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Swatting 9-1-1: Hoax Calls Add Pressure, danger
August 1, 2011PASSAIC COUNTY, N.J. — A California couple with a 2-year-old daughter is awakened late at night by heavily armed police storming their home after a false report of a shooting. A Texas family is stunned when officers with automatic weapons respond to their house expecting a drug-fueled murderer who is demanding $50,000 in exchange for hostages. And a Wyckoff neighborhood is put on lockdown as the Bergen County SWAT team shoots tear gas into what proves to be a home occupied only by a cat. In each case, the people who wound up in the crosshairs were actually victims of a dangerous and increasingly common hoax known as “swatting,” so called because a bogus emergency call prompts the response of a SWAT team.
Read full articleVirginia Tech Campus Addresses Now Standardized
August 1, 2011BLACKSBURG, Va. — In a move to imporve emergency response to the campus and working in collaboration with Blacksburg officials and campus and town police, Virginia Tech University has implemented standardized addresses for all campus buildings.
Read full articleCounties Will Save $3 Million on 9-1-1 Switch
August 1, 2011WESTMORELAND COUNTY, Pa. — Westmoreland County and two of its neighbors won’t have to pick up the tab on implementation of a new switching system for the 9-1-1 emergency dispatch system, and as a result, each will save nearly $1 million.
Read full articleNYC Emergency Communications Director Quits Before Revamp
August 1, 2011NEW YORK — The expert hired to rescue the city’s effort to build a new 911 system is leaving his job after less than a year and long before the new emergency communications network is ready.
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