THE 911 call

[Chili Fries]

I wonder when Terri got to the school because if I remember right Desiree said Terri was at the school when the school called her to say Kyron was missing.

 

[Calliope]

We need a dispatcher in here to make sure I have this right, but from the little bit of testing I took I understood that dispatchers are not allowed to determine priority levels on their own accord. There is protocol on how to prioritize calls and it is based on the information rec'd coupled with where the units are at the time and what priority levels that they are already handling. I think there are a lot more levels to making a priority decision than what we realize.

I want to hear that tape now!!! <stomping feet>

Maybe the protocol made this a low priority, based upon what was told to the dispatcher? I'm not sure I'd blame the dispatcher without hearing what was said---and the entire call, too (not saying that's what you're doing btw). The secretary probably had an "oh ****!!!" moment when the bus driver called and then she was told Kyron had been absent all day. She may have gone into a CYA mode of sorts (understandably so, to a point).

 

[Calliope]

Staton said dispatchers at the Bureau of Emergency Communications classified the call from Skyline as "lowest priority." Dispatchers generally classify calls based on who's calling, what information is provided and whether there is an indication of danger or a medical issue.

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2010/06/kyron_horman_search_may_have_s.html

Arg, I'm going to have to go listen to the saturday PC anyway lol.

IIRC, Gates said they initially looked at this as if Kyron wandered away to a friend's house, or whatever (paraphrasing here).

I wonder what gave them THAT idea??? Especially if he'd been missing for over 6 hours at that point. What exactly did the school (and the parents) tell the dispatchers?

 

[Chewy]

thank you!

ok, so this lends itself to more questions

such as, why is a school secretary making the call & not the parents?

and, does it really take a 1/2 hour to respond to a missing child emergency (rhetorical)? my god, what a horribly long wait for parents

I don't get why people keep questioning the secretary making phone calls to 911 or DY. The school has a protocol they must follow. They must call all the parents on the emergency card in an emergency. Also they've been told that a child has been missing from their school, of course they have to call 911:waitasec:

 

[nervous_nellie]

the low priority seems to be along the same lines of the school staff that said that kyron must have went to the bathroom or to get a drink of water when one of kyrons friends asked where he was during the science fair.... imo, kyrons friends would have been more "in tune" to what he was doing during he fair than one of the aids/teachers... it baffles me that she/he teacher person didnt search kyron out when he didnt reappear within a reasonable amount of time after kyrons friend asked where he was.... thats what i think is "off"....

eta: my mom was a dispatcher for 33 years - i will ask her how it works in our area...

eta: kyrons family not calling 911 in the half hour before le showed up is not normal imo - if that is what happened....

 

[gardeness]

This may have been asked/answered before, but I don't recall seeing anything about it---most schools have a policy for checking a child out--even if the child has only been on campus for a short time. Either the child takes a note to the office, or the parent goes to the office to check the child out...do we know if this happened that morning? (or, the first question might be, does Skyline have a check-out policy?)...

 

[tragco]

I think the parents may have rushed over to the school to see if Kyron was there while the school meanwhile was looking to see if Kyron caught the bus or if he was in the school somewhere? Then the school called 911 when they knew for sure Kyron wasn't anywhere to be found.

I'm way more interested in hearing the 911 calls Terri placed during the blackmail sting operation with the landscaper who said Terri tried to hire him to kill Kaine.

 

[ami]

My daughter had a friend back in her grade school years who accidentally hopped on the wrong school bus and it caused some commotion at her drop off point when she wasn't there, but IIRC the school had a pretty good system in place for calling all the different bus routes, finding the child and transporting her back to school. It apparently wasn't unheard of for this sort of thing to happen - stay after school, miss the bus, wrong bus, etc. - so I'm wondering if at Skyline the secretary's 911 call was less urgent because she was still believing in those early moments that there was an explanation for this, however odd, that covered all the facts and still resulted in Kyron being somewhere safe.

 

[nervous_nellie]

the low priority seems to be along the same lines of the school staff that said that kyron must have went to the bathroom or to get a drink of water when one of kyrons friends asked where he was during the science fair.... imo, kyrons friends would have been more "in tune" to what he was doing during he fair than one of the aids/teachers... it baffles me that she/he teacher person didnt search kyron out when he didnt reappear within a reasonable amount of time after kyrons friend asked where he was.... thats what i think is "off"....

eta: my mom was a dispatcher for 33 years - i will ask her how it works in our area...

eta: kyrons family not calling 911 in the half hour before le showed up is not normal imo - if that is what happened....

sorry to quote myself i asked my mom about the "low priority" issue and she said that the only way that a dispatcher MIGHT classify a missing child as low priority is if the child is a chronic runaway/delinquent that is well known to le for those types of activities. OR that the person calling gives information that leads them to believe that the situation is not an emergency due to whatever reasons... which in my mind leads me back to the teacher/staff person that failed to look for kyron after he didnt return from going to the bathroom/getting a drink.... something is just off about these two incidents....jmho

 

[TxLady2]

Seems I remember too there being mention of traffic delay or something to that effect (so turn on the siren ???).

I wonder what the secretary may have told the dispatcher that caused them to make it a low priority? Or what the parents may have said that led LE to believe there was no big hurry?

Could be because no one felt a sense of urgency right then, thought it could be a mixup like Kyron getting on the wrong bus. Not many people think of a child being kidnapped from a school.
And since there seemed to be some confusion over whether he left with Terri for a doctor's appointment, the school is wondering why in the world a stepmother would be expecting him home on the bus if he was supposed to be with her. LE is totally in the dark by then.

 

[ThoughtFox]

I've had several occasions when my kids either didn't arrive home on time because of a bus mix-up or just a really late bus, and while I was terrified about it, . I've also seen parents get mixed up, say if they didn't know it was a holiday or didn't realize school was getting out early that day and they forgot to pick up the child.

So I think the reason this was given low priority was that a school secretary might be blase about parents who are panic-stricken, and figure that Kyron might have gotten off the bus with another kid. She didn't know it was an emergency - as much as we wish she had told the police that it might be.

 

[mom2chloe]

Geez, I simply cannot comprehend how a missing child could ever be a "low priority".

 

[LadyL]

I don't get why people keep questioning the secretary making phone calls to 911 or DY. The school has a protocol they must follow. They must call all the parents on the emergency card in an emergency. Also they've been told that a child has been missing from their school, of course they have to call 911:waitasec:

I was questioning why the school secretary instead of the parents

I just wanted to know the exact sequence of who called when

for ex. was Terri on a three-way with the school secretary & 911?

and, of course, that call, if released, could provide details we don't know

 

[liz b.]

I can see why TH called the school first if she is innocent of this crime. I once had my son not come home on the bus and I called the school first, of course! In my case, he decided to stay after school for some event and didn't bother to let his mother know about it. <rolling eyes>

I've actually wondered what would have happened if my situation would have been different and the school said he wasn't there all day. I would think BOTH of us would be calling 911, but who knows for sure?

Excellent point. I wouldn't call 911 if one of my children was not on the school bus. Sometimes the thank you button is not enough......

 

[liz b.]

Could be because no one felt a sense of urgency right then, thought it could be a mixup like Kyron getting on the wrong bus. Not many people think of a child being kidnapped from a school.
And since there seemed to be some confusion over whether he left with Terri for a doctor's appointment, the school is wondering why in the world a stepmother would be expecting him home on the bus if he was supposed to be with her. LE is totally in the dark by then.

This is interesting : If Kyron was marked absent, and his teacher believed he left with his SM for a doc appointment, I wonder that the secretary did not also have that information ? I wonder why she wouldn't say to LE, " Well, his SM said he had a doc's appointment, we believed he left school with her this morning.But now his family is saying he wasn't on the schoolbus..."

I wonder if the attendance records for each day go to the secretary after roll call is taken ? Some very interesting possibilities here.....

All JMO



All JMO

 

[JenB]

This is interesting : If Kyron was marked absent, and his teacher believed he left with his SM for a doc appointment, I wonder that the secretary did not also have that information ? I wonder why she wouldn't say to LE, " Well, his SM said he had a doc's appointment, we believed he left school with her this morning.But now his family is saying he wasn't on the schoolbus..."

I wonder if the attendance records for each day go to the secretary after roll call is taken ? Some very interesting possibilities here.....

All JMO



All JMO

BBM

I wonder if maybe she did say that, and that's part of the reason the 911 call hasn't been released yet.

I'm very curious about what was said in the call between Terri and Desiree that struck Desiree as "off."

 

[passionflower]

IO,calling the school to find out what happened to Kyron from school to bus......and not on bus seems normal.
For the secretary to call 911 seems normal.
BUT I would of called 911 also!
Where is my child would be my first and only priority!!!
There has to be many 911 calls and immediate searches to be normal.
What did TH /KH do immediately after no KYRON on bus???
Start calling his friends, 911 etc.
I would like to know that order of the calls.
Did they talk to bus driver?
So much we could learn from panic if there was any from TH.

 

[liz b.]

BBM

I wonder if maybe she did say that, and that's part of the reason the 911 call hasn't been released yet.

I'm very curious about what was said in the call between Terri and Desiree that struck Desiree as "off."

I don't think the secretary would have known for sure that Kyron left for a doc's appt. she would have just seen the absent mark in the roll call list,and,presumably entered it into the computer.

Also, I do not understand how Kyron's teacher,Ms. Porter, thought he had gone to see the doc that day. I can'f find any solid documentation of it. In fact, Kyron's friend,T. said that Ms. Porter told the "sub" that Kyron had probably gone to the restroom,or to get a drink of water. So, she apparently didn't think he had left the school at all ...... Just puzzling.

All JMO