911
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what a 911 operator go through. I done had calls where someone is breaking into the house, and they're saying, help me, please. And they're in the closet, quiet and whispering, and you can hear the noise in the background. But you're trying to keep this person calm and let them know we're on our way. I'm hitting mute to tell my dispatcher,

Terry Clark has been answering 911 calls in New Orleans for 25 years. So I really thought I was at a job that was going to take complaints seriously.

But on my first day, when I arrived, I realized it was 911. And I was like, wow, I got a real serious job. So if I were to call 911 right now and you were to answer, what would you say first? And I do this every day. New Orleans 911 was the location of your emergency. So I give you my address and then what? Can you verify your address for me?

My address is, I'll just make something up, 123 Stone Street. 123 Stone? Okay. What's your name? Phoebe. Okay, Phoebe, can I have a callback number in case we disconnect? 210-123-456. So I'm looking at my screen to verify that's the same address. If it is, now tell me what's your emergency? Okay.

So if I very thankfully haven't had to call 911 that many times in my life, but...

But I do think that all I would keep asking you is, is someone on the way? Yes, Phoebe, someone is on the way. But yes, you're still going to say, but are they on the way? You're asking too many questions. That's what I get in my ear all day. Yes, I know it seems like a lot of questions, but they're on their way. We just need to get through this, and I need you to make sure you have your door unlocked, put away any pets, have someone to flag down EMS.

you know, well, the responder when they come there. But I also need you to answer these questions for me. We're getting the information because we need it. We're not just asking questions to be talking to you. And then at the end, I'm going to tell you, if anything get worse, call us back. And I always like to tell my callers, thank you for calling.

Today, a conversation with a 911 operator about what happens on the other end of the line and about what happens when you realize you recognize the voice on the phone. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. In medieval times, if you had been robbed or attacked or witnessed a crime, you would raise something called the hue and cry, which was basically a shout for help.

Anyone nearby who heard it was expected to stop whatever they were doing to help you and try to catch the suspect. Anyone who didn't join would be punished. Later, different alert systems were developed. Watchmen patrolling the streets in the late 1700s carried wooden rattles to use if they spotted a fire. Anyone who heard it, both citizens and volunteer firefighters, would grab any equipment they had and run in the direction of the noise.

In 1828, Philadelphia developed a system using a special bell in the State House steeple. A watchman would ring the bell two times if a fire was south of the State House, three if the fire was to the east, and so on. But finding the exact location of the emergency with these kinds of systems wasn't easy. In the mid-1800s, the recent invention of the telegraph inspired a new system in Boston.

Boxes were installed around the city that were wired to a central office. If someone needed help, they could turn a crank on one of the boxes, which would send a signal to the central office and indicate exactly where the alarm was being rung. You can still see some of these boxes on the streets of Boston today, and they still work. This alarm box system spread around the country. And then, in the late 1800s, people began installing telephones in their homes.

But we didn't get a universal number for emergencies in the United States until 1968. The number 911 was chosen because it was easy to remember and short, which was especially important when most phones were rotary phones and it took longer to dial each number. It was also unique. There wasn't already a 911 area code, and they hoped people might remember it.

At the time, one member of the FCC said that 911 was going to be better known than 007. But it didn't take off right away. Almost 20 years later, in 1987, only 50% of the country was using 911. Today, about 240 million calls are made to 911 a year, most of them from cell phones. But a lot of people call 911 when they don't actually need to.

And sometimes someone calling 911 can lead to a response that turns something that's not an emergency into one. The 911 system has been criticized for having a police-first emergency response model and dispatching police to situations that don't involve a crime or violence. Terry Clark says she gets all kinds of calls. She says sometimes they're from people who are just worried and don't know what to do.

I hear 911 calls with teenager moms all the time where I can relate, and I know it's against protocol, but, you know, you might say, I have a child your age, I understand. Terry's daughter, Tania, is 17. That's one of the calls where you say, I understand what you're going through, but try this. But anyway...

Or maybe they might call for EMS and they call them back because they've been waiting so long. You might give them an idea. Ma'am, do you have a family member or a neighbor that might can take you to the hospital since EMS is not available at this time? You know, oh, baby, I never thought about that. Let me go ask my neighbor. So, hey, yeah.

One last call, we have to go to it, and they go into the emergency room. How do you keep yourself calm when you're talking to someone who's actually in a very big crisis? I have to set the tone for them. And if they're hysterical, and I'm hysterical, we're not going to get anything. We're not going to get them the help they need or the address because we're both screaming.

So you have to set the tone and just remember, I need you to answer these questions so the responders can know how to respond to the situation that they're in route to, whether it's an electrical pole or a stove on fire to a baby choking, or if they had a stroke, have they had one before? You know, so they can know what all the equipment they need to bring inside with them.

How do you recover after a day of answering calls where you're listening to a scared child or a horrified person hearing someone trying to break into their house? To be honest, you don't. You don't. We was trained not to bring work home with you. So when I get in my car, I tend to take my ID off of my neck. That's like me relieving work. You know, leaving work, where is that?

When I go home, the first thing I want to do is take my shirt off. I'm taking work off of me. But you get immune to it. You know, we can only go to the item or the incident at the end to see if the person made it to the hospital immediately.

Was the fire put out? How many family members are without their home or not able to go back to their house that day after that house fire? With the police, you know, the outcome was someone arrested. Did they make it to the hospital? Their house broken into. We don't know if they're going to sleep at home that night.

You never know what happens to someone after you get off the call with them? Can you find out? Not for an operator, not really, unless you go and research that call. But you take so many, you don't have time for that. When you get there at 7, you're probably waiting on 7 p.m. that night because...

Orleans Parish have a high call volume. So you really never go back to look and see what happened with this call. Not that you don't care, but when you release that call, you take a deep breath, and you're ready for the next call. In 2012, a Northern Illinois University study looked at PTSD in 911 dispatchers. One clinical psychologist said, "...dispatchers are the forgotten first responders."

They carry a high level of responsibility for coordinating the response to the incident, but they are very remote from it. High levels of responsibility and low levels of the ability to actually influence the outcome mean extremely high stress. Do you think that this work has changed the person that you are when you leave work? The way you see the world, the way you look at other people? Yes. For my daughter...

Because, like, so, and even in the world, if you've been looking at it, they've been having a lot of shootings at football games, high school games. So, yes, you want to enjoy your senior life and have fun, but yet I'm scared. She don't understand. At work, I hear the danger all the time. She young. She just want to go, go, go. And, you know, you have to be careful.

I try to tell her, you have to be mindful of who your friends is, mindful of your surroundings. We asked Terry's daughter, Tania, what she thought about her mother's work. I remember I used to, like, if I was going to summer camp or something, I used to wait at the job. So I'm like, okay, so my mama be like, 911, what's your emergency? So I used to be happy to tell people that. And, like, I felt like from, like, the age of, like,

Six to eight, I wanted to be a 911 operator, but then I was like, I don't know. Tania, she can tell you, sometimes if I had a rough day or whatever, she might come home and tell me, don't take it out on me, because she say I be mean or I be snappy. But when I come home, like I tell her,

Give me at least 15 minutes. Don't talk to me. Don't tell me anything. Let me calm down. She don't realize it's a rush. You know, like, I need to calm down. I just need peace and quiet. After 12 hours of listening to people, problems, listening to call takers,

dispatchers or other people calling for things like give me 15 minutes. Sometimes even when I come home, I have to sit in my car for 15 minutes just to be at peace with nothing playing, no radio, not being on the phone, just hearing the birds chirping or whatever. On October 17, 2022, Terry answered a 911 call that she was never expecting.

It really wasn't until I took Tenille Cole that I realized I tend to hold everything inside of me. We'll be right back. Support for Criminal comes from Ritual. I love a morning ritual. We've spent a lot of time at Criminal talking about how everyone starts their days. The Sunday routine column in the New York Times is one of my favorite things on earth.

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Get 25% off your first month at ritual.com slash criminal. Start Ritual or add Essential for Women 18 Plus to your subscription today. That's ritual.com slash criminal for 25% off. Terry, through October 17th, how did your shift start? Just take me through how that day started. Okay, so my regular shift was from 6.30 to 7 p.m.

I'm about to say 1900. So Tania had to work that evening. Tania, who was 16 at the time, had just started her first job working at McDonald's. Her shift started at 5 p.m. So I signed up to do a little overtime. I was like, I'm going to stay here, make a little extra money, and that way I'm up. You know, I had it set. When she got off at 10, I'll be getting off to pick her up.

So my shift ended, had just started the overtime shift, and I was plugged in, and the call came over. Terry recognized Tania's cell phone number on the display. Because 911 have call ID. It don't tell you the name, but it tell you the address and like, well, if it's from your cell phone, it tell you the phone number and give you a...

the closest address that it is, like the area or the street. It all depends on, you know, what company you have in a tower. So immediately I looked at my cell phone to make sure I didn't miss a call from her. I didn't have no call, right? So in my mind, I'm like, why is she calling my work phone? I didn't tell her about this. Had she called you at work before? No.

Yes. So, all right. I might call her from the desk phone, but if you call the number back, it'll come to 911. Instead of her calling like my extension, she probably just hit call back and she'll come through 911 and she might say, may I speak to my mama? May I speak to Terry Clo? So, yes.

You know, I'm like, hey, I done told her all this over and over. Don't call her. But text me and I'll, you know, stuff. I'll call you. So that day, when her number came across, I'm like, 911, was she emergency? And she was like, Mama, we been robbed. I'm like, I know I'm not hearing what I just heard. And so I'm like, what's your address?

I know my child was at McDonald's. I know where she was, but I still need to know, hey, she could have left off. So let's verify. And she was like, Mama, I'm at the store, you know. You know, it's me, Tania. So I, once again, what is your address? Because we're, I was trained, treat every caller like they're family. So when you get your family member, you treat them like they're a regular caller.

New Orleans 911, what's the location of the emergency? Mama, can you please send a police officer right now? The McDonald's is being robbed. Where at? At my job, Mama. I still need the address. It's being robbed. What's the address? What's the address? What's the address? The McDonald's or Clayborne? 2856 Clayborne. I had to go through the protocol. So...

I went under robbery. Asked all my questions. Okay. Mama, please hurry up. She got a gun. Who have a gun? The lady. It's a lady. Please, Mama. Okay. Is she inside or outside? Hello? Okay. Okay. Is she inside? She's inside the location? Is she trying to rob the store? Hello? Hello?

I have to ask you these questions, baby. Is she inside the store? Yes, mama, she's inside the store. And she's trying to rob it? Yeah, she's trying to rob it. Give me a description. Give me a description. Hello? Okay, we're going to hurry. Give me a description. Okay.

She's a black lady. She got a mask on. She got somebody outside. And she got us in the freezer, mama. You in the freezer? Yes, she had us in the freezer. When she said, like, we're in the freezer, that was my breaking point. Because during the call, I had, believe it or not, tears in my eyes. You know, but I was trying to remain calm, like, to get help, to feed them the information just in case something

You know, when I'm saying, what was she wearing? In case the police come in that way and a lot of citizens don't realize we're asking for a description because when the police come and they don't just have one unit, they have multiple units, someone might spot the bad guy. So that was my reason for asking. You were calm, but what was going on in your body? I sounded calm. I wasn't calm.

Because I hit the mute button talking about, that's my child, y'all. Get somebody a McDonald's. When she said, we're in the freezer. And you heard me say, in the freezer? We can never call no caller, baby. You heard me say, baby, we coming? Baby, I'm coming? I went into mother mode.

Please, come on, hurry up. Baby, I am. I'm going to send somebody. I have to ask you these questions. Was she on foot? Yes, she's on foot. Okay, and y'all inside the location? Yes, Mama. We're going to get someone out, okay? I have to ask you these questions. How many of y'all are in the freezer? How many of y'all are in the freezer? It's five of us. It's five of us.

It's fabulous. It's four girls and one boy. All right. Okay. What's your name? What's your name? Tania. Tania Hill. Okay. We're going to have someone to come out, okay? Y'all let me make dollars. What's your... Yes. Okay. We're going to get someone out, okay? Okay.

All right? All right. Okay, call us back if anything change, if y'all have further information. Okay. All right. To hear your child call out for help and you not there and your child begging you for help and really, I'm sending help, but at the time I'm not there to grab my child and tell her it's going to be all right. It was painful. I'm a single parent.

And, you know, I'm all she have. And that time when she needed me the most, it wasn't nothing but God that I was in her ear saying, we coming, mama coming. But then I had to switch it back to being professional. I was a nervous wreck. I'm like, you know, will I see my child? Will my child get home? But I'm trained to do my job.

We'll be right back. Tania, take me through what happened. What was going on right before you called 911?

So that at school, I really did not feel good. Like I had a headache. And my friends, it's crazy because my friends, they was like, don't go to work, girl. Don't go to work. I'm like, no, I got to go to work. I need my money. So I go to work and I'm like, OK, this is going to be a regular shift. It's fine. I'm like, OK. I'm looking at the clock. Time almost up. We about to go.

Then we seen somebody come in with a hoodie. So I thought they was about to order. So I say, hey, how you doing? Welcome to McDonald's. How may I help you? And he had another girl. She was walking over there to go take their order or whatever. But instead, she came to the back. And me and my coworker, we looking like, is this actually for real? Like, are we really getting robbed right now?

So I looked and I'm like, usually I always do this. Like even if I'm at school or something, if I'm if I took my phone, I took it in the back and I'll pull my shirt down. That way you can't really see. I don't remember clearly, but I really think that I walked sideways. That way she wouldn't be able to see it. It was some way that I put it that way. She wouldn't be able to see. I still had my phone on me.

So when I seen the gun, because I remember she said, I'll never forget this. She said, yeah, I think I'm playing. And she pulled the gun up and I was like, oh, and like,

I'm the type of person, I really don't like guns. They really scare me, honestly. But I'm like, oh, wow, okay. So I'm like, I got to be calm because if I don't listen to what she's saying, I could get hurt. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to just follow what she's doing. So at first, she was going to take us to the back, but then she realized we had a freezer or whatever. So she put us in the freezer. So I'm like, okay, so I can't get out. I'm stuck in the freezer. I got my phone. So...

Usually people, phones don't work in the freezer, but I'm like, I know my phone about to work. So she closed the door, and I wait about like five to ten seconds before, like after she closed the door or whatever, and I'm like, okay, I'm calling 911. So I call 911. I'm expecting somebody to hear my voice and probably notice me because at the job, like I'm well-known. Everybody know me as Terry daughter or Terry twin. So I call, and I hear her voice, and I'm like,

This ain't nobody but God. So she was like, what are they wearing? I'm like, I'm trying to remember what they're wearing because, like, at this time, I'm trying to remain calm because that's what I was taught to do. You call the police, something going on, you remain calm because if you're yelling, they can't understand what you're saying. So I'm like, I can't yell. And had your mother told you that always? Is that something you would learn from your mother?

Yes, I learned that you're not supposed to yell at adults. Don't raise your voice. So, you know, I'm talking calm, and at the same time, I can't be disrespectful, and I can't yell because the lady could probably be outside the door. I can't be disrespectful. That's my mama. So, yeah, so I'm like, I got to make sure that I'm able to tell her this calmly and clearly. That way, she could be able to hear. And...

This was a real big thing for me because out of everybody who was in the freezer, I was the youngest. So I'm like, I got to show that I'm not that childish. I can't be scared. So in the middle of the call, I tell my mom, I'm like, Mom, she got us in the freezer because I'm shivering, but I'm telling her at the same time. So I didn't know if she was able to hear me. I'm like, she got us in the freezer. And when I heard my mama, she was like, you were in the freezer? And I know.

When my mama cried. Like, my mama was never always the type to, like, just cry. I mean, this was your first job, too. Yes, it was actually my first week. That was the first week on the job. So...

Towards the end of the call, I could just hear my mama crying, like, in her voice. I could hear the change of tone. And I looked at the phone. I'm like, wait, my mama really crying. So everybody, they like, are they on their way? Are they on their way? That's why I kept saying, mama, can you please send somebody, please? Because I'm scared and everybody else behind me is scared, but I can't show I'm scared because I'm on the phone. Nobody else wanted to call the police, but I was going to call the police. ♪

Once you hung up the phone, the call ended with Tania, what did you do? I stood up. I told the manager on duty, I got to go. That was my baby. I was so nervous. I couldn't even log. I couldn't log out. I told them, log me out. I'm gone. And I clocked out. I got to, her job is maybe two miles away, three miles the most far.

I got to Neal's job like in about five minutes. I ran red lights. I had to get to my child. And once I arrived there, one of the sergeants, she made me out there and she was like, your baby is okay, Terry.

You know the protocol. You can't come in. It's a crime scene. And I was like, just let me hold her. So she was like, you know, we have a couple of more questions for her, and then you can get her. So I had to wait outside, pace. When she came out, we hugged each other out there maybe like three minutes, you know, just tears. That was—no offense, Mommy—

That was the first time ever that I just wanted to run and go hug my mama. Like, I got out, and I was like, my mama here. And that's straight what I went to. I went straight to my mama. And that hug was like, that was one of those, like, you know how it's been a long day, and you just want to go get in the shower and go to sleep? That was that type of hug. It was really a relief.

That night, my daughter slept with me. I allowed her to sleep with me because she cannot sleep with me. And I went to work the next morning. Did the people who robbed the McDonald's ever get caught? Were they found? Not to my knowledge. Has anything changed about how you answer calls after what happened with Tania? To be honest with you, when I'm at work now, I'm a...

I answer calls, but every time I answer, or if I know Tennille, not like at school or something, my first thought would be, oh, Lord, please don't let this be my child. You know, it's a little frightening now that you don't want to call like you received before. When I get calls to where...

People been robbed or a family member didn't find their family member inside, not breathing, unconscious, or they possible think they're dead. You have more empathy because to see a family member go through something, you know, you kind of see how they feel. Even though it was over the telephone, I felt my daughter pain. I felt my daughter, she was scared for her life. So, yeah.

I know how they could feel, if that answers your question. Well, if I ever have to call 911, I'd be very glad if you were on the other side. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Tania, what do you think about being a 911 operator now? Woo, that is a job that I cannot do. Because that's like a job for a very strong person. And my mom is the strongest person I know, so, you know.

That's a very strong person. Well, you sound pretty strong yourself. I bet your mother would say the same thing. I get it from my mama. Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Roberson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, Sam Kim, and Megan Kinane. Our engineer is Veronica Simonetti.

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We did so much digging into 9-1-1 for this episode that we'll have more in the next Criminal Plus episode. To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com slash plus. We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show and Instagram at criminal underscore podcast. We're also on YouTube at youtube.com slash criminal podcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.