Annotated 9-1-1 call in Daniel Pham case

There were three 9-1-1 recordings plus the recording of the police dispatch communications, released by the City of San Jose in the case of the police shooting death of Daniel Pham. The recording that’s the longest, and also holds the most information among the three 9-1-1 calls, is the one placed by the girlfriend of Daniel’s brother – whom Daniel cut up.

The morning of May 10, 2009, at around 11:30 or so, as the brother was sitting down at his computer in the living room, Daniel (whose Vietnamese name is Sơn) came up from behind and cut the man from ear to ear. The brother fought off Daniel, and got cut some more, screamed for his girlfriend to lock herself in the bedroom and call 9-1-1, and fled to a neighbor’s house. The neighbor also placed a short 9-1-1.

The only thing the girlfriend knew, however, was that the two brothers were fighting and her boyfriend told her to lock herself up and call 9-1-1. She did not know that Daniel had a knife. But she did know Daniel was strange and the family always locks up their bedrooms when Daniel’s around.

Following are annotated video of the girlfriend’s 9-1-1 call, broken into 3 parts to meet YouTube’s 10-minute maximum limit.

Part 1 consists of the first 9+ minutes. In this part, it is revealed that the parents and other brother were not in the house, the woman was unaware whether Daniel was armed, and she didn’t know but thought he was probably mentally ill. She told the dispatcher the man’s name is Son, and did not say Daniel. Toward the end of this part, police came and can be heard yelling at Daniel Pham to put the knife down.

Part 2 (below the jump) overlaps by a few minutes with Part 1 and goes for 6 minutes or so. This part starts from where the woman can hear the police coming. 

Sounds from the outside, including yells of “Put the knife down” and “He’s still holding the knife” can be heard. Shots can also be heard, but the caller didn’t realize that’s what it was. On this tape, it sounds like 5 or 6 bangs, but when the two officers’ guns are examined, it turned out each had fired about 7 times. (Autopsy reports belong to the Coroner’s office and are not part of materials released by the city.)

 
Finally, part 3 consists of the last 9+ minutes of the call. In this part, the woman has begun to look outside and she related to the dispatcher what she saw. The woman could see that Daniel had cut himself. She saw the police trying to revive Daniel.

Because this call was made from a woman hiding inside the house, some of what went on outside was not reflected in this call. The entire file has a lot more information, from other recordings (including the calls between communication center and officers on the field) and from the police reports. The Bolsavik is in the process of reconstructing the timeline and will publish it when done.