“Direct 911 dialing Kari’s Law goes into effect Thursday”

Marshall News Messenger  
August 28, 2017 

This story is the culmination of series, following the murder of Kari Hunt Dunn and the consequential lobbying for a law in her memory to its implementation. Reporter Robin Y. Richardson originally broke the news of Dunn’s murder at a local hotel and worked with her father, Hank Hunt, during his campaign to have a state and then national 911 law enacted, requiring businesses with multi-line phone systems enable their systems to allow for direct 911 dialing. Her stories, from the beginning, raised awareness of the issue and gave Hunt a platform that began to spread across the state until it was eventually voted as law in Texas.

Upon its implementation in Texas, on Sept. 1, Richardson and editor Cait Shields, put together a story detailing the journey of Kari’s Law, including which local businesses and multi-line phone system users were compliant and which were not. Despite abundant stories about Kari’s Law over the last few years, many local hotels were not aware of the law going into effect, or if they were aware of the law they were not aware of the deadline. As a direct result of the calls and visits, Richardson and Shields made, several hotels and motels worked to switch over their phone systems to meet the Sept. 1 deadline, as well as fuel discussion among readers about direct 911 dialing in general.

LINK to content online

Submitted by Cait Shields.