911 goof slows cops’
arrival in killing

Woman dead, suspect shot; Greenwood Village
asking Qwest about address glitch

By Marlys Duran
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

GREENWOOD VILLAGE ? A 911 glitch
prevented police from responding immediately to
a deadly domestic-violence situation, and
Greenwood Village authorities want to know why.

“It might have made the difference,” police Lt.
Dave Fisher told KCNC-TV Channel 4.

Officers were delayed eight minutes because the
apartment’s address did not show up on a police
dispatcher’s 911 screen.

When police did arrive Sunday night at an
apartment at 6001 S. Yosemite St., they found a
young woman dead, a man armed with a knife
and a scared 3-year-old boy.

Officers shot the man when he refused to drop the
knife and charged at them, police said.

A police officer had pulled the 3-year-old from the
apartment before the shooting, Fisher said. The
youngster, believed to be the dead woman’s son,
was uninjured, Fisher said.

The 24-year-old suspect was in serious condition
Monday at Denver Health Medical Center with
gunshot wounds in his abdomen and lower legs,
hospital spokeswoman Heidi Hattenbach said.

Police did not release the names of anyone
involved, including the two officers who fired.

Police received a 911 call from a third-floor
apartment at the Hermitage about 8:40 p.m.
Sunday. No one spoke, but a dispatcher could
hear sounds of an apparent struggle. The 911
system is supposed to display both a phone
number and an address, but only the phone
number appeared on the screen, Fisher said.

After calling the number twice and getting no
response, a dispatcher asked Qwest to trace the
location, Fisher said. Eight minutes had elapsed
when police finally got an address, he said.

“Once we got the information, we were there
within one minute,” Fisher said.

The failure of the 911 system to display the
address is of great concern to Greenwood Village
officials, Mayor David Phifer said.

“It’s just a tragic, tragic situation,” he said. “We
have to investigate and find out why the number
didn’t show up. We need Qwest to tell us why it
didn’t work.”

Qwest was investigating the incident Monday,
spokesman Tyler Gronbach said.

“We will look at all operational functions related to
the system to see what happened. We regret the
incident,” Gronbach said. “This is a pretty serious
issue.”

The database that links phone numbers and
addresses to Qwest’s 911 system has been
provided by SCC Communications of Boulder
since 1996. SCC spokeswoman Sherri
Hughes-Smith referred queries to Qwest.

“We are supporting Qwest in a thorough
investigation of the occurrence,” she said.

Gronbach declined to discuss how the 911 system, including the database,
is constructed. “That’s something we wouldn’t talk about,” he said.

The failure of an address to appear on a 911 screen is rare but not unheard of,
said Englewood Safety Services Director Chris Olson, who heads Arapahoe
County’s E-911 Authority board.

“The master address list is hopefully constantly updated, but there could be a
glitch in the system,” Olson said. “You really don’t know until somebody tries
to access the system.”

Contact Marlys Duran at (303) 470-3939 or
[email protected]

July 18, 2000