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Subscribe to RSSIn an exclusive interview with Dateline NBC, the 911 dispatcher who took the first call from the social worker outside of Josh Powell's home tells Keith Morrison that he wishes he had better understood what the circumstances were and "the lethal quality" of the call.
David Lovrak, one of the 911 operators who took a call from a social worker outside Josh Powell's house, said in an interview with NBC’s "Dateline" he had no idea of the severity of the situation.
In an exclusive interview broadcast Friday night, Lovrak, who has been criticized for his questions when Elizabeth Griffin-Hall called him on Sunday, said that like so many others in this case, he didn't recognize the kind of man they were dealing with.
"Especially for somebody who has done this for as long as I have, to relisten to the call and hear how clumsy and faltering I sounded," Lovrak said. "It was horrible. This has been a nightmare."
AP
In this bank surveillance photo released by the Pierce Co. Sheriff's Dept., Josh Powell, left, is seen making a withdrawal at a bank in Puyallup, Wash on the day before he and his sons died.
Anti-gay Westboro church cancels protest at Powell sons' funeral
Powell killed himself and his two young sons in a gas-fueled inferno on Sunday in the town of Graham, Pierce County, Washington state, authorities say. Pierce County authorities said they consider the murder-suicide an admission that he killed his wife, Susan Powell, who disappeared in Utah in 2009. At the time, Josh Powell said he took his two sons ice camping in subfreezing temperatures.
The Pierce County Sheriff's Department said the first call Sunday came in at 12:08 p.m. Five minutes later, at 12:13, information from that call was transferred to the radio dispatcher. At 12:16, two deputies were sent to the scene. The first unit arrived at 12:30. By then, the house was a raging inferno.
In the interview broadcast on Friday, Lovrak didn’t say why it took 22 minutes to get a deputy to the scene, only that no one could have predicted what happened.
Cops: Powell computer depicted parent-child sex
"Realizing what we all know now, I wish I had recognized the urgency of the situation," he said.
Griffin-Hall said Josh Powell told his sons he had a "big surprise" for them as they ran to his home, shortly before he assaulted them with a hatchet and then set fire to the home.
"He caught my eye, his shoulders were slumped. He had a sheepish look," said Griffin-Hall, who had been taking the boys, Charles, 7, and Braden, 5, on visits for three months. "He just shrugged his shoulders and slammed the door."
Also on Friday, Pierce County detectives reported finding a gray-blue-pink comforter with a stain. Search warrant documents say the comforter tested positive for blood. Investigators planned to perform further tests.
In addition, the Sheriff's Department released a timeline that spans from last Saturday, the day before the blast, to Monday, the day after. Among the details that police are trying to determine is if Powell bought the gas cans at a local Fred Meyer store the night before the house fire.
This past week, investigators have tried to piece together Powell's last days, serving search warrants for his sister's cell phone and a local Bank of America branch where security cameras captured him withdrawing money.
Police also received tips from the public, such as a woman who noticed donated books that Josh and Susan Powell had written in.
On the blood found on the comforter, Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist said that presumptive tests are conducted with a field kit and that a determination of blood won't be confirmed until the item is examined in the lab.
"Field tests are not infallible," he said.
Lindquist said he expects the finding will be something law enforcement will share with colleagues in Utah who have been investigating Susan Powell's disappearance.
The comforter was the only item police kept from what they found in the storage facility, located in Sumner, a city about 12 miles from Graham, where Powell rented a home.
Investigators also found toys and kids' clothes in garbage bags, as well as framed pictures. Those items were given to Susan Powell's family.
This article includes reporting from NBC station KING5 of Seattle and The Associated Press.
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News
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"I had no idea of the severity of the situation". well next time try listening to the caller and take action. you never know if life is in danger from where you sit. You hve to assume that life is n danger all the time. Hope that makes you sleep better at night. You know the fact that you "had no idea of the severity of the situation".
What was said by the 911 dispatcher, is that he told Griffin Hall "We attend to Emergencies of Life and Death Situations first". What was this? A Dummy could figure this one out--
A Dispatcher who is well-trained has the gut feeling when someone like this Social Worker called in hysterical; pleading this case of Powell/smelling gasoline, hearing the boys cry. The ER Dept taking up to 24 min. to get to the house--a long delay. Was this guy Deaf?
He should be fired---99 per cent of the 911 Dispatchers do an excellent job at sending out the Police, Fire Dept; Medic Cars for Medical Emergencies.
Yes, the kids sometimes call 911 to prank, and some adults get their jollies from calling this number, but this was no Jolly--
What a sad ending. Am sure that in the end, Powell would have found a way to kill his 2 children, doing it in a public place. He was H-bent on destroying the entire family. EVIL.
CYA by the Dispatcher--
Nothing the operator could have dont, even if he acted within minutes the father would surely would have killed his children anyways. So nothing they could have done, swat team or 100 police officer. The man had a plan and he was going to carry it out. NOBODY IS AT FAULT! cept for the father
No need to apologize, anyone who says the operator could have reacted faster go sit on it and rotate.
Until you hae been on the other side of that radio, you can NOT understand. Yes, it should have been treated with urgency. But NONE OF THEM, NOT ONE OF THEM, knew the man they were dealing with. Every call should be given the same expediency; however, a dispatcher has to prioritize calls. And a domestic situation, unless they're told it's gotten out of hand, is NOT the same as a "man with a gun" type of situation. You did NOT have a trained officer on the scene, only a social worker. Should that excuee it? Not necessarily. But a trained officer would have had more experience with the situation. In addition, he'd NEVER given indications in the past, either by words or demeanor to indicate anything other than the initial impression.
And BTW, I was a police dispatcher for 10 years and have handled every type of situation. So, until YOU walk that mile in the shoes I've walked in, don't be so damn quick to judge that dispatcher. Even the best of us can be fooled and I can tell you from experience, that call WILL HAUNT that dispatcher for the rest of his life, just as it will haunt everyone involved with this case.
Powell had them ALL fooled. And 2 innocent children died from his evil deception.
The dispatcher had no way of knowing what was going on, give the guy a break. I hope he feels he did the best he could under the circumstances, what more can we ask of a human being. He's not going to make the same mistake again be assured of that, he will definately be a better person if he can return to the job and should use what he has learned to teach others. What has happened will haunt him for the rest of his life, hope he can overcome the PTSD he's obviously suffered as a result of a very deranged person. Josh Powell is the only person anyone should find fault with. I feel very bad for the social worker at the scene, the poor lady will have to live with this for the rest of her life, can you imagine the trauma and nightmares she will have. Josh Powell subjected his children to a horrible death, the only consolation I have is that God won't forgive him. God loves us and wants to forgive but in this case how can that happen?
WAKE UP.
ASSUME ALL CALL ARE HORRIBLE.
this guy is a dumb-ash.
The punishment for making a false 911 call should be
1st offense 6 months in jail.
2nd offense 2 years.
It seems like we spend all of our energies cutting social services, 911 dispatcher, police and other tax funded departments. Then when a tragedy like this happens everyone points their finger as fast as they can. Instead of "hating liberals" and hiding behind anonymous posts, it's time to man up and start paying taxes so we can cover services like police so they can respond to these kinds of emergencies. We should be covering 911 so every call that comes in can be taken seriously. We need better social services so children's cases don't all end up being emergency only. And if we had some kind of way to help the mentally ill, instead of a set of bootstraps to pull them selves up by, maybe all of this could have been avoided.
"He locked me out of the house and now I smell gasoline" - and you say the 911 operator couldnt have known this was an emergency, Gary?!?!? Really?!?!
Sheesh!
Sheesh is right,
It took 22 minutes to get a cop there.
So how much faster could it have happened? 10 minutes maybe?
Thats if they treated the call like an officer is down, shots fired, we're under fire call.
No one would think anyone would do what this nut job did.
Now even if cops got there 12 minutes after the call, guess what, the same outcome would have occurred, you cant go into an exploding house.
What a sad day. I have no Idea what is happening in Our World. The little ones always suffer at the hands of evil. I know the Boys are with God Now and their so called Father will burn in Hell forever. Rest in peace little angels. We all love you
Have you read about some of the stupid reasons people call 911? They call because their pizza is late, or their order is wrong. They call because they got pulled over earlier in the day and want the officer's phone number because they think he/she is cute. They call because their meth was stolen.
Yes, in this case the call was legitimate, but unless there was an officer parked outside the house, it would have been almost impossible to prevent what happened. The kids were in the house for only a few minutes before their psycho father took an ax to them. It's not like he waited an hour or two. He had planned the whole thing and was ready to kill his children and himself as soon as they arrived. The 911 responder of course feels guilty, but short of the social worker violating a court order and not taking the children for this visit, there was no way to save these two boys.
I'm glad so many on here feel they can Monday morning quarterback the 911 operator. Meanwhile your job has a tenth the stress. Go back to your inventories, cash registers and clothes folding and just pray that the folks working the difficult jobs do them perfectly.
WoW!! I am Totally amazed at how easy it is to point the finger of blame. Josh is the only one that is totally responsible for this tragedy. Think about it; he had been planning this for God knows how long; in fact I think he was just waiting to see what the courts decision would be in his case and he thought to himself that if things didn't go his way, he was going to follow through with his plan. So don't be so self righteous people and quit blaming everyone else for this tragedy. Even if the 911 call had dispatched the police right away they would not have made it in time and Josh knew that when he initiated his evil plan, it had to be done quickly so no one could stop him. I do however believe that the judge should never have allowed the supervised visitations, at least until he had his psych eval. How dare those who insist that the social worker should have kicked down the door, are you kidding me. #1 she is a defenseless woman plus she is not a trained police officer nor should she have to risk her own life (especially if she has a family of her own), she did the next best thing and called 911 and her supervisor. So get over yourselves and quit judging all who did their jobs according to law.
flbikerchick as a dumb ace do you even know how those two boys died from the smoke in that fire while the stupid dateline paying this 911 operator to tell his story in the 6 minutes he wasted asking stupid questions those boys may have been save from living a through the hell of burning to death your a bigger dope that the 911 operator maybe you should get a job as a 911 operator you would fit right in.
The 911 operator is a good example what your tax dollars are paying for, a stupid gov. worker who can't error on the side of caution and get help to you as fast as they can which is his job by the way not waste 6 minutes asking stupid questions those of you that want to defend this load listen to the 911 taps of this clown he should be taken off 911.
The way this crazy man had things set up and ready, even a four minute response probably would not have saved the kids, but this dispatcher is an idiot. The most important thing a dispatcher does is listen and figure out quickly what is needed, his comment about life threatening things coming first shows that he does not have what it takes to make this kind of discernment.
OK, time for a reality check...Let's say the dispatcher immediately identified the urgency of the call, and dispatched police within one minute. Let's also say the the police were patrolling within 5 minutes of the house. Best case scenario, they're on scene within 6 minutes.
Upon hearing the sirens of the police cars screaming to the scene, Josh Powell strikes a match (the social worker says she smelled it, meaning it was already out of the gas can)...leading to the same outcome. Let's get off this poor dispatcher's back. There was no response on his part that would have changed the outcome of this situation.
The poor kids were bludgeoned with a hatchet, for godssake. Powell probably got them as soon as they got into the house. Everyone involved feels like crap and the outcome would have been the same regardless of what anyone else could have done. It is a tragedy beyond comprehension and nothing will make anybody feel better about it, even casting blame around.
The dispatcher is good hearted and admitting that he could've acted faster. But unfortunately it doesnt look like that would've changed the end result.
I am a firm liberal but I believe this case exemplies that we as society should emphasize moral values in our education. When people have a strong moral core they are less likely to fall prey to such extreme behavior. Just like Ayn Rand - I believe morality doesn't have to stem from religion.
why wasn't the social services agency prepared for this by having a plan itself instead of relying on 911? should have set something up directly with pd dispatch so that reaction didn't turn on an adequate explanation to the 911 operator. 'hey Sarge, we have a potential problem involving the powell case which we have previously discussed, and need someone on the scene asap'. having to make a full explanation to each new operator can be expected to be frustrating. nothing about the situation was run-of-the-mill.
The 911 Dispatcher did an awful job handling this one.
He must be forgiven. Yes, both the Dispatcher and Social Worker have had enough trauma from selfish Powell to last a lifetime. I hope the 2 work through this with good care and counseling. Family/friends/public support.
No one is ever the same, if they actually experienced a situation like this.
I would imagine, as a DSS worker this employee has seen many other troubling instances that have required police assistance, so I'm sure the two are no strangers to each other. In the future, perhaps DSS and police could develop a simple code system to indicate the desperation of a situation when children are involved. Maybe something similar to the "Amber alert". This whole story is so ..............................
Sorry for the bold face type, but this can never happen again to innocent children.
I would imagine, as a DSS worker this employee has seen many other troubling instances that have required police assistance, so I'm sure the two are no strangers to each other. In the future, perhaps DSS and police could develop a simple code system to indicate the desperation of a situation when children are involved. Maybe something similar to the "Amber alert". This whole story is so ..............................
Sorry for the bold face type, but this can never happen again to innocent children.
The dispatcher was right, when he said that the police coming to the scene would have set up a perimeter and believed it was a hostage situation. They wouldn't know that he had everything IN the house he needed to do his killing. they'd bring in a negotiator, etc. So there is nothing they could have done to stop this.
911 operators deal with calls, one after the other. and anyone calling 911 believes it is an emergency, even when its fairly minor. To the caller, it IS an emergency. Even a 911 operator would not have believed that a Father would do this, instead of having a supervised visit.
What a minute? DOES ANYBODY HERE believe for a sec that if police were sent immediately the children would still be alive? God I hope not...
Tim:
No one believes that; "children could have been saved". "Immediate alarm coming from the Social Worker"; when talking to the dispatcher. All 911 calls are considered immediate emergencies, except from the pranksters..
It is the way the call was handled, not putting this case as a priority response. The questions asked were from a Dispatcher who was not fully capable of detecting a dire situation. Large time delay--
This is Washington. It can take the cops 45 minutes to get responders out to you when they are ACROSS THE STREET. Seriously. The 911 dispatcher, while admittedly kind of a d-bag, couldn't have changed the outcome. The psycho dad had already bludgeoned them with an axe...
Tim,
cool, then i'm doing my part
It wouldn't have mattered at all. The police could not have gotten there in time to do anything, and even if they were right around the corner, they may have been killed in the blast.
All this hashing it over and rehashing it over is sick and disgusting. The news media is getting it's jollies racking in the coins by keeping this in front of the public's eye. There's other news out there, and rather than disect this to the smallest particle, they need to move on. Already there's been an attempted copycat in Richland, WA.
Enough of this already. Let he family bury their dead with the Paparazzi glorifying evil, again.
Not sure how 911 operates...but I think any call to 911 the 911 operator should dispatch it right away to the police dispatcher and have them send a car out to check the problem...even if its a fake call... sent them out anyway, the caller will be arrested for the fake call (if fake) and charged a fine. Not all police officers are busy at emergency's every minute..so send someone out to check it out.
I did volunteer firefighting and there was a nursing home where some of the old seniors pulled the fire alarm everyday for the fun of it...we went to all of those alarms..even though we knew they were false alarms..its in our rules, go to any call.
I'm sure 911 has called ID or way way to know who called.
maybe the outcome couldn't have been changed. this tool needs to find a new career, having listened to the entire call, this guy doesn't deserve his job. now he'll make the interview rounds, trying to defend his abysmal performance, probably make a decent penny on the side.. he doesn't belong in public in his chosen industry.
I think people are naive to think 911 calls constitute an emergency, too many stupid people in our society that call at the drop of the hat. Those kids were doomed at visit rights. Maybe that decision should be reviewed but our blame society usually points the finger the wrong way, away from the perpetrator.
Hmmm... At 911 dispatch centers, there are procedures one must follow. The call receiver must get certain information from the caller, and those details can take a few minutes. However, apparently, this dispatcher did not respond immediately to the caller's comment about the smell of gas.
As soon as the caller mentioned the smell of gas, the dispatcher should have sent a sheriff's deputy and the fire department, to do an urgent "welfare check" at that house. By urgent, I mean red lights and sirens. That did not happen, and a lot of time passed before the dispatcher finally made a dispatch.
However, a Pierce County Sheriff's office spokesperson said that there could have been police and fire waiting at the curb, and there would not have been anything they could have done to help the boys. That is due to the way their father had set up the house for instant flammability. Police and fire could have been surrounding the house, but the result would have been the same.
The fact remains that Josh Powell was an evil coward. He knew the probable outcome of a psychosexual evaluation. More likely than not, the results would have meant that his custody and visitation rights would have been terminated by the court. I am guessing that is what made him decide to end things on his own terms.
This is just another case to show how idiotic our justice system is. We need to put aside some constitutions when common sense overwhelms the rights of one individual. This would have never happened if the sheriffs department, like so many of us , questioned whether a father would take their kids into a blizzard to go camping while their Mother disappears ! Our we all morons not to know that this man killed his wife?!? I knew it from the moment i heard his alibi! A 6th grader could come to the same conclusion but because we have rights as far as "Innocent til proven guilty" & there was no body..etc... we allow this piece of @!$%# to take another two innocent lives! Common sense should prevail in these situations & action taken to prevent something like this happening. Those kids should have never been with him! Not until they found out what happened to their Mom or until evidence showed he was innocent or simply our common sense told us so! His purpose was to kill his wife and make sure no one found her body. So basically if he did exactly what he wanted and did it efficiently then he gets away with murder only because our justice system only uses what tools they have and guidlines they need to follow....f-ck using common sense!! they don't get paid to use that!
Mike, only enhanced 911 gives the dispatcher the address on their screen. The social worker called from her cell phone. Her location did not show up on his screen. I don't know about Washington state, but in NY, there is no guarantee that a cell phone call goes to the nearest dispatcher, even with enhanced 911. A few years ago in NY, there were some young guys hiking. They lost their footing and fell from a mountain. Even with calling from a cell phone, it took quite a while for the police to get there because the call was routed to a police station an hour away. The hiker gave the dispatcher the name of the mountain they were on, but the dispatcher was not familiar with the location. I don't know if they have been able to fix that yet, although the GPS in cell phones helps.
That said, even though the outcome would have been the same, this dispatcher took too long to comprehend what was being told to him.
I fault only the psycho killer for the murders of his sons. In hindsight, I think social workers should receive reasonable training about how to prepare for violent developments in supervised visitations. Social workers should always carry their mobile phone and know the address of their visitation location. Understandably, the social worker was shook up and surprised by the father closing the door in her face. However, when the social worker described it as "weird" I can see why the 9-1-1 dispatcher treated the call as non-life-threatening for so many minutes.
Several decades ago I worked as a safety specialist (not an emergency responder) for a large aircraft maintenance outfit. I received a call about a foul odor coming from a major aircraft component-size autoclave oven. I advised the caller to meet me outside the building. The caller said it was her lunch break and she would not be available. I (wrongly) assumed it must be a harmless petty annoying smell issue. Turned out to be a major toxic cloud release caused by illegal burning of hazardous waste in the giant autoclave oven. Dozens of exposed workers in the building had to be rushed by ambulance to hospital for evaluation and treatment. In hindsight the entire building should have been immediately evacuated, 9-1-1 called and emergency services dispatched. Hindsight is "20-20 vision".
Last time I called 911 (I live near where this happened, BTW) it was because I was followed home from my bus stop by a man who, as soon as he saw I'd reached my front door, began running down the street and not thirty seconds later, came back up and was staring at the front window from the street (my house is set back from the street on a hill by 25 feet or so). I called the cops on him and they were there within 3 minutes. Luckily there was a cruiser close enough for the quick response, but the 911 dispatcher did not give me any trouble at all about it not being a "life-threatening" situation or any such bull. Within the past year I've had cops dispatched to my house three times, once for this guy, once for drug activity across the street and once for a robbery after-the-fact. Never have they taken more than 10 minutes to arrive. Never has 911 given me any trouble. This area has seen an increase in gang and drug activity in the past couple years, and the local 911 dispatchers always take our reports of suspicious activity very seriously, even if it's down the street from us and even if it's just a noise complaint. The cops always come and they're always gracious. There's no excuse for the response time on this call.
PJ <<<>>> So! You are a firm liberal. But, you believe we as a society should encourage moral values in education. But, when we try just that, are you among those who call us some kinda weird extremist wackos?
First - my condolences go out to the families of those kids, and the parents of the missing woman.
Second - I just have to ask a few questions:
Only in America can someone walk into a store, rob the clerk, rape a customer, exit the store, shoot a policeman (with all captured on video tape with a dozen witnesses) - and still be called a "SUSPECT" or "Joe Smith who "allegedly committed [enter crime here]".
Our system is broken. Rest in peace to those little children, and most likely the wife as well.
Why???? One word. White!!!
@selem.... 1) They were not unsupervised visits. The kids ran in front of the social worker who was there to supervise and into the house where Powell promptly shut and locked the door. 2) It was Powell's father's computer that had pictures/videos of deviant sex. 3) Unless the court order that Powell be evaluated for psycho-sexual issues also rescinded his visitation rights legally the visit could not be denied.
"Only in America can someone walk into a store, rob the clerk, rape a customer, exit the store, shoot a policeman (with all captured on video tape with a dozen witnesses) - and still be called a "SUSPECT" or "Joe Smith who "allegedly committed [enter crime here]"."
While you obviously disagree with this it is one of the pillars of our justice system. You are to be considered innocent unless and until you are proven guilty in a court of law.
The reason reporters use the term "allegedly" is so that 1) they can not be sued for slander if the suspect is not found guilty. 2) To not prejudice potential members of a jury.
He had no business having any contact with the children to begin with, so the judge who ordered this should be censured at the very least, and in the second place, even supervised visits should take place at the office of the social service agency in charge in that county, or at another neutral location so that nothing like this could be planned by him. These people are incredibility stupid to have allowed this situation to play out the way it did. No way in hell should he have been allowed to host them inside his home, especially with only one social worker going alone with the boys. Talk about a royal screw up. I wonder if they will actually learn anything from what this psycho has done. He didn't give a rat's behind about those boys, it was all about control. Nobody was going to tell him what to do anymore. Looks like he won, bastard.
The times , as long as they may seem, are appropriate and do not seem to be delayed. 911 dispatchers do need to ask questions to determine what kind of response to send. I don't believe anything would have changed if the police, who were probably coming from a distance, had arrived sooner.
It's easy for those who have no experience in fire,EMS, police or emergency communications to make a judgement.
If any system failed, it's tghe one that allowed this man to have a visitation in his home without a police presence.
Selem-3098200..........Would have been great if you had read the story before commenting.
Salem, in almost any civilized country, not just in the US, until a person is found guilty by trial, a person accused of a crime is legally a suspect, and should be referred to as such.
Yes, this man should have only had supervised visits inside the office of social services while guarded by armed police. But trust me, next time we raise taxes so we can get more social workers the plan will be stopped faster than an abortion bill that takes away guns. We would all like to think that this kind of situation "shouldn't" happen. We would all like to live a place where it "couldn't" happen. But what we say and what we hope for is different than what we are willing to pay for.
I haven't heard much call for helping the father before he even had these children. Where is the help for the truly mentally ill so they don't even get to cause this kind of tragedy? We could be helping each other a lot more right now.
I don't think he was mentally ill. He was a murderer - first his wife then his kids. Evil.
That is not only in America but all other developed countries as well. I'm not a big fan of due process myself but I at least understand it...
You'd be a fan of due process when it applies to you, Tim? Just not universally?
meh spent 3 days in a jail for a crime i didnt commit - like my father told me " think of all of that crap in your life you did get away with".. " this is your punishment" but yeah when we have clear evidence that a crime was committed , saying allegedly is wrong.
I read the other day that the visitation was changed to the home because other people at the "safe location" were staring at him and talking about him. I don't remember if it was at this site or another site that I read this information.
The guy was a freak. No wonder people were staring at him and talking about him.
Why would a man that is going to kill himself withdraw $7000? Did they find the money? Are they sure that the body belongs to Powell?
How do we know what amount he withdrew?
One of his sisters has never let Josh around her kids, but the one sister that speaks to him was sent a message telling her where the $7,000. was.
This horrific unimaginable crime was totally planned out right down to having the hatchet there to hack his little boys. I don't think anyone knew they were dealing with such an evil, evil man. The devil was so embedded in this man that we can't grasp just how horrible he was.
Powell's pervert father should get the death penalty for assisting in the creation of that POS......
The father may never get out of jail. He was an alleged abettor to the Susan Powell crime; not proven yet, but there is plenty of evidence---He is another incestuous, Mentally Ill Psychopath in this Crime. "Like Father like Son", in this horrific case.
It's too bad this couldn't have been recognized earlier, instead of making this the 911 operator's fault.
...you got that right!
What haunts me about these boy's deaths is that Powell used a hatchet on their necks--not to kill them, but to paralyze them so they couldn't get away. They died of smoke inhalation, but had no way to get away from it. Now it takes a special kind of evil to do that to two children. He made sure they had spinal cord injuries so that they died in the fire....How disturbing is that? It just haunts me that a father could do that to his kids. A quick blow to the head is one thing...but hacking at their necks and allowing them to die of smoke inhalation is just over the top. No blame of anyone else involved will mitigate what he did to those boys.
Colorblind:
This was a real true Monster---What other description is possible of a person that did not seem to belong to the Homosapiens Group.
That's exactly what a idiot sounds like when they are given a position of responsibility and ATTEMPT to sound educated.
This is what an idiot sounds like when they can post what ever they want on the internet and ATTEMPT to sound educated. Anyone can sit back with 20/20 hindsight and criticize about a situation that happened.
A tragedy for so many and so many questions left unanswered. The Coxes have shown grace to the judge, social worker and dispatcher and the public needs to do the same. It is always easy to find fault. May God comfort those that have been impacted by this tragedy and peace in knowing the boys and their mom are together for now and all eternity.
Salem: #1- The visits were supervised. Powell slammed the door and locked the social worker out.
#2- Damn good question! Communication breakdown at the government level.
#3- It was her job. She was directed to do so by her department. Don't blame her! Can you
even imagine how badly she must feel? The poor woman will carry this for the rest of her life!
Hindsight is always 20-20 in complicated situations that come to bad results.
It's not about her, it's about the two little boys and Susan.Clearly the social worker isn't the only one who acted inappropriately, but her actions were grossly inappropriate, along with the dispatcher's and the judge's.
When a competent adults get told by their boss to put two little boys in a situation where the children may well be in imminent danger you first try to reason with your boss about why you aren't comfortable with that assignment.If the boss tries to demand that you do it anyway maybe you can go over their head, but the sad truth is that sometimes in the real world bosses tell people to do things that are wrong and/or dangerous and when they do it's time to grow up and think for ourselves instead of blindly doing anything somebody else tells us to.
Sometimes people have to make a choice between a job or doing something seriously unethical/immoral/illegal.Often it doesn't come to losing your job. Often if you stand your ground they will try to work something out with you. But the bottom line is that there are some things people should not be willing to do for money, and leaving those two little boys alone with Mr. Powell should have been one of them.
The social worker was doing her job as the court ordered, the person to blame is the judge, he/she put innocent people in a deadly situation!
Gee kc I did not realize you were there and witnessed the entire event. Nor did I realize you can see the future. Why didn't you contact local law enforcement when you realized, in advance, that this was going to happen? Oh, now I understand why you are saying stupid things... "... leaving those two little boys alone with Mr. Powell should have been one of them." You are an uninformed idiot. There is one and only one person to blame for this and he died in the fire that he set.
I don't respond to abuse other than to say that I've asked the moderators to intervene.
Anyone else who gets called "Stupid","An uninformed idiot" or anything similar and doesn't believe that they deserve to be talked to like that for expressing an opinion should send a copy of the abusive post to
http://www.newsvine.com/_nv/cms/info/codeOfHonor
Boo Hoo Hoo STFU !
She was doing her job not acting " inappropriate " Why don't you check the facts before you post such ignorant BS .In other words pull your head out the sand !
kcstrawberryblonde--I'm sure the only reason you were called stupid and uninformed idiot is because it is obviously true. So shut your pie hole.
"Comment collapsed by the community"
Bite me community !
kcstrawberryblonde, Since you're a woman then you will get help form the mods here. I called someone a bonehead and got suspended, but another person called me an Ahole and they pampered them and kissed their ass.
dmac225, donn-728253, Blazer_Maniac, you're each suspended for a day for violating #1 of the Code of Honor.
ObeyTheLaw, I don't know what your gender or kcstrawberryblonde's gender is, and I don't care. Doesn't affect how I moderate.
The judge who had jurisdiction in this case should be held responsible for allowing Powell to have supervised visitation in his home! The judge put those children and the social worker in a life threatening position by allowing supervised visitation with a maniac in a private setting. There was more then enough evidence that Powell was a danger to himself and others, after all, that's the reason the kids were taken out of his custody!
FB, are you kidding me?! Judges are never held accountable for any wrongdoing in America!
Yea non-custodial fathers kill their children all the time during supervised visits.... Or better yet this judge should have been able to see into the future... Damn this judges lack of ability to see into the future! He should be held responsible! No one who knew Powell thought he would ever do such a thing! They too should be held responsible for his actions.
dmac225, it's obvious you can't understand what the facts indicate. The judge had reports of Powell's previous arrests and behavior and it was enough that this judge ordered supervised visitation, the judge didn't need to look into the future, he/she looked into the past to determine that all visitations needed to be supervised. The judge should have been wise enough to know that by letting the visitations take place in Powell's home and not in a public setting was putting anyone coming to his home at potential risk.
There is new website: "The Robing Room", to rate/discuss experience with judges. I have read it regarding NJ judges.
If you have listened to the call, you can tell that this 911 dispatcher was being a Douchebag with the Social Worker. For one part of the questioning, he was even asking her about her job and what she does, even though she told him previosly she could hear the kids crying and smelled Gas. I think this guy should DEFINITELY be fired and charged with obstruction of justice. Listen to the audio and you can hear the sarcasm in his voice and total disregard for what is happening. he just wants to be an a@#hole to this social worker!!!!
This dispatcher, David Lovrak, has a serious attitude problem. Very unprofessional.
@starfox: Agreed.
What never ceases to amaze me in released 911 tapes--the dispatcher can't determine the exact location of the emergency if the call is made from a cell (as in this case). Shouldn't one of the first questions be "What is the address?"
An earlier response probably wouldn't have changed the outcome in this tragic incident, but it would've painted a better pricture of the dispatcher's professionalism.
exactly
If you listen to the tapes, one of the first questions he asked is the address. The social worker didn't know it, and wasted several minutes digging out the piece of paper w/ the address in her car.
It saddens me to hear a 911 dispatcher with 18 years on act like the sarcastic little bitch he has become...i'm sure when he was first hired he took his job seriously and now he mocks the public.....look inside you Mr David Lovrak it's time for you to move on..retire, so your department can heal from your actions....I'm sure you will be diciplined and lose some pay but that will not change the damage you have done to a respected position...Law Enforcement.... I am ashamed of you!
This whole case has been one giant fiasco since day one! West Valley PD has screwed this up every step of the way.Ive been following this case since it first started. The computer inages were found 2 years ago! Why hadnt WVCPD sent that info to Wa State? They have confirmed the blood on the comporter is human,now DNA testing.The day Susan came up missing,Josh had a brand new comforter in his van and the one that had been on their bed was missing.This could very well be the missing one. And it was in storage the whole time! I could go on and on about how this whole case has been miss handled,but it would be a long book by the time I finished,and I gotta get some sleep. Thoughts and prayers to the boys and Susan.God Bless em.
They found blood stain on a comforter, not computer. Why didn't they find this two years ago when they searched the house in Utah? Very painful to learn that Utah only informed WA about the incestuous cartoon last week while they had this information all along. Wrong on so many levels from the West Valley PD.
Sorry about the typo,it was late and I'm medicated for chronic pain.Hard to proof read it all.
He "Had no idea of the severity of the situation" however if he had listened and had half a brain he would have.
So much for the SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE! I am so appalled.I say we vote to ban Hetero marriage. How can we tolerate such an abomination to GAWD!
Let's ban divorce.....Oh wait? Does this mean that more innocent women and children will get murdered because some men can't deal with the reality of letting go? Naw!.... that's ok. As long as we ban those queers from getting married because Gawd forbid.
This isn't the time to air your political views. It's disrespectful in light of this tragedy, and you're making yourself look like an utter, utter idiot. This doesn't have anything to do with whether they were married or not. Play the douche someplace else.
Awful case. The only possible bright side, is if policy changes regarding how these cases are handled. Still cant understand why a home visit was permitted. If any case warranted a neutral site, this was it.
David Lovrak, one of the 911 operators who took a call from a social worker outside Josh Powell's house, said in an interview with NBC’s "Dateline" he had no idea of the severity of the situation. Some1 help me, But isn't 911 for HURRY, We have an EMERGENCY. That guy is clueless and so are the excuses. David Lovrak, YOU'RE FIRED!!!
Except people call 911 for everything from "What's the number for animal control?" to "I'm 15 and this girl called me names on facebook" to real emergencies. Also, the social worker started the call by saying "Something weird has happened..." which doesn't convey much of a sense of urgency. Lots of weird things happen.
As a 911 operator, you should hear HALF the weird stuff I hear.
She also expected him to know who Josh Powell was. The name didn't strike anything with me until someone mentioned the Utah case. We hear hundreds of names every day, and quite frankly I avoid the news because I live it.
911 operators aren't mind readers. We need the public to tell us what we need to know.
Yes, things could have gone better (I flinch at the squabbling over who is supervising who) but in the long run, the situation she was describing wasn't signaling an immediate threat. Serious? Yes.
This 911 operator is a smart ass...you can hear it in his voice during the call - especially when the social worker asks how long it will take for the police to get there. Why does he have to have made the "connection" with the killer's name...can't he listen or was the social worker "bothering" him? There are a few million people who need work and here we have some schmuck who can talk to people the way he did. Fire him and hire someone who really wants to do a good job! Sleep tight jerk!
Agreed. There is no telling how many other people in distress that he verbally or psychologically abused or even prevented getting the help that they needed over the years.
If one shred of good can come from this maybe it can be that this guy got busted and held accountable.
Nothing the 911 operator did or did not do would have prevented this horrible crime--Having said that, it is clear that he was being a smart@ss with the CPS worker and mocking her. He couldn't wrap his mind around the severity of the situation. That doesn't excuse his lack of empathy and professionalism in any way. He was intentionally being a jerk and he knows it. I am sure his thoughts were: "I've got a hysterical CPS worker on the line that is making a mountain out of a mole hill and I'm just going to harass her until she cries." What a piece of work! It doesn't matter what he could or could not have done or the final outcome...So far as his actions are concerned, he was unprofessional and condescending. I understand that people get jaded in that line of work....Time to go find something else to do with your sarcasm.
As a Seattle resident for the past 15 years I am ashamed to say this is a very typical attitude. Seattle's slogan should be *Mediocrity or below is what we strive for*. His smug, holier than thou manner--especially when he asks her how she can supervise herself as she explains what she is doing at the house--is disgusting but not unexpected when you call 911 in this area. He is so busy being the smartest person in his own mind he is not even listening. This guy was actually on a *911* commercial instructing the public on making appropriate calls to 911 in the same sanctimonious tone he uses on this tape. I think it's time to find another job.
This 911 operator is full of crap. This is common practice of 911 operators in Pierce County, Washington
Lovrak, You've had your "15 minutes of Fame". Now go away!
Being an MHP in Pierce County WA for 15yrs. It is common practice for 911 to become aurgumentive with even liscensed professionals asking for police back up. (I guess the police are too busy pulling over motorists who's tags are expired)
If it wasnt horrible enough that he took his two innocent little boys with him to his death, he could of at the very least, left some indication where his wife's remains are. I am one who believes in heaven and hell - these little boys are angels in heaven while this POS is burning with the likes of Hilter, Bundy and all the other pieces of filth.
The 911 operator didn't understand the severity because he made the assumption right off that this was just some overwrought woman making much to do about nothing but I don't think it would have mattered if the Police had gotten to the house in one minute flat. Josh Powell is nothing more than a bottom feeding killer and nothing would have stopped him except a bullet to the head.
I hope Susan and her sons Rest In Peace.
Having many years experience in law enforcement, I have first-hand knowledge of dispatchers who for some reason believe THEY are the police and spend way too much time questioning callers rather than achieving their purpose which is to DISPATCH officers to the scene asap. There is usually ample time while the officers are enroute to the scene to glean more info from the caller and relay it to the responding units. Some dispatchers, not all by any means, go way beyond their scope of being the communicator between the caller and the officers feeling some sense of self-imposed authority and importance that has no place in this job. I have knowledge of a few who even try to "handle" the call or complaint over the phone themselves without even dispatching an officer. This is a fast paced job requiring the ability to think fast, listen clearly and open-mindedly, and GET THE OFFICER TO THE SCENE NOW!! Fire this dolt and do the public and the police a favor....
Usually it depends on the address which determinds whether they should "roll units," and get info, or, just get info first.
I guess they didn't live in a "prominent" enough area!
Moron. What was his job? Oh yeah, he answers 911 calls. Fire him, move on.
Gee, 911 guy, when the social worker said she smelled gasoline and said the kids were in danger--doesn't that sound pretty serious to you? I would like to see this man lose his job over his poor handling of an emergency call.