Dallas 911 Goes Old School

Virus shuts down city's computer-aided dispatch system for nearly 10 hours

By SUSY SOLIS and GRANT STINCHFIELD

Updated 4:43 PM CDT, Mon, May 18, 2009

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Dallas shut down its computer-aided dispatch system Sunday when workers found more viruses than expected during routine maintenance.

Police said the system went down at 6:30 a.m. for the maintenance, which was originally expected to take about four hours. But workers discovered a virus had infected some of the workstations within the city's dispatch center and shut the system for nearly 10 hours.

Computer technicians said they believed the virus infected the system weeks ago. It had been replicating itself, slowing the system down.

"We isolated it and contained it," said Worris Levine, head of the city's information technology department.

Dallas police and firefighters used the old-fashioned radio dispatch system while the fixes were being made.

It is not the first time CAD has been shut down or crashed. The $14 million system has been plagued with problems since it was installed two years ago.

Since the system was installed, it has sent officers to the wrong location, lost track of officers in the field and even failed to return timely background checks on suspects, police said.

"When it fails, it compromises the safety of officers in the field and the safety of the public," said Eddie Crawford, of the Dallas Police Association.

The city says the problems stem from integrating old technology in police officers' computers with the new technology of the CAD system.

"I wish we had taken the whole CAD system and implemented it all together," City Councilwoman Elba Garcia said. "Sadly, the decision was made to implement it in stages, and that was a big mistake."

Dallas said it plans to install 1,100 laptops in police vehicles by the end of May, which city officials said will solve the problems.