‘Kari’s Law’ is one step closer to passing

WICHITA FALLS, Texas (TNN) - Hank Hunt is one step closer to achieving his goal of getting direct 911 dialing in places like hotels and office buildings.

“Kari’s Law” comes from Hunt’s daughter, Kari, who was brutally murdered in an east Texas hotel room five years ago.

Kari tried calling 911 during the attack, but the call never went through because she didn’t know she had to dial another number first to reach an outside line.

Hunt was in Washington DC this week as the FCC approved a new law that will require all multi-line phones in places to allow people to dial the emergency number directly.

Hunt said “It’s a matter of word of mouth. I go around knocking on doors and letting people know that come Feb. 16 this is a law. There’s going to be some liability involved if something should happen on their property.”

He says there is still work to be done though and he will keep spreading awareness about “Kari’s law.”

The new law will only apply to phones installed or manufactured after Feb. 2020.

Our Washington Bureau spoke with the FCC chairman, Ajit Pai, who said “Every single time I talk to these equipment manufacturers, service providers, or folks in the hotel and lodging industry I’ve consistently said all you have to do is switch over to direct access. We want to make sure there’s not an access code standing in the way. Generally speaking, there’s been a very positive response that we’ve gotten.”

The chairman is encouraging any business with multi-line phones to contact the company that maintains them to find out how to make that simple change.

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