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Dave Testa: An app designed to provide “access to our building cameras so [first responders] can see what's going on inside the building in real time” is a different subject, and was not addressed in this article. I do not search prior Beacon articles as you suggest, for the purpose of assembling together various statements (which many times are the reporter’s own opinion or statement, not the city’s), and infer the result is accurate, and can be added to a more recent article as if it was all written at the same time. If there is public information on a city website that you can point to, then that may help build a more complete picture of the building camera feature, if that’s relevant to this article.

Regarding this article, and the app as discussed:

There is an appearance the need for the app is based on emotion, not fact. On its face, requiring a dedicated app to essentially implement speed dial for 9-1-1 looks like serious overkill. If you want to text, you are pressing a lot more than one button anyway. The “Until Help Arrives” training material (https://www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/documents/167907) says you should call 9-1-1 directly, no app in between. If you text, RIDPS advises it “may not be as quick or efficient” (from a PDF on Text-to-911 capability, at http://ri911.ri.gov/). It is unclear how the app would improve on this. It also should be mentioned that the state of RI has not properly funded E911 (search for April 2019 story “FCC urges RI to stop diverting 911 fees”). So we have an appearance E911 is not all it should be, because we (supposedly) need a 3rd party app as a supplement, and because E911 has funding issues. Add to that the fact that the 3rd party app is not part of the FEMA training. And the 2nd photo shows Mr. Thornton promoting the app. This really needs a complete and in-depth explanation, so I stand by my prior comment.