Oakland 911 disruption: Police probe potential criminal act as emergency lines fail

OAKLAND, Calif. - Oakland’s 911 emergency system has been offline since Wednesday night after fiber-optic and copper lines were damaged, prompting police to investigate whether the disruption was criminal.

Emergency calls to the Oakland Police Department are currently being rerouted to the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office dispatch center and to Oakland fire's dispatch center.

OPD fallbacks compromised

What we know:

Dispatchers first noticed OPD’s dispatch system froze at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday. By 9:45 p.m., the department began transferring incoming 911 calls to the sheriff's office and fire dispatch.

At a Thursday afternoon press conference, Oakland Police Chief James Beere said the department had two fallback systems in place, but both were compromised during the system outage. Beere underscored that this level of service disruption is not normal.

What we don't know:

Investigators are following leads to determine if the lines were intentionally tampered with.

Oakland’s IT department is working with AT&T to restore service.

No delays reported for priority calls

Local perspective:

Despite the outage, Alameda County Sheriff's Sgt. Roberto Morales said

there weren't any delays being reported because of the disruption.

OPD dispatchers are sitting next to the county dispatchers and taking the calls that pertain to Oakland. 

Due to limited call capacity, OPD dispatchers are only responding to Priority 1 calls.

The OAK311 lines are also impacted by the disruption.

What you can do:

If you want to report an infrastructure emergency like flooding or a downed power line, police say to call 911 as normal. If you have a nonemergency like a pothole or illegal dumping to report, police said you should email it to OAK311@oaklandca.gov.