Assemblymember Freddie Rodriguez, Chair of the Select Committee on Local Emergency Preparedness will convene a hearing on Thursday, April 9th to investigate how California’s 9-1-1 emergency system can determine the location of callers placing emergency calls from mobile phones.
“When someone calls 9-1-1, every second counts,” said Rodriguez. “It is alarming that, in an age where cell phones are so prevalent in our society, our 9-1-1 systems are not able to pinpoint a caller’s location. We need to fix our systems so no more lives are lost to senseless delays.”
Each year, Californians place approximately 25 million 9-1-1 calls; two-thirds of which are made from wireless devices. Lack of accurate location information can prevent wireless 9-1-1 calls from being transferred to the correct answering point and can make it difficult for operators to determine where to send help. In 2013, the California Chapter of the National Emergency Number Association found that more than half of all California’s wireless 9-1-1 calls were being delivered to public safety answering points without location information.
In July of 2014 a San Bernardino County woman was attacked in her apartment and shot several times. She died after calling 9-1-1 to report her injuries. Because she did not provide an address and because the emergency call came from a cell phone, police could not immediately locate her. Using the longitude and latitude information, police narrowed the call location to an apartment complex and conducted a door to door search. After a delay of 20 minutes, police eventually discovered a broken sliding glass window and the victim.
Among those scheduled to testify are Karen Wong, Assistant Director of Public Safety Communications at the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services; representatives of the 4 main wireless providers: AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon; and representatives from the California Public Utilities Commission, California Highway Patrol and the California Fire Chiefs.
The Select Committee on Local Emergency Preparedness Informational Hearing “9-1-1 Location Accuracy: Will Rescuers Know Where You Are?” will convene at 10:00 am on Thursday April 9th at the California State Capitol in Room 126.