College student murdered after 911 operator hung up on her

[Ed Mahmoud]

If I were her family, I would demand the 9-11 operator be fired, minimum, and investigated for criminal prosecution.

[brunota2003]

Wow...that just......sucks. I thought to calls that there was no answer, it was required to send a police officer out to where the call was made from, regardless?

[Ptarmigan]

That would really suck.

[flwxwatcher]

That really stinks.

[gtalum]

If I were her family, I would demand the 9-11 operator be fired, minimum, and investigated for criminal prosecution.

I'm sure the operator will be fired for failing to follow proper procedures, but there's no crime to investigate. The victim's family will most likely be suing the county involved, so more details will come out.

[Cryomaniac]

Exactly, there is no crime on the part of the 911 operator, although negligent manslaughter would almost fit. The county will be sued for a lot though.

[Dionne]

Doesn't surprise me at all. How many of you folks have ever called 911? It's doesn't work like you see on the television. Several years ago I had to call 911......we had an electrical fire in the middle of the night. The response was ridiculous. The dispatcher asked my location. Then he asked for the next nearest intersection. Eventually I discovered the dispatcher was in another town 20 miles south. I hung up and called the police dept. We pay for these emergency services every month, it's added in with our water, sewage and trash disposal. Kind of like our tornado warning sirens. The tornado passes over then the sirens go off. There is a catch all term for systems that don't function properly......they call them "glitches".

[Cryomaniac]

I agree, it's similar in England. Our nearest emergency dispatchers are based about 18 miles away, and they don't know the area very well.

[gtalum]

...although negligent manslaughter would almost fit...

I don't think it's even close. If you read the laws carefully, you'll see that police departments and governments do not have a legal responsibility to prevent crimes from happening. Further, this operator had no way to know that a crime was in progress. They failed to follow proper procedure, but there's no guarantee that had the procedure been followed that the outcome would be any different, and as I mentioned above there's no legal responsibility to prevent the crime.

I will say this kind of thing makes me mad, because we pay for effective 911 service, amongst other things, and it's not being delivered. But there's no crime involved, just gross inefficiency.

[Cryomaniac]

Good point, I didn't look at it like that.

[Opal storm]

Stupid idiot should at LEAST be fired.

[HURAKAN]

She didn't follow proper procedures and the consequences were that the girl was killed. The operator should be fired and probably some community service hours.

This things shouldn't happen.

[gtalum]

She didn't follow proper procedures and the consequences were that the girl was killed.

You can't really prove that. There's no guarantee that had the operator followed procedure the victim wouldn't have been killed anyway.

I agree though that the operator and probably her supervisor should be fired and everybody else there retrained.

[Opal storm]

She didn't follow proper procedures and the consequences were that the girl was killed.

You can't really prove that. There's no guarantee that had the operator followed procedure the victim wouldn't have been killed anyway.

How do you know that for sure? And even if it would've made no difference somebody still should've been sent to the scene regardless.

[HURAKAN]

She didn't follow proper procedures and the consequences were that the girl was killed.

You can't really prove that. There's no guarantee that had the operator followed procedure the victim wouldn't have been killed anyway.

How do you know that for sure? And even if it would've made no difference somebody still should've been sent to the scene regardless.

I meant to say that because there was no assistance, one of the consequences was that the girl was killed. Maybe she wouldn't have been killed if the police had been there.

[gtalum]

How do you know that for sure?

I don't. That's why I said "there's no guarantee".

And even if it would've made no difference somebody still should've been sent to the scene regardless.

Agreed. That's why the operator and the supervisor should be fired.

[brunota2003]

If one had been sent right away, at the very least, there was a good chance (though not guaranteed) the suspect would have been caught.