Arlington police get wrong address, break into home two doors down

An inaccurate calculation of a cellphone’s location led Arlington police officers to break into the wrong house last week while responding to a 911 domestic disturbance call.

Dispatch received the call about 11 p.m. Aug. 18 from a woman fighting with a man. Because of the background noise, the 911 dispatcher initially couldn’t hear the exact address.

Meanwhile, officers went to the 3200 block of Calender Park Court in south Arlington, using the location pinged from the woman’s cellphone, Lt. Chris Cook, a police spokesman, said.

Cellphone locations can usually be determined accurately within meters, but sometimes have a wider margin of error, Cook said.

And when the dispatcher got the exact address from the woman, the officers’ computers didn’t receive the updated location.

Instead, the officers broke down the front door of a house two doors from the 911 caller’s. They soon realized they were at the wrong house.

“We thought we were encountering a home invasion,” Tommy Osbakken, the homeowner, told NBC 5.

Cook said that as more people call from cellphones instead of land lines, mislocating 911 calls has become more of a problem. But it’s still rare for officers force entry into a home like last week.

They felt it was necessary, Cook said, because the dispatcher heard the woman say, “He is going to kill me.”

The department’s risk management office will pay for a new door at Osbakken’s home, Cook said.

This story was originally published August 24, 2016 at 6:33 PM with the headline "Arlington police get wrong address, break into home two doors down."