Source: Atlanta Cops Waited

By Dick Pettys
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, July 30, 1996; 11:11 p.m. EDT

ATLANTA (AP) -- For 10 minutes, the city's 911 command center failed to report the bomb threat against Centennial Olympic Park because operators didn't know the park's address and couldn't enter the report in their computers without it, a source said Tuesday.

``The document I saw shows the first 10 minutes were taken up looking for an address,'' said the source, who has seen an eight-page summary prepared by the Police Department of events surrounding the call early Saturday.

A computer log obtained by the AP also suggests a 10-minute delay in handling the call but does not give a reason. The Police Department has not made either document public.

When the bomb went off at about 1:25 a.m., park security officers were evacuating the area near an outdoor stage -- not because they knew of the threat, but because a guard had spotted the unattended knapsack that held the explosive.

The park, a centerpiece of the games, reopened Tuesday.

Police Chief Beverly Harvard repeated on NBC's ``Today'' show Tuesday that she is satisfied the call was handled according to procedures established for dealing with such threats. Police have received dozens of bomb threats during the Olympic Games.

But in a radio interview later Tuesday, she said the protocol for handling bomb threats during the Olympics has been modified so that ``you notify the venue immediately.''

The Police Department's computer-enhanced emergency system requires a 911 operator to enter a street address for a reported crime in order to transmit the information to a dispatcher, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The computer log obtained by the AP shows the operator finally found a street address for the park, but the source said it was not clear from the other documents how that was done.

The source said the summary indicates that an operator called the park command post to get an address. But the source said command post records do not show such a call was made.

Harvard has not responded to requests by the AP to explain why, if there were a problem with the 911 computer, a dispatcher would not simply call park security officers about the threat.

A second source told the AP that dispatchers and 911 operators work in the same room and could speak to each other. There was no indication from the documents that they did so, that source said.

The brief document obtained by the AP lists a sequence of three times logged into the Atlanta police 911 computer:

-- 12:58:34 a.m., apparently the time the call was received. According to the dispatcher's notes, the caller was ``very calm and even'' and sounded liked a white man.

-- 1:08:35 a.m., followed by the abbreviation ``DIS,'' apparently referring to the dispatch of one or more officers.

-- 1:12:52 a.m., followed by ``ARV,'' apparently referring to an officer arriving at an unspecified location.

The last entry apparently does not refer to police arriving at the park, because officials have said officers there did not learn of the 911 call before the blast.

Jim Mullins, a former head of communications for the Police Department, said he couldn't comment on how the 911 call was handled because he didn't know the details. But he said there often are reasons that an operator delays passing on an emergency call to a dispatcher until a street address can be found.

``Centennial Park makes up quite a large geographical area. It's not just one corner,'' he said.

The caller gave no further details that would have helped police pinpoint the bomb, according to an FBI transcript of the call. ``There is a bomb in Centennial Park. You have 30 minutes,'' was the entire message.

© Copyright 1996 The Associated Press

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