Police said they have reviewed the delay and taken steps to see that it doesn't happen again.
SPRINGFIELD – A “technical glitch” in the Springfield Police Department’s computer-aided dispatch system last Tuesday night kept officers from responding to an ongoing vandalism-spree to parked cars in the Forest Park neighborhood for well over an hour.
East Alvord Street resident Meghan Ashe, one of the first to report the vandalism, said she heard the “puff, puff” of a BB-gun or air rifle closely followed by the sound of breaking glass.
“It was my car window,” Ashe said, adding that when she quickly called police to report the crime she saw on her cell phone that it was 10:07 p.m.
The two youthful suspects ran away, but came back some 15 minutes later and started up again, this time on West Alvord Street, where they shot the windows of two more vehicles, Ashe said.
Ashe said she again called police to report that the situation was ongoing and that the suspects were still in sight. Other neighbors called as well, she said.
At least six vehicles on East Alvord, West Alvord and Davidston streets had been hit in the spree, she said.
Ashe said, however that it was close to 11:40 p.m. by the time she saw any officers on scene. By then, the suspects were long gone.
Ashe said the failure of the police to get there sooner was unsettling. “They are literally right in front of me,” Ashe said of the suspects. “And, that didn’t seem to make a difference.”
Sgt. John M. Delaney confirmed Ashe’s story, although he said that officers arrived in the neighborhood by 11:24 and not in the area of 11:40 p.m. as Ashe indicated.
Even so, however, the lag time of 1 hour and 16 minutes between the call and the response was not acceptable and is “something that normally wouldn’t happen under all the proper circumstances,” he said.
Delaney said the delay was caused by a “technical glitch in the computer-assisted dispatch system.
It began, he said, when the initial call was reported to dispatchers as a low priority because the vandalism was not thought to be an immediate and ongoing concern.
Subsequent calls that came in on the ongoing spree were never upgraded on the screens that dispatchers use to direct police.
Response was further delayed by reports of shots fired (with a firearm) on Myrtle Street and a violent domestic situation, Delaney said.
Commissioner William J. Fitchet has been apprised of the delay and Melissa Nazzari, director of emergency communications, has met with the department’s call-takers and dispatchers to review the matter and ensure that it doesn’t happen again, Delaney said.