street was lined with various law enforcement vehicles and other media. I didn’t recall seeing that particular SUV, but it might not have registered in my mind with all the commotion. I wondered why the police hadn’t perp-walked a cuffed suspect out the door in front of all the cameras that day. That usually makes the public feel safer.
I turned to the next transcript and got some insight.
The second call came at 11:38 AM , two minutes after the first, obviously answered by another dispatcher.
Caller: “Help. I need an ambulance. My girlfriend needs help. I think she’s dead.”
The dispatcher confirmed that the emergency was happening at a specific address because 911 technology automatically pulls up metro street addresses on the screen along with homeowner information.
Caller: “I don’t know the exact address. I just know it’s near West Diamond Lake Road and Pillsbury Avenue South. You got to send an ambulance, but it might be too late already. I’m sure it’s—”
Dispatcher: “What is your name, sir?”
Caller: “My name is—Wait, I hear someone outside. I wonder if the man who attacked her is still here—”
The transcript ended there, but if I ever got access to the actual audio, I’d expect to hear some background noise like “Police, freeze, hands in the air” before the phone was hung up.
• • •
I called up some file tape of the murder scene on my computer screen and the only vehicle in the driveway was the medical examiner van. No reddish-brown SUV parked anywhere along the street. By the time Malik and I had arrived, the male caller on the phone had apparently been released by police and left the scene or been hauled off to jail and had his vehicle towed.
“Can you pop a name and address for me?” I handed Lee Xiong, Channel 3’s resident computer genius, a sheet of paper with the license plate number.
“I’m very busy.”
He was always busy. As more news staff were cut, his duties increased. Computer-assisted reporting for my investigative stories was a small fraction of his job description; most of his time was now spent managing the station’s website and figuring how to score online hits—an Internet version of ratings that could be used for a new source of ad revenue. The latest media trend was encouraging viewer participation with story comments via computer. Xiong was also responsible for monitoring those comments for slander and profanity. No wonder he was very busy.
“The guy could be a murderer.” Women were often murdered by boyfriends. So it was worth a check. “Could be a new lead story for six.”
Xiong preferred communicating by email or phone, not face-to-face. People made him uncomfortable. It wasn’t often he mustered the nerve for a date, though I frequently reminded him that all he had to do to get women interested socially was to tell them he worked in TV news. His generation of Hmong, raised in the United States, was caught between courtship cultures.
“You don’t have to be on the air yourself,” I’d assure him. “They’ll settle for you telling them what the rest of us are really like off camera. Hey, I trust your discretion.”
I could have simply sent him an email with my instructions, but when I had time, I figured making Xiong talk to me directly was good training for him. As well as getting my request bumped to the top of the pile to speed my departure. But instead of looking grateful, he looked like he’d do anything to make me gone.
“Check back in five minutes,” he said.
“Check by in five minutes, Riley ,” I said. “Women like it when you call them by name.”
So he repeated himself for practice and I gave him space.
He had built a big-brotherish computer database of Minnesota license plate numbers, driver’s licenses, hunting and fishing licenses, and all sorts of other public data on private citizens. If that didn’t find me the boyfriend’s name, I’d go back to the cops and push the issue.
I turned to the next transcript and got some insight.
The second call came at 11:38 AM , two minutes after the first, obviously answered by another dispatcher.
Caller: “Help. I need an ambulance. My girlfriend needs help. I think she’s dead.”
The dispatcher confirmed that the emergency was happening at a specific address because 911 technology automatically pulls up metro street addresses on the screen along with homeowner information.
Caller: “I don’t know the exact address. I just know it’s near West Diamond Lake Road and Pillsbury Avenue South. You got to send an ambulance, but it might be too late already. I’m sure it’s—”
Dispatcher: “What is your name, sir?”
Caller: “My name is—Wait, I hear someone outside. I wonder if the man who attacked her is still here—”
The transcript ended there, but if I ever got access to the actual audio, I’d expect to hear some background noise like “Police, freeze, hands in the air” before the phone was hung up.
• • •
I called up some file tape of the murder scene on my computer screen and the only vehicle in the driveway was the medical examiner van. No reddish-brown SUV parked anywhere along the street. By the time Malik and I had arrived, the male caller on the phone had apparently been released by police and left the scene or been hauled off to jail and had his vehicle towed.
“Can you pop a name and address for me?” I handed Lee Xiong, Channel 3’s resident computer genius, a sheet of paper with the license plate number.
“I’m very busy.”
He was always busy. As more news staff were cut, his duties increased. Computer-assisted reporting for my investigative stories was a small fraction of his job description; most of his time was now spent managing the station’s website and figuring how to score online hits—an Internet version of ratings that could be used for a new source of ad revenue. The latest media trend was encouraging viewer participation with story comments via computer. Xiong was also responsible for monitoring those comments for slander and profanity. No wonder he was very busy.
“The guy could be a murderer.” Women were often murdered by boyfriends. So it was worth a check. “Could be a new lead story for six.”
Xiong preferred communicating by email or phone, not face-to-face. People made him uncomfortable. It wasn’t often he mustered the nerve for a date, though I frequently reminded him that all he had to do to get women interested socially was to tell them he worked in TV news. His generation of Hmong, raised in the United States, was caught between courtship cultures.
“You don’t have to be on the air yourself,” I’d assure him. “They’ll settle for you telling them what the rest of us are really like off camera. Hey, I trust your discretion.”
I could have simply sent him an email with my instructions, but when I had time, I figured making Xiong talk to me directly was good training for him. As well as getting my request bumped to the top of the pile to speed my departure. But instead of looking grateful, he looked like he’d do anything to make me gone.
“Check back in five minutes,” he said.
“Check by in five minutes, Riley ,” I said. “Women like it when you call them by name.”
So he repeated himself for practice and I gave him space.
He had built a big-brotherish computer database of Minnesota license plate numbers, driver’s licenses, hunting and fishing licenses, and all sorts of other public data on private citizens. If that didn’t find me the boyfriend’s name, I’d go back to the cops and push the issue.
Similar Books
