A former Tucson 911 operator fighting to get his job back was let go because he was vocal about problems with a new operating system, his representative told a Civil Service Hearing Commission today.
The city says Michael LaFond was terminated in June not for criticizing the new 911 operating system, but for accessing call information related to the high-profile death of a 10-year-old girl.
LaFond was fired after he accessed computer assisted dispatch (CAD) reports two weeks after the June 1 death. In the incident, a call came from an urgent-care center in Marana about a 10-year-old girl who arrived unconscious after an asthma attack. After a series of human and technical errors, a dispatcher routed emergency crews to the wrong address near downtown. The right address did not show up on the dispatcher's screen.
After a third 911 call the address was corrected and the girl was later flown to a hospital, where she died.
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Although LaFond had access to the computer assisted dispatch reports, he wasn't allowed to access them to do research on previous calls that contained confidential information, City Prosecutor Gioia Sanderson said.
There was no city rules that expressly prohibited LaFond from accessing the files, LaFord's representative Rhoda Hailey countered.
In addition, Hailey said LaFond had warned of problems with the 911 system prior to its installation through through reports, email and verbally.
LaFond's firing was political because it concerned him investigating a high profile case that casts a negative light on the city, Hailey said.
Read more in tomorrow's Arizona Daily Star.
