Seconds later, she heard pounding at another door, then pounding at the front door — followed by the loud cracking sound of the door jamb breaking apart.

“I could definitely hear that the door had opened,” she said.

By that time, both Skoubo and her husband, Jesse — who’s a photographer for the Gazette-Times — had grabbed their cell phones. Jesse Skoubo dialed 911, and the two waited in the bedroom for police to arrive. They remained on the phone with the dispatch center as they heard footsteps and someone rifling through the nearby bathroom’s medicine cabinet.

The Skoubos did a smart thing by punching 911 into the phone as soon as they suspected they were being burglarized, said Cord Wood, a spokesman for the Corvallis Police Department – in fact, that’s the first thing people should do in that event, police said.

“It’s always advisable to have emergency help on the way to you as quick as possible,” Wood said. “You never know if it’s one person or a group of people on the other side of the door.”

Oregon law does allow a resident to use physical force against a trespasser if the resident suspects that the trespasser intends to commit a violent crime. As Benton County District Attorney John Haroldson phrased it: “If you’re facing deadly force, you can use deadly force.”

Police identified the person who entered the Skoubo house as Corey James Downs, 20, of Coos Bay. He’s a junior studying bioengineering at Oregon State University. Police found Downs running away from the house when they arrived. After stopping him and searching his pockets, they discovered three items of jewelry worth about $20, two pairs of manicure scissors and an empty bottle of cold medicine — items that the Skoubos identified as theirs.

Downs’ blood-alcohol level was .22 percent. Downs was arrested and arraigned Monday on charges of first-degree burglary — a class-A felony — second-degree criminal mischief and third-degree theft.

There is good news on the burglary front, though: After a recent spike, the total number of burglaries reported in Corvallis (including this one) appears to be declining back to historical averages.

From Jan. 1 through Jan. 30, Corvallis police took reports of 11 first-degree burglaries — break-ins at residences — and 10 second-degree burglaries — break-ins to businesses and garages or sheds not attached to a residence. Wood noted that some of the residential burglaries might have occurred during in December but were reported by students when they returned from winter break in January.

Only two of the 11 residences burglarized had unlocked front doors.

“That’s down significantly from what we were dealing with for the last few months,” Wood said.

And that total number of 21 thus far in January is close to the average that Corvallis police noted in 2011, when they received an average of 22 burglaries per month.

The most important conversation between 7-year-old Abbie Raga and emergency dispatcher Vicki Schramm took place over a 9-1-1 phone call on December 27th. Without it, their face-to-face conversation might have never happened.

Abbie Raga brought flowers for the woman that answered her 9-1-1 call that potentially saved her father’s life.

Tom Raga, the man who was having difficulty breathing, also wanted to thank Vicki in person for teaming up with his daughter to get him the quickest help possible.

Vicki had a special message that she was excited to deliver to the 7 year old who showed the composure of an adult during a time when some others tend to panic.

“She was so impressive. She was just very impressive and talking to her tonight, I told her that. I said, ‘You know Abbie, you need to tell your friends to know your address, because you just never know when you’re going to have to pick up the phone and call 9-1-1,’” said Vickie.

Abbie received a certificate of bravery from the city of St. Charles, an honor everyone involved says is well deserved.

Raga is recovering nicely.

The city of St. Charles gave Abbie a certificate to Build-A-Bear and a St. Charles Ambulance District t-shirt for whichever bear she chooses.

They also gave her 5-year-old brother Andrew a toy ambulance with sirens that lights up.

Read the story here.

With help from a 911 operator, Dominic Onnekikami delivered his child on his older son’s birthday.

“It was a joy but at the same time nerve-racking,” he said.

Along with the stress of having to deliver his child on the floor of his home, he also had to contend with his older son, Kelvin Kenile Onnekikami.

“He was screaming and just as nervous as I was, I think,” the father said.

Once the healthy baby boy was in his father’s hands, Kelvin celebrated his birthday gift of a little brother.

Raymond wasn’t due until the following Tuesday, Dominic Onnekikami said. So when his wife called him Thursday evening and told him she was having strong pains, the couple thought it was false labor pains.

“That’s what happened with our older boy so we thought that’s what it was this time,” he said.

Christiana Onnekikami called her husband at about 5 p.m. at his office and asked him to come home. The couple was getting ready to head to the hospital when she told her husband she just needed to use the bathroom one more time.

“Then she told me her water broke,” he stated. She then said she could tell the baby was coming. He knew there wasn’t time to get his wife to the hospital, so Dominic Onnekikami called 911.

“She told me to be careful because the baby may be slippery and I could drop him,” he recalled of the dispatcher.

The 911 operator on the other line also reminded Dominic Onnekikami to watch out for the umbilical cord and placenta. The cord was wrapped around Raymond’s neck, but with prompting from the dispatcher, he gently removed it.

“The baby weighed 7 pounds 4 ounces,” he said proudly. “He’s a beautiful child and is doing well.”

Dominic Onnekikami is grateful to the operator who helped him keep his cool during a very stressful situation.

“With me being nervous and my older child screaming, she really helped me,” he said.

Though happy with the dispatcher’s coaching, Dominic Onnekikami was concerned over the paramedics’ response time.

San Bernardino County Fire officials said they received the first call at 6:19 p.m. and according to their records, they were on scene at 6:31 p.m.

“Our closest engine to that home was on a medical call,” explained Tracy Martinez, spokeswoman with county fire. “The next closest unit had to be called out to the home.”

Although perturbed by what he felt was a delay, Dominic Onnekikami said it was a wonderful experience to be able to deliver his own child.

“This is a story I will be telling for a long time,” he said. “I’ve been there for the delivery of my older children, but this I will always remember.”

Read the story here.

The Sheriff blames a lack of funding and says that’s because many cell phone users are paying a lower fee for their services.

Sheriff George Ballard says if state legislators don’t act, they would be reduced to basic 911 services.

That means the dispatcher wouldn’t have GPS service to locate callers and they’ll need the people on the other end of the phone to provide a specific location.

Ballard says it would also mean slower services and potentially, the difference between life or death for the person they’re trying to serve.

In the age of the cell phone, many are now unplugging their home land lines.

That’s why Sheriff Ballard says Gibson County’s 911 fund is losing money at an alarming rate.

Enhanced 911 services are paid for through fees 50 cents for a cell phone and over a dollar for a land line, but Ballard says now that cell phones make up over 70% of their emergency calls, they’re losing money.

He says there are a lot of cell phone users that are getting out of paying the fee, like those who have family plans and temporary track phones.

“You know, the loopholes need to be fixed. So, not only do the rates need to be looked at, the loopholes need to be plugged and this is something that is widespread,” Ballard said.  “We’ll go to just being able to find the cell tower that you’re operating on, that doesn’t tell us where you’re at. We’re still going to have to find you, and you’re going to have to know where you’re at and if you’ve had a heart attack, a stroke, or been in a serious wreck you may not know where you are.”

Residents say it’s worth the extra cost and according to Sheriff Ballard,the change must happen this year.

“January could be too late,” Ballard noted.

Ballard says another proposed possibility is combining 911 services between neighboring counties, like Knox County, but says he does not believe that’s a good idea because the area would be too widespread for good service.

Read the story here.

The announcement came about an hour after Charlotte and Fayetteville police said they arrested Mark Anthony Cox, 22, at an acquaintance’s home in Fayetteville. Police said they found Danielle Watson’s car a block or two away.

Cox is charged with murder and armed robbery in connection with Watson’s death. Her body was found Saturday morning behind a trash bin in the StoneCrest at Piper Glen shopping center. Police have not yet said how she was killed.

Cox and Watson were co-workers at the Flying Biscuit Cafe. Watson had recently learned she was pregnant.

Early Tuesday morning, a wrecker truck brough a blue Chevrolet Cavalier to CMPD headquarters in Charlotte’s uptown. It fit the description of the car that Watson had been driving.

Cox is expected to arrive at headquarters sometime around daybreak Tuesday morning.

On Monday, police released a 911 call from Watson’s fiance in which he says he thought the restaurant was being robbed. But the police dispatcher who took the call gave officers an incorrect business name and address.

In the 911 tape, Keith Smith, Watson’s fiance, is heard giving an address on Rea Road and naming the Flying Biscuit restaurant. The dispatcher took the call for a “Plum Biscuit” – which does not exist – at 3930 Rea Road, a residential address.

Police Capt. Mike Campagna said Monday that it is unclear what address Smith actually gave the dispatcher: 3930, which is incorrect, or 7930, the correct one for Flying Biscuit. The addresses are about four miles away.

“I’ve listened to it a dozen times as well,” said Campagna, CMPD’s communications director. “And I can also hear it both ways.”

The 911 call came at 12:05 a.m. Saturday. Officers arrived at the incorrect location, a private residence, about 20 minutes later and cleared the scene. Police said the officer went to a nearby shopping center to find a business with the name Plum Biscuits.

Police say they were called to the correct location six hours later based on a separate larceny call.

The dispatcher who took the original call from Smith is on “administrative leave, temporarily, as we look into the situation,” Campagna said.

Missed opportunities

In the 911 call, Smith told the dispatcher that Watson’s shift was supposed to have ended at 9 p.m.

“She should have been home hours ago,” Smith is heard saying on the tape. “But it did sound like there was some kind of commotion in the background. She called me from work. And I’m concerned. I think maybe somebody’s trying to rob it.”

At the end of the call, the dispatcher took Smith’s phone number, and said he was sending an officer and would call back with an update.

Campagna said “there’s indication the officer made an attempt” to call back Smith after arriving at the wrong location. He said police are looking into what number the officer called back.

“I think we missed some opportunities,” Campagna said. “I think some follow-up could have been done on our end. … Moving forward, we’re wanting to look at what training could be done better. What policy needs to be changed? … Our goal is 100 percent right all the time.”

Campagna said it is not CMPD policy for a dispatcher to repeat back an address provided by a caller. Campagna said that policy will be re-evaluated.

Smith said late Monday afternoon that he is positive he provided the right information, but doesn’t blame the dispatcher.

“People make mistakes. I get that,” he said. “Unfortunately, it was a bad one. … But I convinced myself that whatever happened, happened before I made that call anyway. Whether it did or it didn’t, that’s what I’m convincing myself. I know that guy’s gotta feel horrible. But people make mistakes.

“The only person that I hold responsible has been caught.”

Records show Cox was released from prison in November after serving more than three years for robbery with a dangerous weapon and two counts of breaking and entering.

Under a new state law, anyone accused of killing a pregnant woman could face two murder charges: one for the woman and one for her unborn child.

Patty Hathaway said she texted her friend Dawna Natzke the morning after a Dec. 21 Christmas party that Natzke left abruptly. Hathaway said she told her friend that she wasn’t pleased with how Natzke’s boyfriend “pushed” her out the door.

Nearly two hours later, Hathaway received a text from Natzke’s phone. “He didn’t push me i fell and he caught me. I had taken a pain pill and was tour up,” the message said, according to Hathaway.

Hathaway, who described the text to the AP, said she doesn’t believe that message came from Natzke.

“I know she knows how to spell,” Hathaway said in a telephone interview.

Authorities have a person of interest in Natzke’s death, but wouldn’t say Thursday who it is. No one has been arrested.

Natzke was last seen leaving a holiday party in the gated community of Hot Springs Village with her 28-year-old boyfriend, Kevin Duck. Duck told detectives the couple returned to her home that night and that she wasn’t there when he awoke the next morning. Natzke wasn’t reported missing until Dec. 23, when she didn’t show up for work.

Volunteer searchers found Natzke’s body Dec. 31 in a remote part of the woods about five miles from where Natzke’s burned-out station wagon turned up in the Ouachita National Forest.

Hathaway, who has known Natzke for 13 years, said Natzke wouldn’t have left Hot Springs Village by herself because she didn’t like to drive very far.

“She just got lost in a brown paper bag,” Hathaway said. “…She had no sense of direction.”

Natzke, a 46-year-old mother of three, opted for phone calls, too, instead of text messages.

“She only texts me if she was at work,” Hathaway said. “Otherwise, she’d always, always call me.”

Natzke had the day after the party off, but Hathaway said she didn’t know that at the time. When she found out later, she said it didn’t make sense that Natzke hadn’t called her on Dec. 22.

“She called me every day at approximately 10 o’clock cause she knows I don’t like sleeping in,” said Hathaway who works at a local bar.

Hathaway, who last saw Natzke at the holiday party, said her friend wasn’t acting like herself that night. So, she pulled Natzke aside and the two friends were talking until she said Duck “came barging in on us.” Natzke and Duck left together sometime between 10:30 p.m. and 11. Hathaway left a short time later.

“I kind of knew something wasn’t right,” Hathaway said. “That’s the reason I text her the very next morning, that I wasn’t pleased with what I had seen.”

Hathaway tried calling Natzke a couple times after she received the message from Natzke’s phone, but no one answered.

She said also she sent text messages to Duck, asking if he’d heard anything about Natzke. Hathaway said he told her the police said someone had found her vehicle and that he would let her know if he found out more.

Duck didn’t return a phone message left by the AP Thursday at his mother’s home. His cellphone number has been disconnected.

Read the story here.

They were coming in so fast, a few viewers told LEX 18 they couldn’t even get through.

CALLER: “There’s an explosion, huge fire. Hargis Road area, near Hargis. It’s very large, lighting up the entire sky and woods. Something must have exploded.”

Like whatever it was they were reporting, calls to Estill County 911 came in fast and furious.

CALLER: “I don’t know if I’m in any danger or not.” DISPATCHER: Honey, we don’t know what it is either. We’re trying to find out, OK?”

If you were anywhere within a 30 mile radius of the explosion, it’s likely you saw it too. The county’s emergency planner Ronnie Riddell says he was way too close for comfort, pumping gas not far from the scene. “It was a few moments of pure terror, it was scary,” he said.

Riddell said never hesitated, as he and the county’s public information officer drove straight to work. “I didn’t know what to think,” said Melissa Jessie. “I think it’s the first time in this job we didn’t know what was happening.”

And the questions came in so fast, they had to call in off-duty dispatchers, who jumped in and answered best they could.

CALLER: “Ma’am, can you tell me with this pipeline explosion if the people on Ironworks Road are supposed to evacuate or not?” DISPATCHER: “Honey, not sure. If you’ll hold on I’ll try to get ahold of someone and ask them.”

DISPATCHER: “Hang on honey, it’s crazy. Hang on. CALLER: “I know. i’m sorry to bother you, I just don’t know what to do.”

Directors at the 911 Center spoke very highly of the dispatchers who handled the calls and commended the public, saying for the most part there was no panic and the callers did their best to follow dispatcher’s directions.

The emergency management director says officials went door to door evacuating those within a half-mile radius of the explosion site.

Read the story here.

According to Kanawha County’s Metro 911 website, about 100 accidents were reported between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. Monday.

Around 3:30 p.m. Metro 911 reported heavy ice on Interstate 64 between Institute and Cross Lanes and advised drivers to slow down and use caution. According to a dispatcher, Interstates 79 and 77 as well as I-64 and Cross Lanes Drive have had black ice. The southbound lanes of I-77 between the 108 and 111 mile markers closed just before 5 p.m. Crews from the West Virginia Department of Highways were treating the slick roads, the dispatcher said.

In Raleigh County, around 30 vehicles were involved in a series of traffic accidents on the West Virginia Turnpike. The accidents started around 1:06 p.m. between the 40 and the 38 mile markers. Both lanes of the turnpike were reopened at 3:54 p.m., according to a dispatcher with the West Virginia State Police. No major injuries were reported.

A State Police dispatcher in Huntington said crews were busy with at least 15 snow-related accidents on Interstate 64.

Read the story here.

A timeline by The Record reveals the Nov. 28 rescue at the Region of Waterloo International Airport launched in confusion and continued with uncertain communications among multiple dispatchers.

“I don’t know what more of an example you could have than this situation of the need for a streamlined dispatch,” Waterloo Coun. Sean Strickland said.

“It’s a bit speculative whether or not a single dispatch would have gotten everybody there more quickly or more accurately,” Kitchener Coun. Tom Galloway said. “But it couldn’t have been any worse.”

Pilot Tiffany Hanna died when the helicopter crashed into a drainage pond. Student pilot Scott Puillandre is expected to recover from his injuries. The cause of the crash remains unknown.

Regional politicians and representatives of emergency response agencies are having closed-door meetings to discuss the rescue. Regional council has ordered a public report that may be released in January.

“There will be, obviously, a review of the whole incident,” Strickland said. He expects the public report to reveal what went right, what went wrong and recommend how to improve response times and emergency co-ordination.

The helicopter rescue triggered up to five emergency dispatch centres, including one that dispatched police, two that dispatched municipal firefighters, one that dispatched paramedics and a separate dispatch for the airport fire truck.

The pilot died quickly at the scene while civilian bystanders rushed to her aid. Paramedics and crash investigators believe that she could not have been saved, no matter how swift the response.

A 2009 report found the region’s multiple dispatch systems slow emergency responses. Politicians have been unwilling or unable to streamline the system, citing technology, job, financing and governance hurdles.

Galloway believes implementing a single emergency dispatch system for police, fire and ambulance could shave three or more minutes off ambulance response times.

“I’m hopeful that 2012 will be the breakthrough year” in moving toward streamlined dispatch, Galloway said.

What went wrong?

A Record probe has found that:

The rescue launched in confusion after a 911 call from the airport control tower misidentified the location of the crash.

The airport fire truck could have reached the crash within three minutes in ideal conditions. But it took 12 minutes to get there and the truck arrived damaged after exiting the airport and colliding with part of a security gate.

Cambridge and Woolwich firefighters did not know where the helicopter crashed even after a second 911 call clarified the location and even after Waterloo Regional Police reached the scene.

Fire dispatchers were so confused they tried to send the wrong firefighters from 23 kilometres away in Wilmot Township. When Woolwich Township firefighters were correctly dispatched, they did not know the crash location until almost seven minutes after police reached the scene.

Read the story here.

The PCSO Public Safety Communications Division is the second law enforcement agency, and the first Sheriff’s Office in the State of Arizona to be a certified NCMEC 9-1-1 center partner.

The certification demonstrates PCSO’s continued commitment to ensure emergency calls involving missing or abducted children are given utmost priority by ensuring policies are in place for quick response.

Rachel Johnston, program manager for NCMEC stated, “Congratulations Pinal County Sheriff’s Office! You have proven your commitment to protecting children by successfully completing all of the necessary requirements to become a NCMEC 9-1-1 Call Center Partner. Every year 800,000 children go missing in the United States. That’s more than 2,000 children per day. Every 9-1-1 call center must have in place policies and training to help ensure every missing and sexually exploited child is given the best chance to be found alive and unharmed. The Pinal County Sheriff’s Office has demonstrated exceptional proficiency; we are pleased to have them join the NCMEC team.

Additionally, in November PCSO agreed to provide a pool of specialized investigators and Public Safety Communications Officials which are available to focus dedicated and intensive investigative, preventative, and general law enforcement efforts primarily with regard to cases involving abducted children as part of the Arizona Child Abduction Response Team (AZCART).

PCSO joins the cities of Phoenix, Chandler, Apache Junction, Mesa, Scottsdale, Maricopa and the towns of Paradise Valley and Gilbert as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigations as part of AZCART.

The AZCART program, along with NCMEC work in conjunction with the national Amber Alert system.

Jennifer Foster, PCSO Director of Public Safety Communications stated, “Often in law enforcement we find ourselves reacting to events that occur around us. This certification is an entirely proactive preparedness. If a child is missing, abducted, or otherwise compromised in Pinal County, the Sheriff’s Office Public Safety Communications Division has been well-trained to deploy our knowledge and training in assistance for not only our deputies, but concerned families and media partners. Over the next few months we will host our law enforcement partners in the state of Arizona to share our experience in NCMEC certification, internal policies, procedures and training. We feel fortunate and blessed to offer this to our Pinal County families.”

Read the story here.