Israel Police is offering some explanations for botching the emergency call from one of the abducted youths that came in at about 22:25 on Thursday, the eve of 15 Sivan 5774. According to reports, police failed to pass along the information of the kidnapping for hours as dispatchers felt the call for help was a prank.
One of the explanations reported, appearing in the daily Maariv, states the voice was not audible and the operator was unable to make out what is being said. Yisrael Hayom reports yet another explanation, that the word “kidnapped” was never said despite reports to the contrary, based on statements from senior police officials. That report then adds that even if the word was said, they were unable to discern in what connotation it was intended.
Hence, it was viewed as being something other than a life-threatening situation despite being made to an emergency dispatcher. Police report that 30% of all incoming emergency calls are prank calls. Therefore it appears officials decided to ignore the 70% chance the call was legitimate.
Police however promise the performance of emergency dispatchers will be checked. The department however is not admitting that anyone failed to act properly in this case despite the painful reality the critical information of the terrorist kidnapping was not passed to the IDF and ISA (Israel Security Agency – Shin Bet) for 6-8 hours.
One police officer is quoted anonymously by Yediot Achronot. He explains the dispatcher could have and should have found out who owns the phone and see if that person has a criminal record. In this case they should have then contacted the parents to inquire as to the whereabouts of the young man who phoned, but nothing like this was done.
Yediot concludes that to date, none of the dispatch personnel involved have been suspended and they are continuing business as usual.
Names for Tehillim:
1. Yaakov Naftali ben Rachel Devorah
2. Gilad Michael ben Bat Galim
3. Eyal ben Iris Tesurah
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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5 Responses
This same “police system ” would RUSH if it was a complaint against a Charedi. This is a biased corrupt organization.
There is an expression in Chutz L’Aretz that goes something like this… “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach”. Here in EY we say it a bit differently. “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, join the Mishtatara.”
Self understood if an arab calls in with a complaint against a jew its 100% right since jews have been discriminating against arabs for the last 60 years but but if a jew calls in it must be wrong or prank since all 60 years arabs are the sufferers and never harm jews, so is this a statement for the Israeli police or from EU, but for sure the police act that way.
We’re forgetting something important here. Hashem runs the world. The kidnapping happened because He wanted it to happen. The dispatcher was supposed to botch the call. It was all part of Hashem’s master plan. End of story.
In fairness, dispatchers are human being who are not infallible. A bigger problem, which causes these types of errors, is that a high percentage of the calls they receive are false calls, no doubt by Arabs.