IP Relay Used for Death Threat

The latest issue of SIGNews has the following story:

IP Relay Relayed a Death Threat Call against 13-Year-Old
A local television channel in Boston, Mass., reported on April 25 that a death threat was made through an IP relay provider to a thirteen year old girl. Lisa Butler, the mother of Angela, said to Channel 5 News, “The woman said, ‘I’m watching you. I see your every move.’ and continued to speak, ‘Angela, I’m going to kill you when you least expect it. I am going to kill you. I watch you all the time.’ I was like, “Call the police, call the police!” Butler was horrified by the call. She called Dracut police immediately. She was disappointed to learn that the IP relay operators are “mandated” to voice everything that was typed, no matter what. Butler continued, “And I want whoever called and threatened my child caught, prosecuted and I feel IP Relay threatened my child just as much as the person on the other end of the computer.”

I’m trying to keep sane here, because as a relay “operator” I find the woman’s final statement very offensive.

For those of you who aren’t aware, IP relay allows deaf people to use a computer or cell phone to make phone calls to hearing people. Unlike traditional relay, which requires special equipment (usually a TTY), IP relay allows anyone with access to the internet to make calls. This has caused a lot of problems for small businesses because scammers use the service, but it can also be easily used for prank calls…as was done here.

I’m not going to talk about whether the operator should or shouldn’t have relayed the call. What I’m angry about is the woman blaming the relay system. I guarantee you that the operator who relayed that message thought about it as she tried to go to sleep that night, because as a Video Interpreter (VI), I know I would have done the same thing. I’ve had some pretty hateful calls, and let me tell you, they do haunt you. But we’re required to communicate everything that is said or signed, even if it’s hate speech, against our personal values, or death threats. The very idea that “IP relay threatened [her] child” is absurd - the relay operator was doing exactly what all ROs, VIs, and CAs (communication assistants) do. She was conveying the message she was seeing with her eyes into spoken words. She had nothing to do with what was said. The mother needs to take this up with whoever pranked her kid. It is not a relay issue.

Relay is about functional equivalency. Deaf people have as much right to make death threats over the phone as anyone else. Therefore, CAs must pass that message along. If the person giving the message isn’t deaf, well, they’re abusing the system - but it’s not the CA’s fault or relay’s fault. The CA and relay are doing what they were put there to do: convert visual message to spoken message and vice-versa. You cannot blame relay for this. Blame the prankster, not the relay system.

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