Philadelphia City Council will probe 911 dispatch times after botched response before Kingsessing mass shooting | Council roundup

Philadelphia City Council will investigate 911 dispatch times in the city after authorities botched a response to a call that preceded a July mass shooting in Kingsessing that left four people dead.

West Philadelphia Councilmember Jamie Gauthier introduced legislation Thursday authorizing Council to hold a hearing about “ongoing challenges” facing the 911 call center, which through the pandemic faced staffing shortages and saw increasing call response times.

Council members this week considered several other measures, including one that calls on the city to provide new support for people released from prison after being exonerated and another that creates a task force on reproductive rights.

Let’s catch you up.

A new probe of 911 response times: Gauthier said the Police Department reports that 95% of 911 calls are answered within 10 seconds. But she said she continues to hear from constituents who experience “long wait and response times” when they call 911.

Council held hearings in March 2020 about problems recruiting and retaining 911 dispatchers. But Gauthier said more than three years later, dispatchers report that they feel “overworked, exhausted, and underappreciated.”

The new review of the call center was prompted by the mass shooting in Gauthier’s district in July. A woman called 911 to report hearing gunshots at a house in the neighborhood but officers were dispatched to the wrong address. Joseph Wamah Jr. had been killed, but his body was not discovered until nearly two days later — after the same gunman had returned to the street and shot six more people.

A hearing hasn’t yet been scheduled.

Creation of a reproductive rights task force: Council passed legislation introduced by Councilmember Kendra Brooks that creates a task force on reproductive rights. The group is expected to examine ways the city can further protect access to abortion care, including to medication abortion that’s been the subject of ongoing federal litigation.

New supports for exonerees: Council also approved a resolution that calls on the city to explore how it can provide new reentry supports to exonerated Philadelphians. It notes that Pennsylvania, unlike other states, doesn’t have a compensation fund for wrongly convicted people.

Remembering Philadelphia luminaries: City Council members memorialized three prominent figures who recently died:

Women’s rights activists: Advocates for women’s rights testified before Council Thursday in favor of Brooks’ legislation to create a reproductive rights task force.

“The attacks on reproductive autonomy are extreme and harmful,” said Amal Bass, interim co-executive director of the Women’s Law Project. “The establishment of the reproductive rights task force is an important part of coordinating efforts to ensure that Philadelphia’s response to this crisis is as effective as possible.”

Safe injection sites: It’s still unclear whether Mayor Jim Kenney will veto controversial legislation Council passed last week that essentially prohibits supervised drug consumption sites in most of the city. We’re expecting to learn next Thursday what he decides.

Kenney has long been a proponent of the facilities as a strategy to prevent overdose deaths. But Council passed the legislation with an overwhelming, veto-proof majority, so if Kenney rejects the bill, Council is likely to override him.

» READ MORE: What to know about the legislation prohibiting supervised injection sites

Foreign policy, anyone? Council passed a resolution urging the president and Congress to “reexamine foreign policy towards Ethiopia.”

Harrity, a freshman Council member, introduced the resolution, but he didn’t say much about why. We’ll let you know if we learn more about what Philadelphia City Council thinks the United States’ position toward Ethiopia should be.

That was City Councilmember Sharon Vaughn, who implored her colleagues to 1) Decorate their offices and gather candy to give to children who are going to visit City Hall for a Halloween party that she’s hosting and 2) To hang out with her afterward.