Unconscious Carroll man found after 11-hour searchWhy do I find this interesting? Because the police want to blame the phone company for blocking a rescue.
Sheriff unhappy with Verizon’s ‘line’ on emergency
By Nancy Schaar
CARROLLTON, OH — A 62-year-old Carrollton area man was found unconscious and unresponsive Thursday morning during an intense search overnight by Carroll County sheriff deputies, an Ohio State Highway Patrol trooper and the patrol’s airplane.
Two K-9 units, several fire departments and 100 individuals on foot also were involved in the search for the man, who Sheriff Dale Williams said fled his residence on Kensington Rd. after a domestic disturbance call to deputies. ...
Williams said he attempted to use the man’s cell phone signal to locate him, but the man was behind on his phone bill and the Verizon operator refused to connect the signal unless the sheriff’s department agreed to pay the overdue bill. After some disagreement, Williams agreed to pay $20 on the phone bill in order to find the man. But deputies discovered the man just as Williams was preparing to make arrangements for the payment. ...
“I was more concerned for the person’s life,” Williams said. “It would have been nice if Verizon would have turned on his phone for five or 10 minutes, just long enough to try and find the guy. But they would only turn it on if we agreed to pay $20 of the unpaid bill. Ridiculous.”
Williams said he doesn’t know how close the situation was to becoming a tragedy because he’s not a doctor, but he thinks the man’s condition was very serious.
Well, yes the phone company was idiotic to demand $20 before it would come to the aid of the police. I would think that Verizon will suffer far more $20 damage to its reputation for refusing to assist the police. I would expect a lot of people are going to ask themselves "given a choice between company X and Verizon, why would I go with Verizon if they would not help the police to find me if I had a $20 item on my phone bill?" In a sensible world that would be a multi-million dollar mistake by Verizon.
On the other hand, I find the police to be idiots. Apparantly they have a decision-making structure that says when you have a choice between paying $20 to locate a person in distress versus sending out over 100 people, several K-9 units, and mobilizing several fire departments at a cost of probably $20,000, you go with spending the $20,000. Obviously that police "bureaucracy" should be disassembled and re-built with the idea of service and cost efficiency in mind instead of blindly following "department procedure".
Both parties come off looking like idiots in this story. But, sadly this is the usual reality. Abdicating decision-making rather than individuals taking responsibility, mindlessly following "orders" rather than doing the right thing is the norm because it is bureaucratically "safe". That is the real tragedy in this story.
No comments:
Post a Comment