Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 25, 1994 TAG: 9411250043
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder Newspapers
DATELINE: PHILADELPHIA LENGTH: Medium
It also prompted two City Council members to promise a formal investigation into the events leading to the 16-year-old's death at the hands of a mob in northeast Philadelphia on Nov. 11.
The tapes' airing also reaffirmed what some residents of Philadelphia have claimed for years: that 911 needs to be overhauled.
Upon hearing the tapes, ``I felt sick, just sick,'' said City Councilman Daniel P. McElhatton. ``You could hear the desperation in [callers'] voices.''
A listener also could discern how rude 911 employees were when residents asked for help, added Councilman Brian O'Neill. He and McElhatton both guaranteed a council investigation.
``I cannot believe those people are still employed by the city,'' O'Neill said. ``They shouldn't be working for a catalog mail-order company.''
The 911 calls aired on the news Wednesday, after a Philadelphia television station obtained a leaked copy of the conversations between increasingly irritated and frightened telephone callers and call-takers at the city's 911 office.
In the recordings, employees thanked some callers, berated others and usually promised to send help - but help didn't come until about 40 minutes after the first call.
City police, who have arrested five suburban teen-agers in Polec's death, had blocked efforts by news organizations to get transcripts or recordings of those calls. They relented after learning of the station's plan to broadcast the tapes.
The tapes show that at least 33 calls came from Philadelphia's Fox Chase area on the night a mob chased down and beat Polec in retaliation for a bogus rape. A senior at Cardinal Dougherty High School, Polec was pounded to death with baseball bats in front of a church where he once was an altar boy.
The first call came in at 10:01 p.m., when a Fox Chase resident reported ``a pack of kids ... really noisy'' at a McDonald's restaurant. About nine minutes later, a McDonald's employee called 911, with an ominous addendum: The youths were still there, and they had just broken a customer's car windows.
At 10:33 p.m., another caller said 50 young people, some with bats, were chasing one another. A spate of similar calls followed. Then, at 10:44 p.m., a nun called and said a group of youths appeared to be beating up one youth.
That youth was Polec, and he died the next day.
A quicker response might have saved Polec's life, said Mary Jane Hazell, president of the Somerton Civic Association in Philadelphia.
It's not that simple, said Richard Costello, president of the Fraternal Order of Police.
``I think what happened is just a further reflection of the damage done by the loss of manpower over the years,'' he said. ``The problem is getting the calls to somebody who is available.''
Costello said the number of police on the force was about 8,400 in 1978, compared with 5,800 today.
When an officer was dispatched to the scene Nov. 11, he got there within two minutes, he said.
by CNB