the responding officers,” read the complaint, which was written by the supervisory officer on scene the morning of the attack. “Three of four 911 callers, including one of the victims, specifically described a ‘female with a hammer attacking another female,'” wrote Sgt. James O’Shea. O’Shea, Dhooghe and another sergeant listened to audiotapes of the call and dispatch before writing the report. According to that complaint, it was not until 11:47 and 33 seconds-six minutes later-that a dispatcher informed police on the scene that the attacker was female.
“With a weapon being used, the officer could have been put in a lethal force position, which could have mistakenly been directed at one of the victims,” O’Shea wrote, adding that police mistakenly allowed the actual suspect to remain free with the hammer nearby while the man was cuffed. There are potential civil rights issues involved in mistakenly handcuffing a victim, O’Shea noted.