Dallas Makes Changes to 911 Call Center Following Botched Call During Woman's Murder

Dallas, Texas is shaking up its 911 emergency call center in the wake of a mishandled emergency call from a woman who was ultimately murdered by her husband. Following the Chief David Brown (News - Alert) reportedly disciplined two employees of the emergency call center and opened an internal investigation of the call center’s operations. This investigation is what has prompted the changes at the call center.

Last month, Deanna Cook was attacked and murdered by her ex-husband. Despite a 911 call Cook made to the Dallas emergency services call center while the crime was in progress, her body wasn't found in her apartment until two later, according to CBS affiliate KHOU reports.

Police said she was actually on the phone with 911 as her estranged husband, Delvecchio Patrick, killed her, Dallas Fox News affiliate MyFoxDFW.com reported.

CBS news reported that police said the 32-year-old Cook called 911 the night she was killed from a cellphone, but the operator didn't get her address and a search took about nine minutes before police arrived at her southeast Dallas home. They knocked on the door and got no response, checked the windows, saw nothing and left.

According to Chief David Brown, “some procedures were not followed.”

Dallas Assistant City Manager A.C. Gonzalez said the city is embarking on a fix to some staffing, technology, schedule, management structure and other issues at the Dallas 911 call center, whose records have shown a lot of overtime staffing as of late.

"We saw that was becoming an issue so we are making some adjustments in that area," Gonzales admitted.

In addition, the city of Dallas is moving some police officers who are on light or limited duty to the 911 call center to make sure civilian workers becoming overtired by overtime until the vacancies created by attrition can be filled at the center.

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