PCPD never sent an officer to search for murdered woman

By VALERIE KALFRIN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 1, 2009

Vincent Brown

Jennifer Johnson had about a minute to talk before a 911 operator in Plant City lost a connection with her.

"Ma'am, I'm in a trunk right now," the 31-year-old Tampa mother yelled on a copy of the call released today. "They got me in the trunk. … I don't know where I'm at."

Soon after the call disconnected, she was dead.

Prosecutors released the call along with 700 pages of discovery material that outlines the kidnapping and first-degree murder case against Vincent George Brown Jr., Johnson's on-again, off-again boyfriend and the father of her daughter, Je'Neiyce.

The material also contains a report that Plant City police corroborated today showing they never sent an officer to try to find Johnson.

This contradicts dispatch logs the department provided to News Channel 8 in December. At that time, the agency said the logs showed an officer had been sent to search a four-mile stretch of Interstate 4 in Thonotosassa, where a cell-phone tower had picked up Johnson's call.

Plant City police Capt. Darrell Wilson said today that an administrative review found that officer was working an unrelated security check in the area.

"There was never an officer dispatched," Wilson said. "That call log was for something different."

Police Chief Bill McDaniel's office said he was unavailable for comment today.

'I Guess We Shouldn't Have Assumed'

A Plant City communications operator recorded a 911 call with Johnson at 5:30 a.m. Nov. 15 that lasted about 1 minute 20 seconds. The conversation was so brief that Johnson did not provide a description of her car and could not say where she had been kidnapped, the documents say.

The operator had trouble hearing Johnson over loud music in the background. In addition, her cell phone number and wireless provider did not register when the call came in, making it difficult to map, Wilson and the discovery documents say.

The operator told her immediate supervisor and a patrol supervisor about the call after it disconnected, but neither listened to the call nor took any action, a report in the discovery documents says.

The log police provided in December showed an officer was dispatched at 5:38 a.m. that day along the interstate.

Today, Wilson said the department thought that officer had been sent to search for Johnson because of the agency's policy to send an officer to the last-known location of a disconnected 911 call.

"I guess we shouldn't have assumed," he said.

Johnson's phone did not have global-positioning system technology to help police pinpoint where she was. Her trunk did not have an internal release.

Why didn't the officer respond to the 911 call for help? It's a call for help, just respond and conduct a search. It would have been difficult to find her but we will never know. The capt. seems confused.

Respond to what? Where? Search for what? Get real. A woman in a trunk? No description or location given? Easy enough to search for I suppose. Get a life.

Respond to what? Where? Search for what? Get real. A woman in a trunk? No description or location given? Easy enough to search for I suppose. Get a life. Don't get upset. I'm only saying that dispatch received a 911 call from a cell phone and there was no exact location. It's not good when we don't try or do something and if you disagree with that you should find a new job. Just my opinion.

The duty dispatcher did the best she could given the situation. She is a damn good dispatcher and I hope she does not get F_ _ CKED over for doing what she was taught. Knowing the history of PCPD though, even following SOP can still get you fired as the brass will interpret the SOP based on how they feel about you. A. Hill-- you still ROCK and I hope all works well in your favor. My advice, say as little as possible to PCPD and get a good labor attorney.

We should have searched the entire city limits for a woman in a trunk........???? No vehicle, make, model or color. No suspect or victim information. No loction or direction of travel. We should have stopped every vehicle with a trunk. I would like to know what you would have done GUEST with that information???? (Cell phone didn't have a GPS locator program) I guess if we would have said we searched for this vehicle and person with the information we received we wouldn't be scrutinized......No one to blame here but the killers!!!

We should have searched the entire city limits for a woman in a trunk........???? No vehicle, make, model or color. No suspect or victim information. No loction or direction of travel. We should have stopped every vehicle with a trunk. I would like to know what you would have done GUEST with that information???? (Cell phone didn't have a GPS locator program) I guess if we would have said we searched for this vehicle and person with the information we received we wouldn't be scrutinized......No one to blame here but the killers!!! The point is it would have been better to respond to the area than not respond at all. I understand your thoughts, but there is a perception. (Better to do than not to do, that is the question)

Thanks rukiddn me and to everyone else who stood up for me! Its easy to say now what could have or should have been done but either way the outcome would have been the same. I feel guilty as hell that a minuet and 25 seconds not only changed my life but three other peoples as well. Anyone who has worked with me knows I loved my job and loved all of my officers and took pride in keeping them safe.. the worst part is feeling like someone took my children away. Im going to be thinking about all of you and hope that all the "changes" that the city manager made will not effect you and that you all get great dispatchers that will keep you protected. I will not say that a mistake was made because there was not one, you all know the min I put up a call with no veh discription no location and no narrative the officer that got dispatched too it would have been asking me wtf! Stay safe and I will miss you all.

There is nothing anyone could have done in this situation. The type of phone this victim had only gave the cell tower location. She could have been anywhere in a range of 15 miles in any direction. To add to it she was moving and in a vehicle, which the type and direction was not known. It sad, but there was not enough information or time to help this lady. Its easy to look back and throw in "what if," but I see nonthing that would have changed the outcome. No dispatcher or officer should ever take a situation like this personally, it is the sometime reality of law enforcement. You can't stop or prevent everything.

I've been away from PCPD for a while, was wondering why Hill is no longer with the dept. While I was there, she was one of the most personable and diligent dispatchers we had.

What a JOKE the chief was on the news last night.. No offense but if AMHILL was so unable to do her job chief... why wuz she allowed to remain on the job keeping us safe for months!! There will never be anyone that replaces her and the PCPD administration really made a huge mistake... get a lawyer Hill you might be our new chief.

From an old cop, anyone with any real police experience knows that there was nothing you guys could have done with what you had to work with at the time. I do not know any of the 4 people that the department forced out but only a weak chief would have done such a knee jerk reaction. I feel sorry for you guys and wish everyone below the staff level the best of luck. Be safe.

From an old cop, anyone with any real police experience knows that there was nothing you guys could have done with what you had to work with at the time. I do not know any of the 4 people that the department forced out but only a weak chief would have done such a knee jerk reaction. I feel sorry for you guys and wish everyone below the staff level the best of luck. Be safe.


You hit it right on the head "anyone with real police experience" The of Plant City Chief has never been a real cop......Just a good smoke blower.....

[quote="Retired Cop":abiihqs8]From an old cop, anyone with any real police experience knows that there was nothing you guys could have done with what you had to work with at the time. I do not know any of the 4 people that the department forced out but only a weak chief would have done such a knee jerk reaction. I feel sorry for you guys and wish everyone below the staff level the best of luck. Be safe.


You hit it right on the head "anyone with real police experience" The of Plant City Chief has never been a real cop......Just a good smoke blower.....[/quote:abiihqs8]

To gone and glad, you are very correct in what you just said, but dont forget the 30 minutes the chief worked the streets before surrency took him under his wing you know how perfect he is, thats all the time he needed to make top cop :devil:

I have to agree with those who said there was nothing anyone could do!!!! It would have been different had there been more information available. Needle in a haystack sound familiar? Even if an officer had been dispatched to the location they could have been right behind the suspect vehicle but if you do not know what you are looking for how can you find it. It does not matter what race, sex or creed the person was, all that is important is that there was no information to work with to find the victim.