Lehigh County takes very seriously any complaint about the way our operators conduct themselves while serving the public. We scrutinize all complaints, regardless of their source, to make sure that we are in compliance with best practices and that we are serving our residents in the best manner possible.

Below is a timeline of not only the call in question, but of all calls related to the incident. The following are the specifics for 739 North Fair Street, Allentown, Pa, 18102, fire call received on July 27, 2020.

• Initial Call 11:22 a.m.

? Initial call was received

• From this call, the call taker was able to obtain the address and nature of the emergency

? 11:23 a.m. ready for dispatch

? 11:23 a.m. police and fire dispatched

? 11:25 a.m. police arrived

? 11:27 a.m. fire arrived

• One dozen calls were received between the initial call at 11:22 a.m. and 11:27 a.m. when the fire department arrived.

• All calls confirmed the fire location.

• Spanish speaking caller, called at 11:23 a.m.

• This call was received and processed.

• The call was immediately transferred to the translation line, which is our standard operating procedure.

• The call was handled correctly, without any concern for caller’s language.

• The results of the call, confirmed the fire location.

• Heriberto Santiago Jr. Call

• The call was received at 11:24 a.m.

• This call was in English.

• Heriberto Santiago Jr. mentioned he was trapped in the basement, due to a fire at 739 N. Fair Street.

• The call taker told Mr. Santiago that help is on the way; the fire department has been dispatched.

• The call ended, our call taker could not return a call to the caller, because the phone was an unregistered cell phone without a unique number.

• The Computer Aided Dispatch system was updated at 11:25 a.m. to indicate an individual trapped in the facility The voice recording and Computer Aided Dispatch system captures information, and that information isn’t overridden, it is memorialized in our record management system. From this timeline:

• It shows that our 911 center received a call reporting a fire, and within three minutes, emergency personnel began to arrive on the scene.

• It also shows that our 911 operators received a number of other calls, including one from Heriberto Santiago as well as a Spanish call that was properly routed to a Spanish speaking attendant. The call was received at 11:24 a.m. Mr. Santiago identified himself and spoke to the dispatcher in English, not Spanish.

• Mr. Santiago told the dispatcher that he was trapped in the basement as a result of a fire. The dispatcher assured Mr. Santiago that help was on the way (the records confirm that police and fire had been dispatched at 11:23 a.m., one minute before Mr. Santiago’s call was received). The call was then disconnected.

• It was not possible to call Mr. Santiago back because he was calling from an unregistered cell phone without a unique number. The records reflect that police arrived on the scene at 11:25 a.m., one minute after Mr. Santiago’s call was received, and that fire arrived on the scene at 11:27, three minutes after Mr. Santiago’s call was received.

• All tapes pertaining to the incident have been thoroughly reviewed along with the 911 center’s computer aided dispatch system. Normally, we would not comment on pending litigation, but the baseless allegations made in a recent federal court filing are so inaccurate and so damaging to the public trust that we needed to correct the record.

(Signed by)

Phillips M. Armstrong Lehigh County Executive