911 dispatch system in Oakland fails again

(KRON) — Issues continue to plague the city of Oakland’s 911 system. After failing Thursday, the automated system failed for a second time Saturday and was down for hours. However, residents and the city’s police union say the issues have been going on a lot longer than that.

Adding warnings of the system’s imminent collapse have been ignored. KRON4 spoke to one man who says he struggled to get through to a dispatcher when he was trying to report a dead body he found.

That man says it breaks his heart that it is this difficult to reach 911. He says it makes him sad for his city and something needs to change.

There was a busy signal as Alan Liang, owner of an Oakland auto shop, tried to call 911. In September, he found a body crushed in the tow yard.

He says he was placed on hold for 10 minutes. Then, he had to continue to wait.

“The officers didn’t respond until maybe about 40 minutes later after the 911 call. So it’s more and more ridiculous,” Liang said.

Living and working in a high-crime area, he says he’s had to make many 911 calls, and becoming more and more difficult.

“The 911 center has been exasperated the past 10 years,” Liang said.

Liang says it used to take seconds to speak to a dispatcher. Now, he often waits minutes.

On Thursday, a power outage knocked out Oakland’s 911 automated dispatching system, forcing dispatchers to handle calls manually for hours.

Less than 24 hours after the city said its systems were restored, they went down again Saturday morning.

President of the Oakland Police Officers Union Barry Donelan says the writing was on the wall for a 9-1-1 collapse — citing a recent grand jury report.

“The system failed and the grand jury said it — every Oakland police officer said it,” Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao said.

Thao says one of her administration’s main focuses is the 911 issues.

“I can say that I have directed that 911 call taker vacancies be given top-tier priority in the city’s hiring blitz,” she said.

Liang says he doesn’t believe Thao has been aggressive enough in her efforts. Despite that, he’s not leaving Oakland.

“It is a debate, but I have too much pride for Oakland and the better answer is I’d much rather stay to help out our community,” Liang said.

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Liang says he believes the issue is bigger than just a slow 911 response. He thinks leaders have to look at ways to curb crime, so there’s less 911 call volume.