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<\/p>\nWhen Rickey Spivey Towner had a heart attack in his Coachella Valley home last September, his stepdaughter Megan Conner found him unconscious and called 911.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But there was a problem: The equipment used to answer 911 calls at the Desert Hot Springs Police Department malfunctioned and Conner couldn\u2019t connect with a dispatcher for more than two minutes, according to dispatch records obtained by NBC Bay Area.<\/p>\n
In a recording of one of Conner\u2019s 911 calls, the dispatcher is immediately disconnected, and Conner is met by silence for 25 seconds until the dispatcher can get back on the line.<\/p>\n
Towner did not survive. His family said he died of a heart attack.<\/p>\n
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Ricky Spivey Towner’s death is the first documented fatality that may be linked to Cal OES’ problematic 911 upgrade. <\/p>\n
Towner\u2019s death may be the first documented fatality potentially linked to the state\u2019s ongoing 911 system overhaul.<\/p>\n
Newly obtained records under the California Public Records Act reveal the connection problems were linked to call processing equipment approved by the state as part of California\u2019s troubled Next Generation 911 rollout, sold by a state contractor called NGA 911, and deployed by the Desert Hot Springs Police Department in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Police records reveal emergency dispatchers were unexpectedly logged out of their phone system as Conner called 911 to report her stepfather lying unresponsive on the floor.<\/p>\n
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Records obtained by NBC Bay Area show all of the dispatchers were logged out of their systems when the 911 call came in. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear if Towner could have been saved had his stepdaughter been able to summon help faster, but records show a police dispatch manager sent a scathing email shortly after his death to NGA 911. She also copied top officials with the California Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES).<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople\u2019s lives are on the line and your failed system may have just cost this person their life,\u201d the dispatch manager wrote on September 12, 2025. \u201cI believe that your engineers are continuously making changes to our live environment which is affecting our user experience. Which again is unacceptable, especially when I had continuously asked you to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Desert Hot Springs dispatch manager’s email to NGA 911 and Cal OES shortly after Towner’s death. <\/p>\n
Records from the police department lay out the details of what went wrong and show Conner had to call 911 three times that morning before she was finally able to relay any information to a dispatcher. It took nearly two-and-a-half minutes.<\/p>\n
The national standard calls for 90% of 911 calls to be answered within 15 seconds.<\/p>\n
The equipment that failed is called call processing equipment (CPE) and it was purchased by Desert Hot Springs police after Cal OES suspended new sales of existing call processing equipment and began pushing dispatch centers toward cloud-based systems designed for the state’s Next Generation 911 network.<\/p>\n
State officials say the Next Generation 911 project is a critical upgrade to California\u2019s antiquated 911 system and will improve emergency response.<\/p>\n
After a series of reports<\/a> by NBC Bay Area\u2019s Investigative Unit, however, the overhaul has faced mounting scrutiny from lawmakers over delays, technical problems and a rising price tag exceeding $450 million.<\/p>\n WATCH NBC BAY AREA’S INVESTIGATIONS CA 911: TOO BIG TO FAIL<\/a><\/p>\n Like most emergency dispatch centers across California, Desert Hot Springs has not switched over to the new Next Gen 911 network. However, it was among the first to use the new cloud-based CPE that Cal OES promoted after suspending sales of legacy call processing equipment that failed to meet Next Generation 911 standards.<\/p>\n NGA 911\u2019s equipment had passed state lab testing conducted by Cal OES and was among a handful of vendors approved to sell the new cloud-based CPE when Desert Hot Springs purchased its equipment.<\/p>\n While Cal OES, NGA 911, and Desert Hot Springs police were discussing the equipment failure during Conner\u2019s 911 call, the family says they were left in the dark. They say nobody had told them about what happened until they were recently contacted by NBC Bay Area.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy didn\u2019t I know any of this,\u201d said Lakisha Romero, Towner\u2019s daughter. \u201cMy dad has been talked about around the state and I had no clue what was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n Lakisha Romero (left) and Megan Conner (right).<\/p>\n A timeline<\/a> of \u201cmajor events and challenges\u201d in the state\u2019s implementation of Next Gen 911 that has since been posted on Cal OES\u2019 website shows the CPE purchased by Desert Hot Springs had been plagued by persistent problems since it was first deployed more than two years before Towner\u2019s death.<\/p>\n \u201c911 calls that were disconnected before being answered by the [911 center] are not displaying for dispatchers,\u201d the Cal OES timeline states. \u201cA workaround was immediately implemented that required dispatchers to use third party technology. NGA 911, LLC is notified of the problem and indicates it is working on a solution.\u201d<\/p>\n About a year later, the Wasco Police Department also purchased NGA 911 call processing equipment and experienced “the same problems as [Desert Hot Springs],\u201d according to Cal OES.<\/p>\n By May 2025, police in Desert Hot Springs and Wasco had opened roughly 300 trouble tickets concerning issues with NGA 911’s CPE, including 17 of \u201ccritical importance\u201d and 99 of \u201chigh importance.\u201d Two months later, both departments canceled their CPE orders with NGA 911.<\/p>\n In a statement, the Desert Hot Springs Police Department said it \u201cworked collaboratively with NGA and Cal OES regarding operational and technical concerns that arose during implementation and operation.\u201d<\/p>\n Cal OES said it took \u201cimmediate steps\u201d to help both departments swap out the problematic CPE with equipment from a new vendor, but the process took months to complete and had not occurred before Towner died.<\/p>\n Three weeks after his death, Cal OES said it removed NGA 911 from the approved CPE vendor list and the agency eventually cancelled <\/a>the company\u2019s CPE contract in March of this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cal OES declined an on-camera interview request but said in an email the agency is committed to oversight and accountability of its contractors.<\/p>\n![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Lakisha-Romero-and-Megan-Conner.jpg\")
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