A few weeks ago, we reported on the very sad and untimely death of Philly native/ex-City Paper photog/all-around sweet dude Mpozi Mshale Tolbert at his desk at the Indianapolis Star. At the end of last week, fellow Star reporter Ruth Holladay blogged about Mpozi’s passing, effectively blaming the Star’s parent corp, Gannett Co., for a massive failure to be capable of coping with a life-or-death situation. It read, in part:

[...]Nobody could dial 911 from the newsroom. Gannett wants all such calls to go thru to security, at extension 4900 and located on the first floor, so that security can exert control.
The woman working security that night, who got the calls from the second floor, does not speak English with much skill. So she had a hard time getting a grasp on the situation and began asking a lot of questions rather than getting on the horn right away to 911.
Meanwhile, horrified, frantic copy editors and others whipped out their cell phones to dial 911.
During this time, Mpozi went from being very red in the face to turning blue.
Two copy editors, a man and a woman, gave him CPR. But it must have been too late — the sound coming from his lungs was more of a death rattle.
Calls to 911 got thru by 6:25 p.m. The EMTs arrived just before 6:30 p.m. from Wishard, just minutes away.
He was paddled 3 times by them before he was taken out of the building at 6:37 p.m.

You can hear a lot of grief in those words, but you can also hear a lot of frustration with the state of clusterfucked papers around the country. And of course, Gannett has issued a denial. But seriously. Brian Tierney, we’re hoping you’re reading this with great interest.
RuthHolladay: 911 Is A Joke (If It’s Blocked)
Editor&Publisher: Gannett ‚Äî “911 Calls Were Not Blocked”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 26th, 2006 at 1:40 pm.