Agency will investigate 911 call in Powell fire

I feel so bad for that poor social worker. She KNEW what he was going to do and was completely, totally helpless. I hope she can move on from this. BTW: I was a social worker in Detroit acting on an anonymous call that there was a child badly beaten. I went over there and this kid had peach sized bruises on both sides of his face (he was white and the bruises were very, very visible) and he told me everything in the most matter of fact way that I wanted to throw up. There was not a part of his body that wasn't brutalized. I called 911 because in in my state you can't remove without a court order and was told, "911 isn't coming." I asked for an ambulance, then, explaining the situation and again the woman said, "I'm sorry, 911 isn't coming." So I had to wait for the next day to get a court order, go to the police department for assistance in the removal (violence like that, you need backup), and got that poor, 8 year old child. The funny thing was that the officers were women, and when they read the petition for removal, the mother wouldn't answer the door they kicked it in, yelled his name and he came out, bewildered. I grabbed him up, and told him he was going to a better home. The good news: he got adopted from a wonderful family in the northern suburbs as both parents terminated their own rights at the first hearing. He had surgery to remove the calcification from beatings, and the parents were very concerned and understanding. That was over 13 years ago and I still wonder about that boy and how he's doing. But I understand her situation, and was there myself. My 8 year old client lived. If I didn't get him, I don't know how much longer he would have stayed alive. God bless the social workers.

Who's on first, what's on second, who's your supervisor and then...Powell! A huge explosion

too many people call 911 for ridiculous stuff like not getting their hamburger right or blocking the drive thru at McDonalds these dispatchers get burned out from those kind's of ignorant calls so when something urgent does come along, they have trouble distinguishing it from the real thing. Remember they ARE Civilians, they are not trained law enforcement officers. This is tragic but the real culprit is the idiotic judge who insisted that the kids be allowed to go to their father's house with anyone!!! Supervised visits should have ocurred in a neutral place NOT in this nut jobs house!

The attitude and rudeness of this dispatcher are absolutely without excuse. I know there is rampant misuse of 911 but a properly trained and responsible dispatcher treats ALL calls as an emergency until proven otherwise. This person should be severely discipined, with part of the punishment being immediate termination. He very well may have costs these two young boys their lives. I could care less about the father, but these kids deserved better. I hope he lives with the guilt for a very long time. Perhaps help could not have gotten to the house in time, but we'll never know now.

911 operators always sound like idiots in released calls. Asking the dumbest questions!

Could there possibly a MORE URGENT CALL FOR HELP....I don't think so! The operator should be fired immediately and go to work a Best Buy where he belongs!

Let's blame the dispatcher, who has no idea who is really on the phone, the case worker could have reported a fire, that would have generated a quick response.
It's not fair to blame the worker, they could not have known the gravity of the situation.

Here's the thing. When the social worker showed up. It WASNT a life threatening emergency. The dispatcher is not there, can only go by the social worker's feeling that something may happen. EVERYBODY thinks they have an emergency! And thats not the only call that the dispatcher was working on Im sure. They have to dispatch units as they become available. Who's to say the officers werent working a bank holdup or a shooting at the time...?? Sure when the gas smell started..THEN its an emergency! This is DEFINITELY not the dispatcher's fault one iota!!! This is Mr. Powell's fault!!!

There would not be anyone able to stop this evil man. He would have done it anyway, if the police and fire department were parked outside. I hope that any wife/mother living in a threatening atmosphere as Susan Powell's, would recognize the danger and find an agency and professional who would plan her and her children's escape to a save location, untraceable to her tormentor. Hopefully both names are on the bank account, and she can withdraw half (tempted to take all-don't) to survive, with help from the agency.

I agree the attitude of the dispatcher there is no excuse. Instead of questioning the situation as they did, when the caller said I smell a strong order of GAS, hmmm seems to me the dispatcher response should have been, Mam get away from the house as fast as possible, I have emergency units in route, please stay on the line. Their questioning who is your supervisor, is not relevant at all to the situation. I know dispatcher who work 12 - 20 hour shifts. They would be fired if they handled a call in this manner. There is no excuse for playing God with a human life. Their line of questioning I believe is the issue. In my opinion it shows the incompetence of the dispatcher and their ego took over in this situation. I do believe the police and firefighters would know what to do when there is a strong smell of gas present, they would know how to respond. The key word is GAS

Stop the blame game here....the one at fault here is Josh Powell, not the dispatcher or anyone else. Even if the police had arrived sooner, they most likely would have been standing right beside the social worker....at the front door....when the house blew up. Some people watch way too many cop shows on TV....the police cannot come and simply kick in a door because a non-custodial parent has temporarily locked the social worker out....they would have been at the door trying to negotiate with Mr. Powell. And this was absolutely NOT a life or death situation, from anything that was evident, until the explosion occurred. Custodial battles happen every day, and that does not mean that the children are in immediate danger. You simply SAYING that you fear for someone's safety, does not make it so....you have to be able to articulate to the police exactly WHY and HOW you come to believe that those children were in IMMEDIATE DANGER, something the social worker could not do because even she never anticipated Powell doing what he did.

The social worker is to be commended for her foresight and swift action in this matter and, although she was clearly stressed, there was nothing vital omitted from her 911 plea for immediate assistance---the male dispatcher simply heard a 'hysterical woman' and accordingly dismissed her concerns as such. He should, therefore, be fired and held accountable to some degree for the deaths of those two boys. She did her job. He refused to do his out of prejudice.

I challenge anybody who thinks they could have done better to: 1) try to get hired on for the job at a 911 desk and 2) work at least one full 8 hour day answering the calls there if you can get hired. You will learn how quickly that the system is abused and how little critical required information is usually passed on by the caller. The GPS triangulation system gives a return to the closest cell tower, not the actual location of the caller. The 911 personal do not have instant criminal background history to every resident in their jurisdiction. That is pure TV fiction. Yesthere were shortcomings in this incident. But unless Deputies had been there at the moment when the kids ran inside and the social worker was locked out, they could not have booted the door in time to save those kids.

The social worker should have been escorted with a 2 sheriff under the circumstance of Josh

This meeting should not have taken place at Josh home and with only a social worker are you kidding. Follow the timeline and you will discover that Josh was pushed over the edge by guilt and being caught in a lie. People are so dumb. You should all be so proud of yourself.

When seconds count. Train monkeys to push the red button, they will do a better job.

This could not have been prevented. Large 911 systems get huge numbers of nonsense calls, and the dispatchers need to ask questions to filter out the non-emergencies. Blame the idiots who call in with trivial problems.

Typical 911 dispatcher.

...perhaps it was divine intervention......more ppl could have gotten exploded ......he was gonna do what he was gonna do no matter what

More people would have been killed had they stormed the house. Awful tragedy for those boys and those left who loved them.