June 17-24, 2004

city beat

Emergencia! Jinji Qingkuang!

A new 911 feature aims to hook foreign speakers up with translators quickly.

by Helen i-lin Hwang

The hushed sounds of uneasy shifting and nervous gasps rippled across the Southern Sky Chinese restaurant as a group of 80 business owners watched grainy videotape footage of robbers lunging across counters and reaching into cash registers. It was a fear these entrepreneurs face every day as they work in the poorest neighborhoods at all hours of the day and night.

They listened intently as a South Philly Chinese restaurant owner described how two men frequently burst into his shop and set off firecrackers. He said they've already caused some property damage but he's more worried someone will get seriously hurt. Then, he said that he's called 911 numerous times but that each time, the criminals are gone before police arrive.

The owner, like the others who attended that June 7 crime-prevention seminar, remains fearful considering the fact that at least four people were killed in robberies of Chinese-owned businesses in Philadelphia last year. These days, however, police are reaching out to the community hoping to make sure it doesn't happen again.

In February, Philadelphia police introduced a new language program used with the 911 system to handle non-English calls. Instead of taking two to three precious minutes for a 911 dispatcher to locate an interpreter, Asian business owners in jeopardy can converse immediately with a speaker of their dialect, whether it be Fuzhou, Mandarin or Cantonese.

So far, about 100 people have signed up. At the sign-up seminars, participants are shown videotapes, dubbed in Mandarin, about how to use the 911 system and how to deter crime. They learn that doing simple things like having bright lights or keeping the windows in full view from the outside makes their store less likely to get hit.

Sgt. Joseph Spera, training coordinator for the police communications division, has promised to hold seminars to sign up more people "any day, any time" to accommodate the unusual and long hours many restaurant owners and employees must work to float their business.

The idea for a 911 language program came about in a casual conversation Spera had with Chief Inspector James Tiano, the department's community affairs liaison, about problems Asian business owners were facing. Spera came up with the plan to piggyback upon a system already in place to help disabled and elderly people. If a 911 call comes in from a specific address listed in the police-radio database indicating a wheelchair-bound occupant, the dispatcher knows immediately to accommodate that special situation. The existing program, put in place in 1997 and spurred by the Americans with Disabilities Act, has about 1,000 participants.

Why not use that same database capability and attach a note saying a foreign-language interpreter is required? Spera thought.

Although the plan initially focused on helping Asian business owners, any foreign-language speakers are eligible to participate, whether to register residences or businesses.

The 911 language program requires people to fill out an application form that asks for name, address, telephone number and preferred

language. The information is then entered in a database that keeps a note attached to an address. If a foreign speaker calls in, dispatchers will check if there's an appropriate interpreter in the police radio department available. But if one isn't available, the 911 operator immediately contacts Language Line Services, a national interpretation center. Based in California, it is the largest call center of its nature and provides the same 911 emergency interpretation service to hundreds of police departments in the U.S. and Canada, according to company spokesman Dale Hansman.

Previously, if a person had trouble speaking English, the dispatcher connected the call to a Language Line consultant to identify the dialect or language the person was speaking. Once the dialect or language was recognized, Language Line would get the appropriate interpreter on the phone. It's essentially a three-way call. The translator can be located anywhere in the country, even Philadelphia.

The entire process could take up to two to three minutes, but what Philadelphia police want to do is eliminate the minutes wasted and have the emergency caller connected immediately to the right interpreter, either through an appropriate multilingual dispatcher on hand or Language Line Services. The only way to do that is to have a note attached to the caller's address stating what dialect and/or language the person needs. The local 911 plan, which incorporates those time-saving notes, has drawn enough attention that a copy of the training manual has been sent to Mosul, Iraq, to help its burgeoning police force.

Sometimes extra minutes spent on a 911 emergency call can mean life or death.

"We want to make it no minutes," says Spera.