Primetime Crime

It was extremely hard to watch the one whole hour dedicated to the Denise Lee debacle last night without being overcome with raw emotion and being sick to my stomache over & over again. You could totally see what the guy interviewing everyone thinks about our CCSO Admin & leader -- interviewing the Dav, who came off looking extremely bitter, cold with no real remorse, defensive of everyone and the whole situation. I felt punched in the stomache with the wind knocked out of me when he insinuated the whole outcome would not be different anyway had Millie & CCSO not dropped the ball. Goff's reply was bone chilling when he stated The Dav must not have any faith in the troops ability to do thier jobs and HE DAM WELL WOULD HAVE WANTED THE CHANCE TO SAVE HER. Davenport will have alot to think about in retirement when he goes shortly. What a note to leave on. Add to that brother Widman's funeral-I hope they have a special place in heaven for our fallen angels & heros. It was a rough day.

Those dispatchers should've been publicly identified and FIRED! What freakin' imcompetence! You could hear it in her voice! Your sheriff looked weak and was obviously doing a crap job of a cover up! Good luck to the family in their lawsuit! I hope they get millions!

From the sounds of that call it seems as if good samaritan Kowalski reached a feeble seniors dementia ward instead of a professionally run 911 emergency dispatch center. "Everyone's yelling at me"??? Did that women not have her crayons to scribble down this life or death call? A serious investigation into this Davenporns agency needs to be done.

I agree ... i saw the show and the call taker sounded like shizzat!!!

I hope they get millions!

I heard that there is a cap on what the family can get from CCSO but not sure where I heard it or if it's accurate. The figure that I heard is a piddly amount for a life but would pay for a good # of employees.

Pretty pathetic, Dav saying in the press conference that the caller did not ID the color of the car when what she said was "blue, black, some dark color" - oops! She didn't say GREEN! Nothing like a technicality!!

I am not a dispatcher but I have been up there when the $hizzat hits the fan and it ain't pretty. It's no wonder that MS was at her wit's end. Some hold up better than others under those conditions, just as on the road or in the jail - we all stress out at a certain point and none of us do BETTER by having someone yelling in your ear like you're in boot camp. We may not like it, it may not be the way things always SHOULD be, but it's the way things are for everyone who is human.

It just absolutely breaks my heart for that family! Is that call taker still employed there? And if so, how is she thought of by everyone else?

She is still employed and from what I understand many dispatchers know the "behind the scenes" story and aren't being too hard on her. But I don't work in dispatch so take my word with a grain of salt.

This calltaker is a very sweet person who was under a TREMENDOUS amount of stress at the time, from what I understand, from many directions. Add that to a highly charged, chaotic atmosphere at that particular moment and it was a recipe for trouble. That potential always exists...none of us are completely immune...

She is still employed and from what I understand many dispatchers know the "behind the scenes" story and aren't being too hard on her. But I don't work in dispatch so take my word with a grain of salt.

This calltaker is a very sweet person who was under a TREMENDOUS amount of stress at the time, from what I understand, from many directions. Add that to a highly charged, chaotic atmosphere at that particular moment and it was a recipe for trouble. That potential always exists...none of us are completely immune...

I'm pretty sure one of the bullet points on the applicant requirements for leo or dispatch is "work well under stress". If one of us forgets how to do CPR because it's a child who has drowned and we are "overwhelmed", there would be hell to pay. I do understand a mistake is a mistake, but while she may be a nice person she should still no longer have a job.

I just can't understand that even under the stress that may have been going on in the Comm center; and whether this call taker knew if this call was "related" or not, why she just didn't put the call in the CAD? It isn't her job to determine if the call was related, just put the information in and send it. She was on the phone for 7-8 minutes; it only takes 1-2 minutes to put a short description of the call in CAD.
Dav is a poor excuse of a leader for your agency! Whether the caller had the vehicle color right or wrong, whether it was a child or Denise Lee, his agency failed. So what if the woman got that information wrong; what if had been an unrelated incident, he makes light of the situation. Easy to make those types of judgements now after the facts are known, however at the time the call came in all this information was not known. Makes persons watching think it happens all the time.
Can't hardly blame the dispatchers, after all their job is to dispatch the calls in front of them. If the call is entered into the CAD, what are the chances that it would have been dispatched?
This call taker should have been suspended until an "outside" agency reviewed this case and determined what happened. Has she been evaluated to see it she is mentally able to take calls? If she is still on the job, still taking calls? Chances are it's going to happen again. It just may not be this high profile. Obviously, Dav is not one to do it.
Kudos to the family on pushing for the bill to be passed on the training for dispatchers/911 call takers; however FL government failed to make it mandatory. In the bill it says "shall" and how many agencies (after Amend 1) are willing to spend their little bit of money training dispatchers? Most of the funds from my agencies Comm Center have been diverted to the big pot for patrol. If it's mandatory training for patrol or firefighters VS "shall" train for dispatchers, they will never put the effort forth to do the training for the dispatchers/call takers. Its just the way it is. Someday, FL will wake up and see the importance of this job. You'd think with the turn over rate and the amount of "errors" they would have already. These are hard lessons to learn!

This call taker should have been suspended until an "outside" agency reviewed this case and determined what happened.

Didn't the paper state that FDLE got involved in that investigation? Or am I confusing it with something else? :oops:

Go Denise your our hero.... Dav and staff can just go. Please go! With your attitude you should not let the door hit you and your staff in the rear end on the way out.

I agree his response was just horrible he should be run out of town. He should resign his position within the agency. Do us all a favor and leave and take the rest of the staff with you.