Teen in van couldn’t communicate properly

Despite calling 911, a 16-yearold boy who died in his minivan was unable to properly communicate.

COLUMBUS, OHIO » A 16-year-old Ohio boy who got pinned in the back seat of his minivan and died despite voice-dialing 911 was unable to communicate properly with dispatchers because his phone was in his back pocket, according to an initial police investigation.

Cincinnati police chief Eliot Isaac presented the results of an internal investigation before the City Council’s law and safety committee, providing details of the 911 call and the police response.

Also among the information released Monday:

• The city’s computer assisted-dispatching system experienced difficulties throughout the call.

• Kyle’s phone was in his pocket as he called, and he was using “Siri” caller technology to call 911. Kyle was not able to give back and forth answers to a dispatcher, and the phone disconnected his call.

• The first dispatcher didn’t hear Kyle’s initial comments that he was “going to die here” because he spoke during an automated “What is your emergency” response message.

• Officers initially believed they were searching for an elderly woman locked in her vehicle needing help.

• Officers weren’t given information from the initial 911 call that someone was banging and screaming for help.

Isaac said officers determined

they could search a bigger area and see more by staying in their cruiser.

Kyle’s father, Ron Plush, said Monday he still had multiple questions about what happened despite a police investigation into his son’s death.

“I was expecting that by hearing the police report today many of my questions would be answered,” Plush said, appearing at a Cincinnati City Council meeting on the police response to the April 10 death of his son. “This is not the case.”

Plush found the body of his son, Kyle Plush, on April 10 inside the 2004 Honda

Odyssey in a parking lot near his school nearly six hours after Kyle’s first 911 call. A coroner says the teen died of asphyxiation from his chest being compressed. It is suspected that the foldaway rear seat flipped over as he reached for tennis gear in the back.

Ron Plush asked authorities why officers weren’t notified that his son was screaming for help in a 911 call, and whether exact GPS coordinates existed for his son’s location and if so, why weren’t those given to police officers.

Ron Plush promised to help improve the city 911

system but also said he would be asking difficult questions along the way.

“Kyle will give us the strength and guidance to get the job done,” Ron Plush said.

Mayor John Cranley told Plush he would receive written responses to every question and called the police report on the case incomplete.

Cranley opened Monday’s meeting by saying the city failed in its response to the 911 call.

“In all cases we can do better, we should do better, we must do better,” Cranley said.

MEG VOGEL — THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER VIA AP Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley hugs a member of Kyle Plush’s family before council’s Law and Public Safety Committee meeting where Kyle Plush’s death after he accidentally got pinned in the fold-away back seat of a minivan was discussed inside the Council Chambers at City Hall in Cincinnati. The teen’s April 10 death has triggered long-overdue plans for upgrades at the city emergency center and helped force the city manager’s resignation, and more changes could come after the Cincinnati police department’s internal probe, the county prosecutor’s investigation and vehicle safety reviews.