Did an Echo call 911 during violent domestic assault? Amazon says no

It started as a tale of technology coming to the rescue: Authorities said an Amazon Echo called 911 during a violent assault in Albuquerque.

The call led to the arrival of sheriff ’s deputies and helped save a woman and her daughter from a “very violent situation,” Manuel Gonzales III, the sheriff of the Bernalillo County Sheriff ’s Department in New Mexico, said in a statement.

“The unexpected use of this new technology to contact emergency services has possibly helped save a life,” he said.

This account was widely reported in the news media. But Amazon and a national 911 association have cast doubts on it, saying it could not have unfolded that way.

Echo is a smart home device with a virtual assistant, Alexa, that responds to voice commands and can, among other things, play music, tell you the weather or search the web. One of the things it cannot do, however, is call 911, an Amazon spokeswoman, Rachel Hass, said by email.

“In order for a call to be made and answered, the receiving end needs to also have Alexa calling and messaging set up,” she wrote, adding that “there is no capability to switch the call to another phone, device or service.”

The device also would have to be prompted first by four “wake words”: Alexa, Echo, computer or Amazon.

Trey Forgety, director of government affairs and information and security issues for NENA: The 9-1-1 Association, said he would be “sort of surprised” if Alexa could respond as it was described by officials.

“I have not heard of an Alexa device being a problem from a 911 perspective because they do not have native telephone capabilities,” he said.

He said Echo behaves differently than Siri, the virtual assistant on iPhones that can place calls with a prompt. He recalled a case when a television news station aired a report that included the phrase “Hey Siri, call 911,” which led to a flood of calls to emergency dispatchers from phones responding to the command.