911 Fails: Woman killed in police parking lot

[BillCA]

A cursory search didn't show anyone had posted this story for comments yet.

This story, on the FoxNews Kellys Court show, discusses a Florida woman who lured a stalker away from her kids and was being chased in her car. She was on the phone to 911 and in the parking lot of a police department when the stalker shot her to death. (The news story can be found here on ABC News).

Politicians and anti-gun activists tell us firearms aren't needed because we can call 9-1-1. All I can think of is that there is no way to make it "easier" for police than doing what this woman did... Calling 911 AND leading her attacker to the police station parking lot. Yet, she still died because she was relying on 911 to rescue her.

 

[overkill556x45]

I am a criminal justice major and frequently have to remind classmates that the function of the police is primarily to clean up after crime, not stop it. God bless the cops (I intend to be one), but they only stop or prevent crime when luck is on their side.

People get disgusted hearing about failures of the police and justice system (think Kenneth McDuff-- paroled after a rape and triple murder; upon release killed and tortured at least five more women). The truth is that it is up to you to prevent crime or extract yourself from a sticky situation. Most bad situations can be avoided, some cannot (the enemy has a vote). 9-1-1 is for when your would-be murderer is leaking fluid onto your floor out of .45 caliber holes. If your life is on the line, odds are our emergency response folks (God bless them) will not be able to respond in time. I'm sure it has happened, but is likely the exception to the rule.

The biggest problem, however, is that some people refuse to believe that there are folks out there willing to do them harm.

 

[Mr. James]

My God.

". . . she [Olidia Kerr Daye] could do no more. . . " She died protecting her kids, and God bless her for doing so. But she didn't have to. She could have done more, as BillCA alludes.

An horrific and chilling story, even without the audio.

 

[BillCA]

She could have done more, as BillCA alludes.

Just to be clear, I am not criticizing the woman at all. Could she have done something else? Perhaps. Could she have armed herself? Debatable as some people don't have the mindset to use one. But how much easier can she make it for the cops? She's on the phone to 911 and leading him to the police station fergoshsakes!

For a mother of three kids, I'm not sure what else she could have done to make it easier for the cops to get the guy.

 

[Keltyke]

That's truly tragic. I live in the South, in the county. LEO response time can be anywhere from 5 minutes to 50. Only I can make the difference in the meantime. What else could she have done? Maybe a lot, maybe nothing. I applaud her, she should be given a medal.

 

[Mr. James]

No, God forbid, I'm not criticizing her at all. Hers was a heroine's death. My post (which was quoting one of the attorneys in the video) was perhaps a too-eliptical reference to arming herself ahead of time. Obviously, not all are mentally disposed to do this, but if more Americans stopped thinking of 9-1-1 as some magic Band-Aid dispenser, we would see fewer of these horrors.

Sorry for the confusion.

 

[Al Norris]

Yet, she still died because she was relying on 911 to rescue her.

Um, yes and no, Bill. There was a technical problem. From the ABC newstory:

It turns out her desperate call for help had gone to the wrong police department because she was on a cell phone and the closest transmission tower sent her call to the police in the adjacent town of Sunrise, Fla., not Plantation, Fla., where she lived.

That right there is problematic for all cell phones.

While this is a terrible tragedy, neither the 911 operator nor the police are at fault here.

 

[dp509]

Protection of my Family

This the reason I carry 24/7. Especially in Church.

When I am off, it is concealed. I dress to blend in. You will not know it till it is

too late.

When on duty, I carry a shotgun and a rifle in addition to my duty weapon.

 

[dp509]

Yes, this is sad. We have this problem all the time with 911 calls. Our dispatch answers Pleasant Grove 911, what City are you in. 90% are in another city

 

[Kreyzhorse]

It just goes to show that despite the anti-gunners best argument, the police are not here to protect us.

Additionally it does show a terrible loop hole in our 911 system and training.

 

[Old Timer]

Kreyzhorse said:

Additionally it does show a terrible loop hole in our 911 system and training.

Yes, sometimes the 911 operator is less than effective. Back in 1988 I was enjoying a quite Saturday morning after getting off a B-Overlap shift the night before (6PM-2AM). About 11 AM the 12 year old girl from next door banged on our front door and, in a panic, told my wife that somebody was trying to break into her house. Her mom had gone down to the corner to pick up some things and left a normally responsible 12 year old at home alone with instructions to come to our house if she needed anything.

I suspected she was just suffering from a case of the "first time home alone" jitters, but I grabbed my SW686 and my badge and went out the back door, over the fence, and in her back door. I slowly cleared the rear of the house, but when I got to the living room I discovered an intruder disconnecting the VCR. I leveled on him and ordered him to freeze. Just as I did so his partner came out of the adjacent bedroom with a screw-driver in his hand. I ordered him to drop it and ordered both of them onto the floor. I picked up the phone and dialed 911. I identified myself to the 911 operator and gave her my ARJIS number. I gave her the address and told her, "interrupted 459 (California Penal Code for Burglary), two at gun-point in an unsecured dwelling." She said she would dispatch a patrol unit.

30 minutes later there was a knock at the door. (Longest 30 minutes of my life!) The patrol deputy dispatched entered and we cuffed the suspects. When I asked her what took so long she told me the dispatcher sent her to an "11-10, 459." Just "take a report" (a very low priority call). Somehow the "two at gun-point," "interrupted 459" and "unsecured dwelling" got lost in translation.

Happens a lot more often than it should. But it is an imperfect system, with imperfect people, in an imperfect world. But as imperfect as it is it is a whole lot better than anything else I can think of.

 

[Webleymkv]

Originally posted by Antipitas

Quote:
Originally Posted by BillCA
Yet, she still died because she was relying on 911 to rescue her.

Um, yes and no, Bill. There was a technical problem. From the ABC newstory:

Quote:
It turns out her desperate call for help had gone to the wrong police department because she was on a cell phone and the closest transmission tower sent her call to the police in the adjacent town of Sunrise, Fla., not Plantation, Fla., where she lived.

That right there is problematic for all cell phones.

While this is a terrible tragedy, neither the 911 operator nor the police are at fault here.

I don't think anyone's blaming the Police or 911 operator. I think what's being illustrated is that dialing 911 can, for whatever reason, fail to save you.

 

[BillCA]

That right there is problematic for all cell phones.

While this is a terrible tragedy, neither the 911 operator nor the police are at fault here.

I didn't mean to imply that the 911 operators were at fault, though it's easy to find examples of bad call takers.

I'm tired of politicians hiding behind the "Call 911" argument when they know full well that the nation's 911 systems are flawed and prone to overloading rapidly.

Some quick Google-fu shows story after story about 911 failures. Lots of bad addresses in the system, dispatchers getting the street names/numbers wrong, calls missed when operators are saturated, dispatchers making (human) mistakes, etc.

It doesn't help that there's not a "stupid tax" on people who call 911 for inappropriate reasons.
- Their child won't go to school
- Asking what today's weather forecast is
- Using 911 for calls about abandoned cars, stray pets, etc.

 

[floydster]

The old saying "When seconds count, the Police are minutes away".

Floydster

 

[Al Norris]

Sorry for the confusion, Bill. Perhaps what made me think in that manner, was the way you highlighted (read: empathized) the following:

She was on the phone to 911 and in the parking lot of a police department when the stalker shot her to death.

 

[BillCA]

30 minutes later there was a knock at the door. (Longest 30 minutes of my life!) The patrol deputy dispatched entered and we cuffed the suspects. When I asked her what took so long she told me the dispatcher sent her to an "11-10, 459." Just "take a report" (a very low priority call). Somehow the "two at gun-point," "interrupted 459" and "unsecured dwelling" got lost in translation.

Old Timer... my ten-code is rusty, but we use to use 10-50 for taking reports.

This is another example of how the 911 system often screws up with dispatchers not clearly comprehending what you are saying. I've found a few in California who don't even know what a "211" (armed robbery) is. (this is likely when they take calls but don't communicate with patrol officers directly).

My worst nightmare is being on the line to 911, asking for assistance because an intruder/assailant surrendered at gunpoint and describing myself to them so officers know who the GG is... only to have them put that information down as the suspect/perpetrator!

Currently we all pay a tax or surcharge on our phone bills to support 911. Unfortunately many cash-strapped states are not putting the money into a 911-specific-fund and are using the money for other purposes.

But I'd be all for a 911-chargeback system where if your call is not an emergency call, you get to pay 50-cents for the call. More than 3 of those in a month and it goes to $1 per call. Seems like a reasonable "stupid tax" to me. And a little public education would go a long way too.

 

[44 AMP]

So sad

Tragic, my sympathies to her family, and especially her children.

Where I work, we have a lot of training about calling 911, emphasizing that we must not call 911 on a cell phone, only a land line. Due to the location, a cell phone 911 call will to to a town about 40 miles away from us. A land line 911 call goes to our local emergency response center, about 5 miles away.

We seldom think of things like cell phone calls being sent to the wrong place in our daily lives, because we seldom call 911, and when we see 911 calls on TV, they always go to the right place. Just as with the AEDs (automatic defibrillators), it is very rare that we ever see them fail, especially on TV.

We get "trained" by TV, and believe that they can almost always revive a heart attack victim, and that 911 calls almost always go to the nearest responders, and they arrive rapidly. Sadly, the reality just isn't up to the TV standards.

 

[johnwilliamson062]

Honda accord is approximately 3000 lbs. She was very well armed. Mindset has to be right.

 

[Yellowfin]

The fact that she didn't arm herself while living in a Shall Issue state is symptomatic of a societal problem, directly related to the politicians and police pushing "just call 911 and let them handle it." The factors shaping people not to protect themselves are something we need to directly address.

 

[AZ Med18]

I think it should be "when an emergency happens seconds count, responders are minutes away."

I have had too many people yell at me.

He is hurt and been laying there for 10 minutes. Well I just got told about it 2 minutes ago.