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From the L.A. Daily News

California

21-year-old Yale graduate arrested for alleged ESPN post threatening to kill Valencia schoolchildren

by Eric Hartley

A 21-year-old Yale graduate whose home overlooks two schools in Valencia was arrested late Monday on suspicion of making online threats to kill the students there.

Eric Ting Yee wrote on an ESPN Web forum "that he could see children from where he was at and had no problem murdering them," Los Angeles County sheriff's Sgt. Darren Harris said Tuesday.

The Sheriff's Department called his writings "terrorist threats" and said several weapons were found during a search of Yee's home, making the threats appear credible. Harris said they included handguns and "at least one high-capacity-type weapon."

"Nobody knows if we prevented something from occurring yesterday, today, a year from now," Harris said at the sheriff's Santa Clarita Valley station.

Yee was arrested at 5 p.m. Monday and was still being held on $1 million bail late Tuesday. He could face charges as early as Wednesday, when sheriff's detectives expect to present their case to the district attorney.

He was held on suspicion of making criminal threats, which carries a penalty of up to a year in jail, but prosecutors could file additional charges or different charges altogether.

A person can be convicted of making a criminal threat even if he has no intent of carrying it out, so long as the statement is intended to be taken as a threat. The law requires, though, that the threat be "unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific."

Harris said detectives had not authorized the release of the actual posting.

Yee "mentioned that it would be like the Aurora, Colo., shooting," sheriff's Lt. Steven Low said, referring to the July 20 shooting in a movie theater where 12 people were killed and 58 injured, the highest number of casualties in an American mass shooting.

A Yale University website listed Yee as a member of the class of 2012, and Harris said investigators confirmed he attended Yale after graduating from Valencia High School at or near the top of his class.

The threatening posts were made in the comments section of an online ESPN story on Thursday about new Nike sneakers named after LeBron James that cost $270 a pair, ESPN spokesman Mike Soltys told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Some of the nearly 3,000 reader comments on the story talked about children possibly getting killed over the sneakers because of how expensive they are.

"What he was posting had nothing to do with sports," Soltys said. "We closely monitor the message boards and anytime we get a threat, we're alerting law enforcement officials."

ESPN reported the writings to police in Bristol, Conn., where the network is based. Bristol police linked the posts to a Los Angeles County ZIP code and contacted the sheriff here early Monday.

At 3 a.m. that day, deputies began watching Yee's parents home on Edenton Place in Valencia, an affluent cul-de-sac where the homes mostly have three-car garages. Harris said they were especially concerned because the street overlooks Santa Clarita Elementary School and Arroyo Seco Junior High School, lending credence to the threats.

During the day Monday, before the threats had become public or detectives had searched Yee's house, deputies were stationed at the two schools.

Harris said he did not know whether Yee left the house at any point that day, but said he would have been followed if he had.

A spokeswoman for the William S. Hart Union High School District, which oversees the junior high school, said no one from the school district was told about the threats until after 9 p.m. Monday.

The spokeswoman, Gail Pinsker, said some Arroyo Seco Junior High parents kept their kids home Tuesday or took them home early, though there was no further threat by then. Pinsker said the school sent home a letter to parents and wanted to reassure them this appeared to be an "isolated" incident.

Debbie Lee, a mother of two young children who lives a few doors down from Yee, said she had heard someone was accused of making threats. But when she heard the threats were against children, she brought her hands to her head in alarm and said, "Kids?"

Yee's parents own the home, but he was there alone when deputies knocked on the door Monday afternoon, Harris said. Deputies forced their way in when there was no answer at the door and found Yee had been playing a computer game with headphones on. Harris said he did not know what game it was.

At least one computer was seized from the house. Yee was surprised but cooperative, Harris said.

Other people on the street said Tuesday they didn't know the Yee family.

Patsy Tillisch and her daughter, Lindsay, said the Yees rarely seemed to go outside, unlike most on the street.

"We have a very normal neighborhood," Lindsay Tillisch said.

"That's what we thought," her mother added.

Lee said her 8-year-old son often plays with a friend who lives next door to the Yees. But the news had her rethinking that.

"So now we can't let them ride a bike by themselves, then," Lee said as she stood looking up the street.

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_21570537/valencia-suspect-who-allegedly-threatened-shoot-children-arrested

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Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors declares today 'It Can Wait -- No Texting While Driving Day'

City News Service

LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors proclaimed today "It Can Wait -- No Texting While Driving Day" to remind motorists, and teens in particular, that those who text behind the wheel are 23 times as likely to be in a vehicle crash.

Supervisor Michael Antonovich joined with AT&T to highlight the dangers of texting while driving. The telecommunications company is sponsoring a campaign by the same name -- It Can Wait -- asking motorists to make a lifelong pledge not to text while behind the wheel.

"Text messaging is the main mode of communication for most American teenagers, with half of all teens sending between 21 and 70 texts a day," Antonovich said. "In an AT&T survey, 43 percent of American teenage drivers admitted to texting while driving, even though 97 percent know it is dangerous."

Though teens are targeted by the no-texting campaign, studies have also found that parents fail to follow the advice they give their kids about not texting. A Liberty Mutual Insurance survey found that dads are particularly at fault, and more than three-quarters of teens responding to the AT&T survey said their parents text while driving "all the time."

An AT&T representative told the board that more than 100,000 vehicle crashes -- some of them deadly -- occur each year as a result of texting.

The dangerous behavior seems resistant to legal bans and fines. Texting while driving is illegal in California, 38 other states and the District of Columbia, and bans for new drivers or bus drivers exist in five other states, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

More information can be found at www.itcanwait.com

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_21572676/los-angeles-county-board-supervisors-declares-today-it

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Mexico prison break: 129 inmates on the loose, 3 recaptured

by Oscar Villalba

PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico - Officials said Tuesday they have found three inmates thought to have escaped through a tunnel at a northern Mexico border prison, lowering the number of escaped prisoners to 129.

Three female inmates were found hiding in a prison visiting area, Jorge Luis Moran, the public safety secretary of the northern border state of Coahuila, told the television network Televisa.

Federal police units and Mexican troops - including 70 members of an elite military special forces unit - are searching for inmates who fled the prison in Piedras Negras, a city across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas. They escaped through a tunnel 21 feet long and 4 feet in diameter on Monday and then cut their way through a chain link barrier and escaped onto a neighboring property.

The director and two other employees of the state prison have been detained for an investigation, and President Felipe Calderon called the jailbreak "deplorable" in a statement posted on his Twitter account Tuesday.

Calderon appeared to re-ignite the long-running dispute between federal and state authorities, writing that "the vulnerability of state law enforcement institutions must be corrected."

Collusion between guards and drug gangs has played a role in past escapes, and federal authorities have been pushing to have all state and municipal police and law enforcement officials submit to background and anti-drug checks, as well as vetting for possible links to organized crime.

But state authorities have been dragging their feet. On Monday, federal Interior Secretary Alejandro Poire said that only 180,000 of the country's 430,000 city and state police have been vetted and checked, and that about 65,000 of those tested had failed the tests.

That failure rate - about one-third of officers - has been a constant problem in the testing program, which is supposed to conclude with all officers vetted by early 2013. That goal now appears unreachable, and the question remains of what will be done with the officers who failed. All are supposed to be fired, but Mexican labor laws and a shortage of recruits to replace them makes it an arduous process.

For example, federal police have vetted all of their officers, and many have gone through background checks more than once, but many of those who fail are still on the 36,000-member force.

Since the current administration took office in December 2006, about 2,045 federal officers have failed periodic vetting and anti-drug tests, and 302 of them have been fired. About 600 others are involved in the lengthy internal-affairs procedure that could lead to people losing their jobs.

In February, nine guards at a prison near the northern city of Monterrey confessed to helping 30 Zetas drug gangsters escape. But not only did the Zetas flee; during the jailbreak, other Zetas slaughtered 44 inmates who belonged to the rival Gulf cartel.

In December 2010, 153 inmates escaped from a prison in the northern city of Nuevo Laredo, right across Laredo, Texas. Authorities charged 41 guards with aiding the inmates in that escape.

State authorities counter that their relatively low-security prisons are forced to hold dangerous inmates being held on federal charges like drug trafficking and organized crime.

They have called on federal officials to take federal inmates out of their prisons, and some of the most dangerous federal inmates had been transferred out of the Piedras Negras prison in recent months.

The prison houses about 730 inmates and the escape represented almost a fifth of its population. Coahuila Attorney General Homero Ramos said 86 of the escaped inmates were serving sentences or awaiting verdicts for federal crimes, such as drug trafficking, and the rest faced state charges.

The tunnel "was not made today. It had been there for months," Ramos told the Milenio TV station. Authorities say they also found ropes and electric cables they believe were used in the break.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it was aware of the prison break and officials are in communication with Mexican law enforcement, according to an e-mailed statement.

Coahuila, where Monday's prison break took place, has seen a wave of violence tied to the Zetas' battles with the Sinaloa cartel, allies of the now weakened Gulf Cartel.

Authorities in Coahuila did not say which gang was believed to be behind the escape.

In Piedras Negras, family members had gathered outside the prison to hear word of their loved ones.

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_21571859/mexico-prison-break-129-inmates-loose-3-recaptured

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Internet Explorer has been breached, German watchdog warns

by Juergen Baetz

BERLIN -- The German government agency overseeing IT safety is warning of a security breach in Microsoft's Internet Explorer and recommending people use other browsers until the problem is fixed.

The browser's "weak point is already being used for targeted attacks," the Federal Office for Information Security warned, adding that the code behind the attack is freely available online and might therefore spread rapidly.

A spokesman for Microsoft said Tuesday the company is aware of the issue and is working on soon rolling out a software update, a so-called patch, to fix the browser's security features.

"This is not a massive problem. There have been only a small number of targeted attacks," said spokesman Thomas Baumgaertner. He could not provide a figure of the number of attacks recorded so far.

The browser is used by hundreds of millions of consumers and workers around the world.

In its warning published late Monday, Germany's IT watchdog called on people using Windows XP or Windows 7 operating systems and Internet Explorer versions 7, 8 or 9 to switch to alternative browsers until Microsoft updates the browser's security features.

Attackers lure users to an infected website, for example through an emailed link. Visiting the website then allows hackers to introduce codes to take control of the user's computer, the BSI agency said.

Baumgaertner noted that people should always be vigilant when clicking on links from unknown sources. He also added that many antivirus programs might already be updated to protect their users against attacks through the browser loophole.

http://www.dailynews.com/business/ci_21570469/internet-explorer-has-been-breached-german-watchdog-warns

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From Google News

Judge rules that Arizona police can check immigration status

PHOENIX – A judge in Arizona ruled Tuesday that police can immediately start enforcing the most contentious section of the state's immigration law, marking the first time officers can carry out the so-called "show me your papers" provision.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton is the latest milestone in a two-year legal battle over the requirement. It culminated in a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June that upheld the provision on the grounds that it doesn't conflict with federal law.

Now, with the requirement finally in full effect, both sides are anxious to see the outcome.

The supporters want local police to use it vigorously, but worry federal immigration officials won't respond to calls to come arrest people.

"I am mulling what I will do if they don't respond," said Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who more than any other police boss in the state pushed the bounds of immigration enforcement. "I don't feel comfortable letting the illegal alien back on the street."

Federal officials said they will check people's immigration status when officers call. But they'll only send an agent to arrest someone if it fits with their priorities, such as catching repeat violators and those who are a threat to public safety and national security.

Meanwhile, civil rights advocates are preparing for a battle.

— They're stepping up efforts to staff a hotline that fields questions about what people's rights are in case officers question their immigration status.

— If a police agency plans a special immigration patrol, volunteers armed with video cameras will be sent to capture footage, said Lydia Guzman, leader of the civil rights group Respect-Respeto.

— The law's opponents are spreading out across the state, asking police departments not to enforce the provision. Doing so could open officers up to lawsuits from people who could claim the agencies aren't fully enforcing the law.

The incentive to not enforcing the law, said Carlos Garcia, an organizer for the Puente Movement: better cooperation of immigrants who would be more likely to report crimes.

Arizona's law was passed in 2010 amid voter frustration with the state's role as the busiest illegal entry point into the country. Five states — Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah — have adopted variations on Arizona's law.

This section of the law requires that officers, while enforcing other laws, question the immigration status of those suspected of being in the country illegally. The "show me your papers" name comes from opponents.

It's a tool for local police, said Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the measure, but won't cure the state's immigration woes.

"Only the federal government has the resources and responsibility necessary to achieve that," Brewer said.

The law's journey to this point has taken many twists and turns. Bolton is the judge who initially blocked it after the Obama administration challenged it on the grounds that federal immigration law trumps state law.

The case made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. There, justices barred police from enforcing other parts of the law, including a requirement that immigrants obtain or carry immigration registration papers. But they allowed the questioning requirement — to supporters the most important part — to move forward.

The latest challenge from a coalition of civil rights, religious and business groups — which Bolton denied earlier this month— said Latinos in Arizona would face systematic racial profiling.

But Bolton agreed with the state's lawyers that the law's opponents were merely speculating on those claims. She did leave the door open to challenges once the law is in effect, if the claims can be proven.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/18/judge-police-to-enforce-ariz-immigration-law-now/

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Clinton vows to protect U.S. missions worldwide amid anti-U.S. sentiments

Washington, United States (4E) – In the wake of attacks on American consulates in Muslim-dominated nations, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday announced to take “aggressive steps” to protect its diplomatic missions around the world.

Speaking to reporters at a press conference, Clinton said that Washington is not yet sure on whether an attack on its ambassador to Libya that killed him in Benghazi with three others was planned or imminent.

“We had no actionable intelligence. Hence, we are taking aggressive steps to protect our staffs in embassies and consulates worldwide,” Clinton said.

Her comments came after talks with Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa amid anti-U.S. march across South Asia, North Africa and the Middle East.

She further said that the U.S. is “reviewing security posture at every post and augmenting it where necessary.”

Meanwhile, fresh violence over the anti-Islamic video was reported in Afghan capital Kabul where an Afghan insurgent group Hezb-i-Islami's female suicide bomber killed 14 people, including 10 foreigners, on Tuesday. The victims were working under the United States government.

The U.S. had released an anti-Islamic movie insulting the Prophet Muhammad and Islam on the eve of September 11, sparking widespread protests in the Muslim states across the world.

In Los Angeles, the family of filmmaker of anti-Islamic movie titled “Innocence of Muslims” went in hiding. Producer Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, is already in hiding since last Saturday after a parole officer questioned him. According to local reports, the Los Angeles County sheriff's department officers moved him along with four of his family members from his residence to an undisclosed localtion.

http://gantdaily.com/2012/09/19/clinton-vows-to-protect-u-s-missions-worldwide-amid-anti-u-s-sentiments/

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Oregon

Federal DOJ Report on Portland Police “Horrifying”

Q&A with Albina Ministerial Alliance representative Jo Ann Hardesty

by Helen Silvis

Former state legislator and police accountability advocate Jo Ann Hardesty (formerly Bowman) spoke to The Skanner News about the recently released US Department of Justice report that found Portland police have been violating the civil rights of people with mental illness by using excessive force.

What was your first reaction to the report?

It confirmed what the community has been saying for decades, which is that Portland Police Bureau has a pattern and practice of using excessive force against unarmed community members. And the community has been saying this for years and years and years, and so I was thrilled that we have confirmation now from the Department of Justice that these practices are in fact taking place, but more importantly that we now have the federal government as a partner in making sure that the fundamental changes that have to happen throughout PPB will take place.

What struck you about the cases it cites?

They cited some really egregious cases. For me, I knew it was bad within the Portland Police Bureau, but I had no idea that it ran from the top of the organization throughout the entire organization –so from the top all the way down to the street officer. This report shows that Portland Police officers have a practice of covering their butt – so that no matter what they do they're always found within policy. It was just horrifying reading this report to see how egregious and how thug-like some of the Portland police officers act. Some of the egregious examples that they mentioned, like the gentleman who was in diabetic shock and the police officer punched him in his face eight times with his fist. I was almost in tears when I was reading this.

Do you think fixing our mental health system will end the problem?

I think what we heard from Police Chief Mike Reese, what we heard from the mayor, and what we heard from Darryl Turner at the initial press conference was: “Oh, It's not the police officers; It's the mental health system. And if we fix the mental health system and if we hire more officers, everything will be fine.”

But anyone who has read the entire 42-page report will know that the problems are systemic within Portland Police Bureau. You find out that the problem is with the training, the problem is with how police officers are held accountable, because they are not held accountable. They refuse to investigate police officers; they do a poor job of gathering evidence and the quote from the DOJ about the review process calls it a self-defeating accountability system.

There's no oversight. There's no corrective action, and so the entire department has to go through some fundamental changes in order for the public to ever have confidence that we have the right people in the right job to provide public safety.

What did you learn from the report about police accountability?

What happens is that Portland police just rubber stamp: everything that a Portland police officer does is ok. And the chart that they showed about how a complaint goes through the internal process: no wonder that people don't file complaints. Because they know that the police don't do an effective job of investigating police misconduct. And what the DOJ report shows us is that, not only do they not do an effective job, but they go out of their way to cover up egregious behavior and to protect their own.

What can be done to fix these problems?

The letter of agreement is going to be signed by the City of Portland and the U.S. Department of Justice on October 12. That will spell out in detail – with timelines and measurable outcomes – when those changes start, when they have to be implemented. It will spell out a process whereby the community can take the City of Portland to federal court if those changes don't happen as the timeline demands.

Does the AMA have recommendations for the agreement?

I am currently working with the AMA coalition to submit recommendations that will be in the letter of agreement. One of the things that comes immediately to mind is that the entire police bureau has to be trained in cultural competency; the entire police bureau from the top to the bottom.

The new training facility: we have to rethink. In fact, I asked Mr. Perez, “What are the best practices? What are you looking for in a training officer, who actually trains officers on best practices in community policing?”

I want that spelled out in a letter of agreement, because I don't think a Nazi sympathizer is an appropriate trainer for Portland Police officers. I think the police officers who are now training people to kill people if they don't follow orders: they are not people who should be in this new training facility in charge of training our police officers. What we need is a new kind of police officer – we need police who are willing to partner with community members to conduct the training.

What's the community's role in police training?

Until the federal government came in, the Portland Police Bureau has refused to allow civilians to be part of their training, to help develop the training protocol, to actually help them facilitate the training of new police officers. Now, the Department of Justice has said they have to bring the community in. They can no longer just assume that Portland police officers are the only ones who can train Portland police officers. There are a lot of bright minds in our community that can help us train our police officers better.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Perez said that he believes the recommendations will help improve police relations with people with mental illness. But he said they also will help communities of color. Do you agree?

I think that some of the changes that they recommended – as they relate to people with mental illness—will improve community-police relations because they will fundamentally change how the police engage with people. However, the report made it really clear that they did not look at the racial impact of how police officers do their job. But they said it became apparent that there is a trust divide between the police bureau and the African American community, and they laid out a lot of recommendations on what the police bureau needs to do to correct that.

What important aspects of the report have received little attention?

They said that PPB needs to fully implement the plan to address racial profiling, which no one has talked about since police chief Rosie Sizer was fired. They said there needs to be cultural competency training throughout the entire police bureau.

They said that Portland police officers need to start tracking every single contact they have with the community members. The data collection numbers look horrible now –traffic and pedestrian stop data that is produced twice a year shows that if you're African American you're twice as likely to be stopped. If you're African American you're twice as likely to be searched.

If you're white, you're less likely to be stopped, you're less likely to be searched. But you're more likely to have drugs, guns and other paraphernalia.

What Portland police officers have refused to do, until now, is to collect data on “mere conversations.” The call them walk and talks. But, in fact, the Department of Justice says that the mere conversations that the Portland Police use as a pretext to stop people and search them, and impact their constitutional rights to free movement, are unlawful. This is not a lawful action.

When people refuse to converse with the police then the police escalate the situation. And then it goes from being a mere conversation to a force issue. I think that when we start collecting that data the Department of Justice will be back doing another investigation on racial impact.

For them every problem requires a gun or force, and until they get it into their heads that community policing is about de-escalation, building relationships with community members: that's the problem.

We have police officers who have no relationships with the people they are sworn to protect and serve. If you don't know the community, if you don't know community kids, and that they are in the neighborhood they are supposed to be in, then you're assumption is that everybody is bad until they are proved to be otherwise.

What part will ordinary citizens play in making the recommendations work?

I think it would be a mistake to think that the fundamental changes that have to happen will happen quickly. But what I'm talking about is that the DOJ says there has to be oversight by a community group. What that means to me is that the community is in charge of the implementation. What that means to me is that a community group will be formed made up of all the people that the Department of Justice mentioned, like people of color, youth, people from mental health groups: so there will be this new committee that will be created that will be responsible for overseeing the implementation of that letter of agreement. And I am really excited about that because that means that the community will then get to call the police department in to find out how they are doing with the implementation.

We'll have access to information we've never had before. And as I said to Mr. Perez, the community needs resources to make that happen. We've been fighting the police for years, for free. And we're going to need the federal help, in order that we can put in place a modern day system that will truly hold the police accountable for the implementation of these significant changes as well as monitoring it to make sure that they are not circumventing the federal government's will.

Over the years, mayors and police chiefs have tried to fire officers for misconduct, but that has always been overturned. Can the report change that?

Mr. Perez found it egregious that police officers have 48 hours before they have to give an official statement, and many of the problems that the DOJ has found are currently in the police contract. But once the letter of agreement has been signed, these will not be negotiable issues in the next contract. Take the 48-hour rule, for example. When the police contract expires on June 30, 2013, they will no longer have a 48-hour rule.

So everything the DOJ has identified as a problem will no longer be a negotiable item. And what I love about that is that it really doesn't matter who the next police commissioner is. It really doesn't matter who the next police chief is. There will be limits to what is negotiable, and what isn't.

The arbitrator process is something we need to change so that bad police officers can, in fact, be fired. We're going to have to write into the letter of agreement.

Right now there is no internal system to actually discipline officers who have excessive force complaints – who are abusive to community members. Their internal system it takes six months to actually show up and it doesn't show up by officer name. So we're going to put more accountability into this letter of agreement.

How optimistic are you that this report will make a difference?

I've been working on this issue for over a decade, and this is our best opportunity to see real changes because we now have the federal court with us. The community now has the federal courts at our back. So that's the carrot and stick. The carrot is the letter of agreement. The stick is the federal court. So if they don't do what they need to do, we will take them to court over and over and over again to make it happen.

Read the full report here

http://theskanner.com/article/Federal-DOJ-Report-on-Portland-Police-Horrifying-2012-09-18

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Sign up for Citizens' Police Academy

PALM SPRINGS — The Palm Springs Police Department's 13-week Citizens' Police Academy started Tuesday , but people can still sign up, a police sergeant said.

The free course will be held each Tuesday evening at 6 p.m. through Dec. 11 at the police department's Training Center, 200 S. Civic Drive. Sessions will feature simulated live-fire exercises, a ride-along with a patrol officer and discussions about topics such as crime scene investigation, K-9, SWAT, community policing and narcotics, Sgt. Mike Kovaleff said.

The academy started in 1993 and has been running ever since, Kovaleff said.

Academy participants must be at least 18 years old and have no felony convictions. For reservations, email Sgt. Kyle Stjerne at Kyle.Stjerne@palmspringsca.gov

Applications must be filled out online at www.pspd.com under “Community Policing, Citizens' Police Academy.” No one can join after the second week.

http://www.mydesert.com/viewart/20120919/NEWS08/309190024/Sign-up-Citizens-Police-Academy?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFrontpage%7Cs

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Mississippi

Dispatchers Address "Child Abuse" of 911 System

by Sheena Baker

It's probably one of the most irritating things a 911 dispatcher has to put up with every single day and every single night – kids picking up the phone and dialing 911 just for the heck of it.

But while some kids, who have been given an old cellular phone to play with, may not realize that their calls to 911 is actually going through, others love a good prank, and to them the question is who better to prank than the county's E-911 dispatchers?

Now 911 dispatchers are asking parents in the community to help monitor their kids more closely at home to reduce the number of non-emergency calls received from kids and to keep 911 lines clear for callers who do have genuine emergencies.

Clay County E-911 Director Treva Hodge said a good portion of the 911 calls from kids comes from those who have received an old cell phone that their family member no longer needs.

“People tend to think that their old prepaid phones that are out of minutes can't dial out so they give it to their child as a toy, but those phones, if charged, still dial 911 whether they're out of minutes or not,” Hodge said. “You would not believe how many calls from children we get.”

Hodge said this issue can be alleviated simply by parents removing the battery from the phone before giving it to their child to play with.

As for older children and teenagers who are calling 911 purposely, 911 operators remind parents that it is against the law to abuse the county's emergency telephone service.

“What happens is when they start playing, some don't just call one time; there are times the dispatchers get 20 calls in a row from kids playing on the phone,” Hodge said.

Miss. Code 19-5-317 states the law prohibiting the abuse of the 911 system and lays out the penalties for individuals found guilty of abusing the system. A first offense conviction of a 911 system violation carries a fine of up to $5,000 and a one-year prison term while the conviction of subsequent offenses carry a fine of up to $10,000 and a three-year prison sentence.

The Clay County E-911 center is Phase II compliant with cell phone carriers, meaning dispatchers can pinpoint the address that the call is coming from pretty accurately, allowing officers to respond within only a few feet of where the call actually originated from.

The Clay County E-911 center is equipped with three 911 emergency lines and two administration lines, which companies that deal with medical alerts, fire alarms or burglary alarms call in on. Two dispatchers are on duty at all times handling calls not only from alarm companies but the county and city's law enforcement and rescue agencies, so keeping the lines free from abusive callers is of the utmost importance, Hodge said.

“Those two dispatchers are having to answer five phone lines plus they have to answer the radio for the Police Department, the Sheriff Department, the paramedics, city fire plus seven volunteer fire units – that's a lot of radio agencies to answer,” Hodge said. “Their focus needs to be on those five phone lines plus all those radios and here they're having a kid thinking it's funny to call 20 times. That becomes a problem, and it can be frustrating.”

911 Dispatcher Beth Lee said the issue has been going on for as long as she can remember.

“You try to talk to the kids and tell them, 'You're tying up the 911 line. What if your family member is trying to call for help,' and about time you get half of it out they can up on you but turn around and call right back,” Lee said. “We had one call last week saying, 'The house is on fire, they cut me,' and all kinds of stuff just playing on the telephone not realizing they're tying up the line. It goes on all the time.”

Hodge said the 911 center often times receives calls from adults who phone 911 accidentally but hang up after a dispatcher answers the phone. She advises that when this happens, the caller should remain on the line with the dispatcher and explain to them that the call was an accident.

“Otherwise, the dispatcher is required to call them back,” Hodge said. “Unless a dispatcher can reach them and determine that the call is a non-emergency, such as an accidental call or a child playing, the dispatcher has to dispatch emergency personnel.”

So officers have to often times respond to places where no emergency is taking place, which takes them away from their duty of patrolling the streets and helping residents who actually need assistance.

“We strongly urge parents to teach their children the proper use of 911,” she said. “We want to be there when we're needed, but children need to learn the proper use, including all the benefits that 911 offers and the consequences that abusing the 911 system can carry.”

http://www.dailytimesleader.com/content/dispatchers-address-child-abuse-911-system