Beneath dim Capitol Hill streetlights on September 20, Gary Dziekan headed down eighth Avenue Northeast wearing lederhosen, strolling residence from the Oktoberfest occasion he co-hosted 5 blocks away. Dziekan, who goes by “Zeek,” crossed on the intersection with C Avenue, zeroing in on the brief iron gate separating a colourful row of two-story houses from the quiet Washington, DC, road.
Simply steps from the thin inexperienced rowhouse the place his spouse and two younger sons slept, footsteps quickened within the crosswalk behind Zeek, pounding the asphalt.
Zeek, an off-duty DC firefighter, turned to discover a masked man aiming a gun at him. The person tried to rob him, inflicting a scuffle that ended with Zeek shot, mendacity on the bottom, dialing 911. Zeek waited for 3 minutes — clutching his bleeding wound — with no reply from the emergency quantity earlier than he referred to as his personal firehouse, begging for assist.
His unanswered name marks the newest crucial misstep by the capitol metropolis’s embattled dispatch system, Zeek, who works with DC 911 every day as a primary responder, stated. DC’s Workplace of Unified Communications (OUC), which handles 911 operations within the metropolis, has lengthy been saddled with staffing shortages, hiring difficulties and botched dispatches manifesting harmful situations for some callers over time.
The capturing additionally comes as reported crime throughout the capitol metropolis has fallen because the Trump administration launched a sweeping takeover of policing, unleashing a flood of federal legislation enforcement on to DC’s streets in August.
Members of the US Nationwide Guard patrol at Union Station in Washington, DC, on August 14. – Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Pictures
Whereas Zeek had seen Nationwide Guard troops and different brokers patrolling round his neighborhood earlier than, he was alone on Saturday evening — with out federal safety or help from 911 — pressured to take issues into his personal fingers.
“Give me your cellular phone,” the robber demanded when Zeek circled.
“Right here, take every part,” Zeek stated, providing his telephone and a bag carrying his pockets, sun shades, and a Bluetooth speaker. The robber lifted the telephone to Zeek’s face to unlock it, and, when the digital pockets did not open, shoved the barrel of the gun towards Zeek’s chest.
“He was gonna kill me,” Zeek instructed CNN. “100% going to shoot me within the chest, proper there, just some ft from my door.”
So, right away, Zeek twisted and pushed the barrel apart, however the robber grabbed his shoulder, firing a shot that cracked by the quiet. The bullet handed by the robber’s fingers and into Zeek’s chest and shoulder.
The shooter bolted, dropping the gun, the bag and the telephone. Zeek crumpled onto the pavement, tugging free the straps of his lederhosen so he might use his shirt to press on the bloody wound.
He grabbed his telephone, dialed 911 on speaker, and set it beside him. It rang for 3 minutes with out a solution because the firefighter lay bleeding on the street.
Zeek was nonetheless sprawled and bleeding when the robber’s hammering footsteps returned, breaking by the automated voice on the telephone.
Certain that the person had returned to kill him, Zeek grabbed the gun mendacity close to the curb the place it was dropped. He loaded recent rounds and fired on the shooter who was operating at him, forcing him to flee for good.
When a neighbor got here outdoors to assist, providing to name 911, Zeek instructed him to name a special quantity as an alternative — the direct line to the fireplace station he labored at, Engine 18 Truck 7, simply six blocks away. Zeek’s voice cracked by the neighbor’s telephone when the station answered: “It’s Zeek. I’ve been shot and I need assistance. I’m at eighth and C Northeast.”
The bus cease on the nook of eighth Avenue and C Avenue Northeast in Washington, DC, simply steps from the place off-duty firefighter Gary Dziekan was shot on the evening of September 20. – Danya Gainor/CNN
Inside minutes, emergency lights from his firetruck and from Metropolitan Police vehicles had been dancing off the home windows of eighth Avenue’s quiet row of homes. Medics — a few of them his buddies — tore away Zeek’s blood-soaked costume, bandaged his arm and chest, and rushed him to the hospital.
Two days later, Zeek was residence together with his household once more, fragments of the bullet nonetheless lodged in his shoulder between a block of nerves and fundamental blood vessel. Medical doctors stated it’s too dangerous to take away the bullet and contemplate him fortunate that it didn’t do extra injury.
Trying again, Zeek stated he by no means spoke to anybody at 911 on the evening of the capturing.
“I’ve all the time had this concept behind my head, if one thing went improper that I do know if I referred to as the firehouse, I’d get service sooner (than 911),” Zeek stated. “However I didn’t assume I’d ever truly be on this place.”
Renewed requires accountability at understaffed DC911
OUC acquired over 20 calls to 911 inside 10 minutes of the incident on eighth Avenue the evening of the capturing, a spike in typical name quantity, and dispatchers processed them “as rapidly as doable,” OUC Director Heather McGaffin stated in a press release.
In DC, 911 calls are answered within the order that they’re dialed. OUC says the primary name for the capturing that dispatchers answered was picked up simply after 10:11 p.m., but it surely’s not clear how lengthy that caller was on maintain earlier than OUC answered. The decision go surfing Zeek’s telephone exhibits he dialed the three-digit quantity at 10:10 p.m., disconnecting after nobody picked up for 3 lengthy minutes.
“We acknowledge that in incidents which create a rise in name quantity, some callers are positioned in queue whereas name takers collect pertinent data and supply lifesaving path to different callers,” McGaffin’s assertion stated.
911 name spikes are as sporadic because the emergencies prompting them, making it unimaginable for name facilities in any metropolis to plan for them and employees accordingly.
However OUC was already understaffed on the evening of September 20, an OUC spokesperson instructed CNN. Night time shifts have a minimal staffing goal of 17 name takers, however solely 16 folks — six of whom had been working extra time — had been on employees that evening.
All 16 employees had been taking calls after 10 p.m. when Zeek was shot, the OUC spokesperson stated.
Fireplace and EMS had been dispatched to Zeek’s location after 10:12 p.m., and MPD was dispatched after 10:13 p.m., in accordance with dispatch logs shared by OUC. The crew from Zeek’s fireplace station had been the primary to reach at 10:17 p.m., with different responders shut behind.
A screenshot of Zeek’s name log from the evening he was shot. – Courtesy Gary Dziekan
Usually, OUC has struggled to handle name volumes because the company faces vital, years-long staffing challenges, reporting lower than 57% of its shifts met staffing targets in the course of the month of August. Final 12 months, the company went so far as to supply month-to-month bonuses to staff who present as much as all their scheduled shifts, CNN affiliate WUSA9 beforehand reported.
Zeek stated “it’s not surprising” his 911 name went unanswered.
“I see it at work each day – each day there’s issues,” he stated. “Then I’m off obligation, I want OUC, and I don’t even get a solution. That’s actually despicable.”
Working as a firefighter within the metropolis, Zeek referred to as the readability of dispatches from OUC personnel “completely horrendous,” leaving his crew scrambling for path. Dispatchers relay incorrect addresses to them nearly every day, he stated, massively delaying their response to folks experiencing emergencies.
“If an deal with will get put within the pc improper and sends you within the improper path, that’s anyone’s life within the steadiness,” he stated. “It causes a major problem for the protection of the residents, and OUC simply refuses to come clean with their very own errors.”
The company “works carefully” with metropolis public security companions “to assist make sure that every response is well timed and well-coordinated,” McGaffin’s assertion stated.
Teen suspect faces wrath of Trump administration with upgraded fees
On the opposite facet of public security in DC, cops and federal brokers – working in tandem as the results of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on crime within the capital metropolis — situated and arrested the excessive schooler who allegedly robbed and shot Zeek that evening.
“FBI brokers, together with federal companions and MPD, aggressively apprehended the topic, took him into custody, and in addition participated in quite a few interviews,” Darren Cox, assistant director accountable for FBI Washington Area workplace, stated throughout a Monday information convention.
Courtroom paperwork recognized 17-year-old Marcellus Dyson, Jr. because the suspect. CNN has reached out to his lawyer for remark.
After operating from the pictures Zeek fired at him, Dyson allegedly approached a witness one road over, telling her he had been shot and wanted assist, in accordance with the affidavit. The witness was strolling Dyson to a close-by hospital earlier than responding officers stopped them and detained the teenager.
The excessive schooler was initially arrested for assault with the intent to rob, however he now faces the facility of the District’s prime prosecutor, former Fox Information host Jeanine Pirro, who has carried out the president’s demand for intense prosecutions with gusto.
Jeanine Pirro holds a press convention on the Patrick Henry Constructing in Washington, DC, on August 12. – Win McNamee/Getty Pictures/File
Her workplace pushes for harsher fees or time in jail for even low-level offenders. Instances are flooding the courts, with hearings in DC’s native prison court docket routinely lasting late into the evening and federal prosecutors woke up for brand spanking new circumstances.
Pirro introduced Monday Dyson can be tried as an grownup, below Title 16, as he faces upgraded fees of armed theft, possession of a firearm throughout a criminal offense of violence and aggravated assault whereas armed.
At a Friday preliminary listening to, the court docket rejected the protection’s request to launch Dyson. His subsequent court docket look is scheduled for October 7.
Pirro referred to as Zeek the identical day she introduced the brand new fees for the suspect, the firefighter stated.
“I’m 100% behind her,” he stated. “Someone must be the instance.”
Zeek, who’s elevating his 13- and 10-year-old sons within the rowhouse on eighth Avenue, stated there needs to be penalties for younger folks within the metropolis committing violence to discourage others.
“If it stops the following individual from getting robbed, shot, assaulted, something – nice. And I feel it is going to,” he stated.
Whereas he believes the deployment of federal enforcement brokers have helped make DC safer, he can’t shake the unease {that a} 17-year-old with a gun left him with simply steps from his personal entrance door.
“Up till Saturday, I used to be very happy to reside the place I used to be dwelling,” he stated. “However it has made me surprise what my future with my household dwelling within the metropolis seems to be like.”
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