Poor Communication Contributed to Bomb Squad Delay

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - The delayed response to reports of suspicious packages -- which closed down Metro's Braddock Road station Wednesday morning -- was partially due to communication failures among some area first responders.

Alexandria Police Lt. James Bartlett says officers arrived at 3:09 a.m. and agreed with a Metro worker's assessment that the two suitcases and a backpack found near the bus waiting area of the Metro station were suspicious.

Police immediately tried to find a bomb-sniffing dog. WTOP Radio has learned a civilian Metro police dispatcher received two phone calls from Alexandria Police, asking if Metro had a bomb-sniffing dog on duty. Each time, the dispatcher said 'no.'

Now Metro says its dispatcher should have asked more probing questions.

"Our dispatcher should have asked more questions to find out what was going on," says Metro spokesperson Lisa Farbstein.

Despite two calls from Alexandria Police Communication, Farbstein says the dispatcher didn't ascertain the call was prompted by the ongoing situation at the Braddock Road Station.

The Alexandria Police Department is sharing the blame with Metro. Spokesperson Amy Bertsch says the Alexandria communications employee never specified to the Metro Police dispatcher that it needed a bomb dog because of the suspicious situation.

Local emergency agencies say they frequently call neighboring jurisdictions in off-hours to request aid when specialized forces are needed. Those communications are often handled by communications teams at a dispatch center, rather than by the people on the scene.

"Alexandria and Metro Police have reached out to each other, all the way up to the chiefs," says Farbstein. "We'll be improving training for our dispatchers, and we'll be investigating how the dispatch was handled. It's possible there could be disciplinary action."

Bertsch says since Alexandria Police were initially tipped off to the suspicious packages by a Metro employee, Alexandria incorrectly believed those employees had communicated the gravity of the situation to Metro Police.

"We were operating under the assumption that Metro notified their own people. We could have been clearer."

Farbstein was unable to ascertain when the transit agency realized the situation demanded a response by its bomb squad. Bertsch says she believes it happened when a Metro station manager arrived at the station at 4:30 a.m. to open for business and noticed the confusion.

The Metro bomb squad reached the station by 5:05 a.m., five minutes after the station was scheduled to open for rush hour.

The Braddock Road Metro reopened at 7:25 a.m.

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