Minutes after visiting the controversial DC 911 call center, Councilmember Brooke Pinto announced a series of proposed reforms aimed at increasing oversight and transparency.
While unveiling the measures, Pinto stated, “We need a 911 call center that is filled with transparency, accuracy, and speed. The residents and visitors of DC deserve that.”
The center, formally known as the DC Unified Communications Office (OUC), claims to be one of the busiest in the nation, handling nearly 1.8 million emergency calls each year. According to DC officials, the system has experienced 18 outages this year (eight of which were widespread), nearly all occurring since late May.
During a July outage, a 5-month-old baby died due to confusion over which units to dispatch, as call records now indicate. It remains unclear if a quicker response could have saved the child’s life. Last month, OUC Director Heather McGaffin stated that no one on her team was at fault.
McGaffin now faces pressure to address the troubling system and keep DC residents informed about progress and issues.
Pinto, chair of the Council’s Judiciary Committee, committed to holding monthly oversight hearings starting this month to identify necessary fixes for the 911 center. She also mentioned that she would make unannounced visits to the center every two weeks.
“Solutions don’t always come from a new law or new idea,” Pinto emphasized on Monday. “It also requires daily follow-up and oversight to ensure that the agency, as you say, fulfills its part of the deal by following the law.”
Additionally, Pinto is proposing legislation that would require the OUC to publish after-action reports within 45 days of any 911 failures that resulted in serious injury or death. These reports would include detailed call records, transcripts of calls, and their recordings. The DC 911 office has not released such recordings in the past, citing privacy concerns for the callers.
The after-action reports would be conducted by the DC Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency with input from the OUC, DC police, and city fire and emergency medical services. This would allow the OUC to participate in its own review process.
When asked about an external agency conducting the reviews, Pinto told our sister station News4 that involving the police and firefighters would promote transparency.
“It’s not a blame game. It’s about taking a serious look at what went wrong so we can make improvements,” she stressed.
Inquiries to the OUC and the mayor’s office regarding the proposal went unanswered on Monday afternoon.
In a statement, an OUC spokesperson told News4: “The OUC is committed to transparency regarding how we critically assess performance to understand root causes, integrate best practices, and quickly implement changes to continuously improve 911 service for the District of Columbia.”
This marks the latest attempt, but not the first, by the District of Columbia Council to hold the 911 center accountable. The Council previously passed a law mandating the publication of times that show how long it actually takes for a call to be dispatched. The OUC has not complied with that part of the law, instead publishing other data. Pinto reported that she had been told it would happen before October 1. The OUC did not comment when the investigative team inquired about this.
In recent weeks, the News4 investigative team has reported on outages, police investigations, and long-standing staffing issues.
DC Mayor Muriel Bowser’s team released a 22-point plan to address OUC’s challenges, which prominently includes upgraded technology to reduce outages. However, much of this will not be resolved overnight. For example, DC leaders indicated that the technological solution to replace outdated servers could take months.
The Council is not currently in session but is set to reconvene later this month.