For many Americans, the ability to call 911 for help in an emergency is one of the main reasons they own a wireless phone. Other wireless 911 calls come from “Good Samaritans” reporting traffic accidents, crimes or other emergencies. Prompt delivery of these and other wireless 911 calls to public safety organizations benefits the public by promoting safety of life and property.
While wireless phones can be an important public safety tool, they also create unique challenges for public safety and emergency response personnel and for wireless service providers. Because wireless phones are mobile, they are not associated with one fixed location or address. A caller using a wireless phone could be calling from anywhere. While the location of the cell site closest to the caller may provide a very general indication of the caller’s location, that information is not usually specific enough for rescue personnel to deliver assistance to the caller quickly.
That may have been a factor in the Lorenzen Wright case.
Investigators say Wright was shot to death. The police also confirmed that hours after he was seen by family members, a 911 call was made from his cell phone. Sources indicate that the sound of gunshots could be heard on the call.
Cell tower signals from that call helped investigators find the body. However, it did not help to rescue Lorenzen Wright after he was shot by his assailant(s). Wright was found in a wooded area in Collierville, Tenn., more than a week after the 911 call was made and one day before Wright was reported missing.
Wright’s grandmother asked a question that many are wondering about.
Namely, who knew about the 911 call, and when was that information passed onto the authorities in Collierville?
Five days leading up to the discovery of Wright’s body, investigators insisted that there was no sign the former basketball star was the victim of foul play.
Sources say the 911 call where the gunshots could be heard came into the Germantown dispatch.
A spokeswoman there wouldn’t say if or when that information was turned over to neighboring Collierville police. The two towns border each other.
Collierville investigators were working the case after a missing person’s report was filed four days after Wright was last seen by his family.
Wright’s mother reported he was probably carrying a large amount of cash.
So the issue is whether it was a breakdown in communications or a failure of communications on the part of the Germantown 911 dispatch.
The nation’s 911 emergency response system was built in 1967. Needless to say, it was built for landlines since wireless phones were not even a thought during that time period. The address from a landline call to 911 immediately appears on the 911 operator’s screen.
Now, with more people using cellphones exclusively, calls that bounce from tower to tower have posed significant challenges for the 911 system. Cellphone users assume that they are going to be located, but that’s not a fair assumption.
The most advanced 911 systems do not allow a dispatcher to get a specific street address for a wireless call. About 93% of the nation’s 911 centers have technology that lets the dispatcher immediately see the caller’s phone number and the location of the cell tower that picks up the call. Nevertheless, the dispatcher must request the caller’s GPS coordinates from the wireless carrier that operates the tower. This process can take several seconds and may yield a location as far as 300 meters from the caller. This is not much help in a high-rise apartment building.
Further, cellphone calls are commonly mis-routed to the wrong 911 center. Unlike landline calls, which are sent to the 911 center for their jurisdiction, wireless calls can hit the wrong tower, further slowing the response. Mis-routing also happens in metropolitan areas where multiple jurisdictions are bunched together. Problems run deeper still in areas where wireless carriers and 911 centers have not adopted the latest technologies.
As part of its efforts to improve public safety, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has adopted rules aimed at improving the reliability of wireless 911 services and the accuracy of the location information transmitted with a wireless 911 call. Such improvements enable emergency response personnel to provide assistance to 911 callers much more quickly.
The FCC’s wireless 911 rules apply to all wireless licensees, broadband Personal Communications Service (PCS) licensees, and certain Specialized Mobile Radio (SMR) licensees.
Basic 911 rules require wireless service providers to transmit all 911 calls to a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), regardless of whether the caller subscribes to the provider’s service or not.
Enhanced 911 (E911) rules require wireless service providers to within six minutes of a valid request by a PSAP, provide the PSAP with the telephone number of the originator of a wireless 911 call and the location of the cell site or base station transmitting the call.
Phase II of the E911 rules require wireless service providers to within six minutes of a valid request by a PSAP, provide more precise location information to PSAPs; specifically, the latitude and longitude of the caller. This information must be accurate to within 50 to 300 meters depending on the type of technology used.
It appears that the call from Wright’s cellphone was mis-routed to Germantown.
Assuming that Germantown is equipped with the latest technology, the question now is when did the Germantown PSAP or dispatch contact the service provider for a telephone number and location of the cell site or base station transmitting the call and when did Germantown forward the information to the Collierville police department?
In the timeline released by the Memphis police there is a mention of a meeting between area law enforcement including investigators from Germantown and Collierville. That meeting didn’t take place until six days not six minutes, but six days after Wright was reported missing.
Could Lorenzen Wright have been saved had the Germantown dispatch acted immediately on the call and sent the information regarding the sound of gunshots to Collierville?
That question may have to be resolved in a civil suit. The answer may also play a significant role in the prosecution of Wright’s assailant(s).
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There is always something a little disingenuous about Elisabeth Hasselbeck. It always appeared that she disagrees for the sake of disagreeing rather than having a valid reason for doing so. There is never much thought or substance to her comments, and her questioning style is that of a rude spoiled bratty adolescent.
This behavior was very apparent when she shamefully accused Mrs. Shirley Sherrod of violating the Hatch Act during Mrs Sherrod’s visit to the View last week. Of course when the audience did not applaud her stupidity she backed down like a dog with it’s tale between it’s leg.
Hasselbeck has a history of putting her foot in her mouth. Remember when she had to apologize for her remarks about the Dancing With Stars outfit being worn by Erin Adrews? Andrews was the ESPN reporter who was filmed naked by a hidden camera. With her usual I’m not a bad person tears, Hasselbeck apologized for criticizing Andrews , who has been a stalking victim twice in the last year, for wearing “next to nothing” on ‘Dancing with the Stars.’
“In light of what happened and as a legal [matter]–and as inexcusable as it was for that horrific guy to go in and try to peep on her in her hotel room,” Elisabeth said. “I mean, in some way if I’m him, I’m like, ‘Man! I just could’ve waited 12 weeks and seen this–a little bit less–without the prison time!’” No thought, no substance.
So I think people were curious as to what bone head comment she would make when President Obama paid the ladies of the View a visit this past week.
Hasselbeck didn’t disappoint. In Joe Wilson style she accused President Obama of lying to the American people about the employment outlook. When the President sited statistics to support his employment contentions, Hasselbeck could only look at him with that stupid egg on your face look. Once again no thought or substance: just an accusation without any facts to back them up.
The following day, Elisabeth revealed her crush on President Barack Obama. Jungle fever! Who knew?
Maybe Barbara Wah Wah Walters can help Elisabeth through her infatuation with Mr. President. After all Walters had her black experience with former Massachusetts Senator Edward Brookes.
All kidding aside, Elisabeth need to stop acting like an adolescent and present herself as a mature adult with two kids. It’s okay to disagree with the President or anyone else. However, it wouldn’t hurt to have a little substance. It would make it easier to understand her view.
Take a look at what Hasselbeck had to say about President Obama in the clip above.
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Sadly, police have found the body of missing NBA player and former Memphis Tiger Lorenzen Wright in southeast Memphis. MPD has confirmed homicide investigators are on the case and he was shot multiple times, at least 12 times.
Wright’s body was found in a wooded area off of Hacks Cross and Winchester. The body was located behind the Fieldstone Apartments in Southwind. Family members and former players such as Elliot Perry and Penny Hardaway were also at the scene.
A police report filed in Collierville said his ex-wife Sherra Wright stated that she was concerned and that he probably had a large amount of cash on him. Sherra told FOX13 a week made her worry. She said his going a couple of days without talking to their children has happened before but never a whole week.
Police are looking into a 911 call from Wright’s cell phone the day he went missing. The call was a hang-up.
Wright’s former assistant said police need to investigate Wright’s wife and her friends. He and Sherra divorced in February of this year.
Lorenzen Wright
Monday marked more than a week since he was last seen by family at his ex-wife’s house. Wright visited his mother in Collierville Saturday the 17th then his ex-wife and 6 kids, who also live in Collierville, on Sunday. There was a report he got his haircut in Memphis the next day but nothing more.
Debora Marion, his mother, had not heard from her son since Sunday of last week.
“That’s not like him. He doesn’t just disappear. No one hear from him. If I don’t hear from him his daughter Laura hears from him. All the time,” said Marion in an interview with FOX 13.
“How could he just disappear? Even with the barbershop with Tavio. The person that he was with, I know they are from Memphis and somebody has seen the news. Somebody would call somebody and she would say Lorenzen your family is looking for you. You need to call somebody,” pleaded Marion while looking for her son.
“She said she had laid down and woke up and he was gone in her van. Then she went back and laid down again. When she woke up again her van was back but he was gone,” said Marion while talking about the last time his ex-wife had seen him.
Wright played 13 years in the NBA with five different teams: the Los Angeles Clippers, Atlanta Hawks, Memphis Grizzlies, Sacramento Kings and most recently the Cleveland Cavaliers with 17 games in the 2008-09 season. Wright left the University of Memphis early for the NBA, and the Clippers made him a lottery pick with the No. 7 selection overall.
He averaged 8 points and 6.4 rebounds per game in 778 career games.
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It was approaching 4 AM and as usual I was trying to get home before the sun rose for the day. I still remember seeing Carl Gordon standing outside with other festival actors at the National Black Theater Festival in Winston Salem N.C. as I passed by the Marriott. It would be the last time that I would see Carl, Virginia Capers, and Barbara McNair.
Capers and McNair passed away in 2004 and 2007 respectively. On last Tuesday July 20, 2010, at the age of 78, Carl joined them. Mr. Gordon died at his home in Jetersville, Va. According to his family, the cause of death was non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Four decades ago, nearing midlife and feeling trapped in a series of dispiriting jobs, Carl Gordon heeded a surprising call and became a successful character actor on television and the stage.
To television viewers, Mr. Gordon was best known as the patriarch on “Roc,” a situation comedy about a working-class black family in Baltimore, broadcast on the Fox network for three seasons starting in 1991. In a highly unusual move, Seasons 2 and 3 were televised live, an approach to sitcoms that had been attempted rarely if at all since the 1950s.
The show starred Charles S. Dutton as Roc Emerson, a sanitation worker, and Mr. Gordon as his proud, irascible father, Andrew. So proud was Andrew Emerson that he seeded the family home with pictures of Malcolm X and maintained that a certain member of the Boston Celtics was far too good a basketball player to be a white man:
“Larry Bird was born and bred in Harlem,” Andrew declared in one episode. “His real name is Abdul Mustafa.”
On Broadway, Mr. Gordon originated the part of Doaker, the upright uncle in “The Piano Lesson” (1990), by August Wilson, one of two Pulitzer Prize-winning installments in the playwright’s 10-part cycle about black life. He reprised the role in the television adaptation, broadcast on CBS in 1995.
Rufus Carl Gordon Jr. was born on Jan. 20, 1932, in Goochland, Va.; he later jettisoned the “Rufus.” When he was a child his family moved to Brooklyn, where he grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. As a young man he spent four years in the Air Force, serving as an airplane mechanic during the Korean War.
Afterward, Mr. Gordon attended Brooklyn College but left to work before graduating. By his late 30s he had reached a low point. He was twice divorced and seemed consigned to unfulfilling jobs, including sheet-metal worker and department store stockroom clerk.
One night, as he recounted in interviews afterward, Mr. Gordon fell to his knees, weeping. “Lord, tell me what I need to do,” he said. From somewhere within him, an answer arose: “Try acting.”
To Mr. Gordon, the idea seemed preposterous: he had never considered acting and had barely been to the theater. But who was he to question the Lord? Before long, he had enrolled in the Gene Frankel Theater Workshop.
There, as The New York Times later wrote, Mr. Gordon was the oldest student, the only African-American and the only one without a college degree. But little by little, audition by audition, he built a career.
Mr. Gordon’s other screen work includes the film “The Brother From Another Planet” (1984), directed by John Sayles, and guest roles on “Law & Order” and “ER.”
Among his other Broadway credits are the musical “Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death” (1971), with book, music and lyrics by Melvin Van Peebles, and a 2003 revival of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” by Mr. Wilson, starring Mr. Dutton and Whoopi Goldberg. He also appeared in many productions by the Negro Ensemble Company.
When “Roc” went live, interviewers asked Mr. Gordon and his cast mates if they were daunted by the prospect. Not at all, they said, for most, like him, were veterans of the stage.
“It feels good,” Mr. Gordon told The Chicago Sun-Times in 1992. “It’s like going back to Broadway.”
Mr. Gordon is survived by his third wife, Jacqueline Alston-Gordon; a son, Rufus Carl III; five daughters, Gloria Gurley and Candise, Demethress, Yvette and Jasmine Gordon; nine grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
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Forty two year old Tonya Hunter of Bedford Heights, Ohio tried to help many couples save their marriage. Unfortunately she was unable to save her own.
Maurice Lyons
The marriage counselor was stabbed to death in her home by her estranged husband just hours before she was to file for a divorce. Maurice Lyons 38, has been charged with aggravated murder.
Hunter’s 4-year-old son was dropped off near a bar after she was killed Sunday night in the Cleveland suburb, according to media reports. The boy who was not Lyons’ child led police to his mother’s body.
“He was able to tell the police his address and where his mother was,” Leroy Hunter, the victim’s uncle, told Cleveland TV station WKYC-Ch. 3. “So the violent act had to have happened in front of this child so we know that this child is traumatized.”
Lyons was arrested Monday in downtown Cleveland and charged with aggravated murder and domestic violence, the TV station reported.
The couple had been married only seven months. According to a report in The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Hunter met Lyons in an anger management class.
Hunter had filed two domestic violence reports against Lyons, The Plain Dealer noted, citing a recent police document that said: “The defendant (Lyons) who appeared high on drugs moved close to Tanya Hunter/spouse demanding money in an intimidating manner. The defendant then pushed Hunter/spouse against the kitchen sink.”
Lyons has a criminal record in Missouri, Illinois and Ohio, the paper said.
Hunter earned a master’s degree from Case Western Reserve University in social science and started her own counseling practice in 2007, Success 1 Services, according to the company’s website.
“My goal is to help individuals, couples and families restore to peace, happiness and harmony,” she wrote on a Psychology Today website advertising her services. Apparently peace, happiness and harmony could not be restored to her violently brief marriage to Lyons.
Will domestic violence ever end?
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