Via Rad Geek, the transcript of the first of a few 911 calls, made by a 17-year-old girl attempting to get an ambulance for her father, who had suffered a bad fall. McFarlan did eventually send help, but lied about the content of the calls. When the girl showed up at the police station, she was arrested on a trumped-up charge.
I suspect that if a man of McFarlan’s age had called and said “I need a fucking ambulance,” McFarlan would have kept his fucking asshat opinions to himself and just done his fucking job.
Adrianne Ledesma [while 911 is recording but handset is still ringing]: What the fuck?
Sergeant Robert McFarlan: 911.
Adrianne: I need an ambulance at [REDACTED]
Sergeant Robert McFarlan: Well, OK, first of all, you don’t need to swear over 911—
Adrianne: OK
Sergeant Robert McFarlan: —and slow down.
Adrianne: Send me a fucking ambulance!
[McFarlan hangs up on her]
And it just gets worse from there.
McFarlan was suspended without pay for two weeks. I can see an argument for not firing him — if this really was one single bad incident in an otherwise spotless record extending decades. I believe that everyone has more to them than their worst moment, and maybe McFarlan’s behavior here was his worse moment.
(It’s more likely, however, that McFarlan has always been an asshat, a bully, and a lousy cop, but has never messed up so publicly before. He was once sued for tasering a 14 year old boy (via), although the court dismissed the lawsuit.)
Two weeks without pay is a slap on the wrist, and suggests the police administration isn’t taking this seriously. Six months would have been better. In addition, McFarlan should be required, if Ms. Ledesma and her father are willing, to undergo a restorative justice process to try and make up to them for his assault on their safety and dignity.
Someone ask for an ambulance and he hangs up. 3 times. Makes me wonder what other 911 calls in that area were never responded to.
ETA: and not only that, I don’t care how much you cuss or with what words you cuss, the only way “I need an ambulance at [address]” should be responded to in any way other than “What’s your emergency?” is if the cussing is in the middle of the address and then the proper response would be to ask for the address to be repeated.
I can’t remember if it was noted here, but I think this is the biggest police fail I’ve seen in a long time. But jailing someone for using the f-word during an emergency comes close.
You know, I know that this is unfair before I even say it, and I don’t think that it will accurately represent my sentiment tomorrow or even a couple hours from now, but:
God damn it, I really fucking hate cops.
—Myca
In my world, not only is this lame excuse for a cop fired but he is also prohibited from ever working in any branch of law enforcement ever again. Not that I have any hope of that in the real world since murdering an innocent bystander won’t get a cop fired in Portland.
In general, the police are good at some things but neither dealing with the public nor judiciously using their power are one of those things.
@Jake Squid,
Any chance you can use a word other than lame?
PG – I read that link and it’s truly awful. I googled it to see if I could find some more information on what happened and came up with this (which made me feel ill): The False Rape Society
I’m surprised that police were answering a 911 call. I thought it was a trained dispatcher’s job. If it isn’t, it needs to be.
Two weeks without pay is a slap on the wrist, and suggests the police administration isn’t taking this seriously.
Actually, what it suggests to me is that the person involved belongs to a union. Cops usually do, and they usually heavily restrict what kind of discipline management can impose on someone. I’d suggest that what management feels about this incident is disjointed from what they can do about it without spending large amounts of tax money on lawyers (and probably end up still getting nothing for it).
As far as whether this is a serious punishment – I disagree. Amp, I presume from this comment (plus what I’ve noted in your regular postings about your life, but correct me if I’m wrong) that your income is not from a salaried or hourly job. To actually take away 2 weeks worth of pay from someone seems extremely damn serious to me. It would certainly get my attention. It also takes a lot of justification by management. I can’t imagine what I would have to do in my job to merit being docked 2 weeks of pay.
Six months would have been better.
That’s pretty much equivalent to firing the guy. Who living on a regular salary (especially in a cop’s salary range) can afford to go without pay for 6 months? He’d have to get another job.
I do not minimize the seriousness of what this person did. If they actually did fire him I wouldn’t have been surprised, nor would I have disputed the appropriateness of the action. But to say that docking someone 2 weeks worth of pay is not taking what happened seriously seems wrong to me.
In addition, McFarlan should be required, if Ms. Ledesma and her father are willing, to undergo a restorative justice process to try and make up to them for his assault on their safety and dignity.
What’s a restorative justice process? Regardless, you’re probably whistling in the dark here as well. The union (again, I presume he belongs to a union) likely wouldn’t allow it.
RonF,
There’s a link for the words “restorative justice” in the post. Is your browser not picking that up?
As a woman who like to use profanity, I totally, totally believe this. People (mostly men in my experience) get caught up with your word choice that they can’t even begin to process what you are saying because they are too busy trying to police your manners.
Amp, did you read through the link you posted regarding that cop having tased a 14-year old boy? It’s true that the charges were dropped, but specifically he was awarded a summary judgement -the court found that the charges made against him were without merit. The narrative of the case shows that the cops didn’t just walk up to some kid and tase him for no reason – in fact, it was the court’s opinion that under the circumstances it could not say that tasing the kid was unreasonable. Hell, they even showed the kid the taser, told him they’d use it, and fired it off once in front of him to show him the spark. It also showed that the physical results of the tasing were minimal – no medical treatment was sought.
This guy may well be an asshat – certainly the way he treated that girl on the 911 call would indicate such – but if that was my kid that had been tased with those results under those circumstance I sure as hell wouldn’t have filed a lawsuit, I’d have told my son he deserved it. Talk about privilege. Here’s a kid who’s being brought up to think that he’s highly privileged, that he can defy any source of legitimate authority and not have to suffer punishment because of it.
Ah! Hm. How did I not notice that? Thanks, PG.
Well, it sounds interesting. And getting this cop to face what effect his actions had on the other people involved actually sounds like a good idea to me. Too bad it’s probably not going to happen.
ElleDee, I can see your point.
You know, I’d imagine that given that 911 calls are generally made by someone under a great deal of stress there’s probably quite a bit of profanity on them. So I don’t see why this cop would be playing Mr. Manners on the 911 line.
The worst case of 911 fail (at least, that I’ve ever heard of) remains “Who’s got the bat?” in Philadelphia in 1994. More than a dozen people over a 40-minute period called 911 to report a group of teenage boys beating another boy. In the most infamous of the calls, the dispatcher repeatedly asks the caller “Who’s got the bat?” She refuses to move forward with the call unless he can answer this question, which he can’t. (There’s a very brief excerpt at the link that doesn’t really convey what I remember of the audio.) When police finally were sent, they took just five minutes to arrive. Sixteen-year-old Eddie Polec died the next day of a fractured skull.
I’ve heard a number of really disturbing 911 calls over the years, including one that was nothing but incoherent, tortured screaming as a man tries to convey that he has come home to find that his wife has killed their two young children but cannot find any words. Real emergencies tend not to find people at their best. It’s the dispatchers job to find out where the person is and get the right kind of help (police, medical, whatever) to the person as quickly as possible, not lecture them about their language or their manners.
(I’m also confused about why a police officer was answering the calls. From what I could tell, it seems to be a very small town.)
911 operators are fallible. And no, I’m not saying this to defend the guy. What happened here was dangerous as well as ridiculous and just plain messed up.
As someone who has had 911 hang up on me. It’s more that I suspect we would benefit from double-checking with another operator before a hang-up occurs. And with employment rates and pay as they are… :P I only have vague guesses at what goes on behind the scenes, and whether such an idea is feasible.
(In my case, I called 911 to report a suicide happening in another state. I had the address, city, and state in which the suicide was happening. The operator requested a zip code, which I said I didn’t have. But I have the phone number and area code for the house! The operator pretty much said “If you don’t have a zip code, I don’t know where to refer your call, so I’m sorry, I can’t help you. Goodbye.”
Yeah, this happened in the age of usps.com zip code checkup, when I’m too panicked to think of that myself. Nice. I reported the incident later, and the most I can hope is that transferring calls was better covered in their later training. But yes, when I reported it, the supervisor said that it’s in the training, and that the operator should have known what to do.)
Ali @5,
Thank you.
I am a work in progress. Thanks for pointing that out to me.
The abuse of power by some people who get it, in whatever capacity, is frightening.
I have had doctors try to tell me not to use certain words, when describing the unjust ways I was treated by the employer that injured me and the gov’t that failed to get me justice. I have also informed them that if they can’t stand certain forms of frankness, they should not be working in a field that brings them into direct contact with people in distress. Since I wasn’t aiming the naughty words directly at them, why should they care?
Yes, it would be nice if everyone kept all their talk nice and civil[ized]. But that isn’t going to happen for a while. I can talk nicely enough in the usual circumstances, but the places where I can let it all out and be honest should not be taken from me or anyone else.
Admittedly “those” words don’t add semantically to the content of a 911 call, but still, operators should be used to them by now. And anyone who deals with the public all the time ought to have skin a little thicker than usual, to start with.
My 911 story isn’t as bad as this, but it still involves treating the public as know nothing hysterics. I have twin boys, and when they were about 18 months old, one fell down, hit his head hard on a wall, and had a tonic clonic seizure, which he had never had before. I called 911, and my other son started to cry while I was on the phone. I work in health care, so I have been in medical emergencies before. I was not necessarily calm, but I was composed when asking for an ambulance and telling the details of my son’s condition. The male operator kept saying to me that if my son is crying he is not having a seizure. I kept telling him that the crying child was my OTHER son. He kept asking, “is he still having a seizure?” and I kept saying yes. And he said, but I hear crying. This went on three or four times until I just said, are you going to send an ambulance? And he said yes, finally. He really acted like a condescending ass.
I do think this has a lot to do with sexism. I can’t see them acting like that with a fellow male caller. It just has that vibe.
Angiportus,
While I think a 911 operator who is dealing with people in an emergency should not attempt to change how they speak about that emergency, I can see how some people who have particular religious convictions (for example) will be distressed by the use of particular language and reasonably could request that you not use such language when the situation is not an emergency. For example, I went to the doctor last week and described my symptoms; if I refer to the “goddamn cough” and say, “Jesus Christ, this sucks,” and the doctor politely says, “Excuse me for interrupting, but I would appreciate it if you could describe your symptoms without taking the Lord’s name in vain,” I don’t think that’s wrong for her to do.
If I had a male pro bono client who kept referring to “that bitch who raped me on this mortgage,” I’d feel uncomfortable and would want him to stop. I wouldn’t deny him help on the basis of such language, but our professional relationship would be warmer if I felt comfortable with him instead of unhappy and only helping him because I was obliged to do so.
The worst thing here is that the 911 caller was not receiving services because she said the “f word” — she was being punished with a failure to get help in an emergency because of how she asked for the help. I don’t think that’s the same as a doctor in a non-emergency situation asking that you be considerate of her feelings without any implicit or explicit threat that if you’re not, she won’t help you. Surely in a civil society, even people in distress can try to be respectful of others’ concerns just as they would want those people to be respectful of theirs.
I think hanging up on someone for profanity is unprofessional. Under duress people will say different things and that should be taken into consideration by those in the profession.
Two week (or 80 hours) suspensions are considered medium severe by agencies. Six month suspensions are almost unheard of. Usually, the maximum is about two months. (320 hours) though there was one case in my city of a sexual assault investigator being fired for having sex with a rape victim. Three years later, he was reinstated by arbitration and by the courts. The arbitrator said his offense was very severe and he should not get backpay which meant he served a three-year suspension. People were like, huh? He should have stayed fired though, as there were other creepy incidents involving him anyway.
I had to call 911 this week for medical help. I was lucky I had a nice and professional dispatcher who stayed on the phone with me until paramedics arrived. I didn’t use profanity but I might have if I’d been calling for someone else. It’s hard in those situations to come up with a list of words to say that will pass muster.
I actually work at a customer support call center. Someone has to be very, very abusive for quite some time before we’re able to hang up, and they have to be completely ignoring all attempts to get them to calm down.
Did anyone else notice immediately on the call back, he called her a bitch? That right there made it very, very clear he deserved not benefit of the doubt. she was swearing, just in general, in a panic situation. not at him or anything like that. So he was offended that a female voice was swearing.
fuck that guy.
I had to call 911 this week for medical help.
Crap! Are you O.K.?
I’m feeling better, thanks. :)
I had what turned out to be a panic attack (which seem to be as much physical as panic) but had to go the next day. I finally got to a doctor and was told I had something called Benign Positional Vertigo so I’m taking motion sickness pills for that and dizziness. Don’t know how much longer it will last as it tends to hang around for a while. The doctor thinks the vertigo has triggered anxiety and the panic attack. I’m hoping I never have another one! I might follow up with an ENT doctor.
It was interesting in some ways after the fact. I was lying in a stretcher in the ER with this oxygen thing and one of those finger-pulse gizmos and some cops I knew came up and they started talking to me. They were pretty cool. One of them is the guy I blogged about who won a $1.64 million verdict in his lawsuit.
Lilian Nattel wrote:
That varies widely. In many (most?) places, dispatchers answer calls. However, there are many small dispatch centers across the country, and an officer may cover the desk when a dispatcher is sick or needs a break. In some jurisdictions, dispatchers are also sworn officers, but trained additionally as dispatchers.
I don’t know what the details are in this specific case.
Myca vented:
Jake Squid wrote:
This officer screwed up. His actions were clearly inappropriate, and it’s good that he got smacked for it. It’s perfectly possible that he should have gotten smacked harder. Many other officers have made mistakes and should be disciplined, terminated, and/or charged criminally. Some get what they deserve and some don’t.
However, it strikes me as unfair to generalize about cops as a group from incidents like these, any more than it’s fair to generalize about soldiers from Lynndie England, or political commentators from Michael Savage.
There are hundreds of thousands of police officers in the United States. Some of those officers shouldn’t be officers. If the selection process is 99% reliable (and it isn’t), in a population of 100,000 officers you’ve got 1000 officers who shouldn’t be. Even for those who should be, they’re still human, and they’re still going to make mistakes sometimes. And if an officer works 200 days with an average of 5 calls per day, and gets 99.9% of them right, she still gets one wrong.
On any given shift, an officer can cover over ten calls, each involving multiple interactions with people who are often angry, upset, desperate, and so on, often with good reason. The officer may end up legally obligated to deprive any of these people of their liberty, and often must make a call on incomplete information, and use force to accomplish the arrest.
Given how many things can go wrong in a situation like that, and how many interactions officers have every day with unhappy people, you could argue that, as a group, officers are pretty good at dealing with the public and judiciously using their power.
As individuals, your results may vary, and it definitely can be very, very bad if you draw the officer who shouldn’t be one. That’s the nature of the beast.
Grace
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Well doesn’t look like Officer Friendly is getting a cookie…. not anytime soon.