D.C. Council member questions 911 response to armed robbery

D.C. Council member Yvette M. Alexander is reviving concerns about the District's response to 911 calls after a man pulled a gun on her last week as she tried to help a MetroAccess driver who was being robbed in her Southeast neighborhood.

Eight minutes passed before anyone arrived to assist Alexander (D-Ward 7) and the victim, according to recordings of 911 calls they made Wednesday afternoon.

The first response came from an emergency crew on a firetruck, followed by one from a police officer in a cruiser. "One car. One officer," Alexander said. "Why was a firetruck there before the police?"

The incident will be added to a list of complaints about delayed or inadequate emergency response in the city, said council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), chairman of the council's Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary. He said that he is not calling for anyone to be fired but would like to know more about the police response.

Alexander and Mendelson questioned police and the city's Office of Unified Communications, which handles 911 calls. Alexander did not speak publicly about the incident until Monday, when The Washington Post asked her to confirm the incident. Her staff urged her to stay silent because the two suspects, whose faces were covered with scarves, remained at large Monday.

The tardy arrival of police probably helped the robbers get away, Mendelson said. "The desired response is for the police to get there immediately when there is a 911 call for a robbery in progress. That did not happen," he said.

The administration of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) is looking into the incident, spokeswoman Mafara Hobson said. She said that 97.7 percent of all "priority one" calls, such as armed robberies, are answered within five seconds with the goal to dispatch them in 120 seconds. In Wednesday's incident, the first 911 call was answered in five seconds but dispatched in 157 seconds, she said.

According to records Hobson provided, the average police response for such calls is seven minutes, 14 seconds. It took 10 minutes for police to respond Wednesday.

Alexander said she did not understand why police did not respond more quickly to the robbery. She said she learned that the officer at the scene thought he was responding to a call of an "unconscious individual."

The victim, who provides door-to-door transportation for the disabled, was robbed of $30 cash, other wallet items and a radio. He could not be reached Monday. He was outside the MetroAccess car in the 3400 block of Highwood Drive SE talking to his dispatcher when two men walked toward him, according to a police report. One of the men flashed a silver handgun and told him to "get down on the ground," the report says.

Alexander had left her home in the Penn Branch area and was driving through the neighborhood when she saw two men standing over the victim as he lay on the sidewalk. With their backs turned and bodies bent, they looked like good Samaritans, she said. She said she rolled down the window of her Land Rover and asked, "Do you need some help? What's going on?"

She said she realized it was a holdup as one of the men got in front of her SUV and the other went to the passenger side. "The one on the passenger's side pulled out a gun. He said, 'Keep it moving,' " Alexander said Monday.

Frightened, Alexander drove around the corner while dialing 911. The recording shows that she called at 1:34 p.m. She identified herself and said, "Someone accosted me at gunpoint." She told the dispatcher that she was unsure of the victim's fate. "I don't know if he's been killed," she said.

Within minutes, Alexander drove back to the scene. The men were gone, and the victim had gotten up. She said she grew upset about the absence of responders. "We're both still there. No police. No ambulance. No nothing," she said. In the victim's 911 call, made at 1:37 p.m., Alexander can be heard saying, "Oh, my God," about the absence of police.

About five minutes into the call, the dispatcher asks the victim whether police had arrived. He says no but tells her the firetruck is there as a siren is heard in the background.