My wife, Denise, should be alive today

Denise’s worst and last day on Earth began as most days, loving and providing for our two little boys. January 17, 2008 was no different. While cutting our oldest son’s hair, Noah age 2, on the back porch of our North Port, Fla. home, a predator named Michael King was cruising the neighborhood, looking for opportunities.  I was at work and somehow he gained entry to our home and abducted Denise, leaving our children home crying alone.  With Denise’s father being a detective for the local sheriff’s office, the next two days saw a region wide manhunt like never before seen in Southwest Florida.  Five 9-1-1 calls were made that day, including one witnessing the abduction in the car next to her and staying on the phone for over 9 minutes, but because of a lack of proper training, procedures, and quality assurance, this call failed to produce a dispatch of this life saving information to waiting road deputies.  One call was made by Denise herself, somehow dialing 9-1-1 on her kidnapper’s cell phone without his knowledge and giving clues to the call taker as if she was talking to her abductor. 

Two days later Denise’s body was found in a shallow grave, naked, and with a single gunshot wound to the head....

As a widowed 23 year old father of two little boys, I tried to make some sense of this senseless tragedy.  The national publicity of this awful event led to me communicating with thousands of people, including many disgusted 9-1-1 personnel, about the possible causes of this unimaginable breakdown and being asked to speak around the country at state and national public safety conferences.  And let me say that I am not in the 9-1-1 industry.  I have no idea how the system works but being on the outside looking in gives me a unique perspective from a citizen’s only point of view.   

The one glaring observation from this “citizen”is that there are no standardized, uniform training and certification standards of 9-1-1 call takers and dispatchers on how to handle these types of events.  In fact, there appears to be no training required at all in many areas of the country.  This one fact, whenever I talk to the average guy on the street, leaves them in shocking disbelief.  I don’t have to tell any industry personnel reading this article right now that the average citizen has no idea of the inner workings of a 9-1-1 Emergency Communications Center.  They have no idea that the country’s 9-1-1 system isn’t really a system at all, but rather a patchwork of agencies, protocols, and technologies cobbled together to respond to 9-1-1 calls.  I will tell you that 100% of those citizens I have talked with EXPECT that these FIRST RESPONDERS to their screaming calls for help, are highly trained to send help.  They CANNOT be the weakest link in the chain of response in their most desperate time of need.

This one tragedy involving the loving mother of my two boys, galvanized and focused the disgust of Florida citizens, to finally say enough is enough and led to the passage of Florida’s first mandatory, uniform training and certification standard in 2010, F.S.401.465.  It requires anyone taking or dispatching a 9-1-1 call to complete a 232 hour curriculum and pass a state administered exam for certification.  Our foundation; the Denise Amber Lee Foundation, has travelled the country the last 2 years speaking on this issue.  And most states we have visited require certifications for hairstylists, nail technicians, tattoo artists, etc.  In my home state of Florida, a hairstylist is required to complete 1200 hours of training!  Yet some states and agencies feel it is okay to put an untrained, sometimes temporary worker in the hot seat to take a screaming mother’s 9-1-1 call for help?  UNACCEPTABLE! This isn’t just a Florida issue, however.  In this highly mobile society, it is a national issue.  We don’t spend the majority of our lives anymore in the same small town where we were born.  We travel.  The majority of the public expects a 9-1-1 call in Florida to be handled with the same level of proficiency as a 9-1-1 call in Washington.

A recently released report (APCO ProCHRT Report 2011)  by the Association of Public Safety Communication Officials International (APCO) showed as many as 49% of states required no training or certification of 9-1-1 telecommunicators.  This is shocking to the average citizen and in our travels and speaking with industry leaders; some of the states that have training statutes are either ignored or insufficient.  There aren’t any “teeth” in the legislative language;  no test required or no follow-up by third parties for compliance or just a suggested, voluntary standard in some states.  Some of the states that are listed as requiring training may only be required by those working for Sheriffs Depts.  What about those working for Police Chiefs or Fire Chiefs, or regional communications facilities?  This is ludicrous! 

I met a leading state 9-1-1 leader at a conference where I was asked to speak and said to him that I see his state requires training.  He looked at me oddly and said, “Okay”.  I said, “Didn’t I read where your state mandates a certain number of hours of training?”  He again looked at me oddly and said, “Okay.  It says that in the legislative code but no one follows up to see if it is being done statewide.  There are no exam requirements to assure proficiency.  There is no continuing education required.”  And as we went to additional states, this was a common concern in many of them.  These conferences typically draw the best and brightest of 9-1-1.  The majority of them are dedicated, conscientious professionals who train themselves and their employees, way beyond any minimum standard.  Unfortunately, the common concern among these professionals is  they are in the minority of agencies within their state and this is a huge public safety issue.                 

Think about the amazing similarities between 9-1-1 service and the Air Traffic Control System.  When you board a plane in New York and fly to California, you travel through numerous air traffic control zones, but because of standardized training and procedures passage from one zone to another is seamless.  In contrast, as in my wife’s case, her killer travelled through 2 counties and one municipality.  Three separate PSAPs were involved with the 9-1-1 calls that night but because of differing levels of training and procedures, our story ends up on Dateline and CNN as another unfortunate result of “human error”. 

In conclusion let me say that I have never met a more compassionate and dedicated group of people than those that work in the 9-1-1 industry.  They share our pain in the senseless loss of Denise and, in many ways, are more outraged that their industry let her down on that January day in 2008.  And all of those in the police community who frantically looked for Denise that night and stood shoulder to shoulder with me as we combed the palmetto brush of Southwest Florida for two days looking for clues; thank you , thank you, thank you!  I urge the public safety community to join us in saying, “enough is enough”.

Let’s dedicate our limited financial resources to our precious human resources first and provide our 9-1-1 telecommunicators with access to the extensive training and certification they deserve and the public expects.  The more and better training these first responders experience, the less stress they will feel and the less turnover Communication Center Directors will experience. 

Requiring and insuring proficiency through professional certification recognition will instill a broader sense of pride and dedication to the valuable role they play in public safety and again, reducing turnover.  Get out your duct tape and chewing gum and keep that aging CAD system working until your PEOPLE are trained.  It is far more expensive to replace telecommunicators every year or so due to stress, burnout, and lack of guidance and training, than replacing your hardware every 5 years.

Train and certify proficiency in your Communications Center to reduce the opportunities for “human error”.  Please......do it for Denise.