911 Dispatcher Sued for Not Sending Police Quickly
Dec. 7, 2005 — -- A Colorado mother is suing a 911 operator for not sending the police quickly enough to rescue her daughter from being kidnapped. After two calls, it took 47 minutes for police to arrive on the scene.
Le Thu Nguyen was abducted by Omar Green, the father of her two children, on a July morning four years ago. He forced his way into her car, drove around for some time, and then killed her in Denver's City Park. Her body was found later in her car by family and friends.
In December 2002, Green was sentenced to life in prison plus 12 years for first-degree murder, second-degree kidnapping and third-degree assault.
"I think when 911 is called they should have responded," Susan Duvall, Nguyen's mother, said. "It's an emergency."
Duvall said it didn't have to end this way. She said that Denver dispatcher Jeanette Price answered two calls about what looked like an extremely volatile situation between a man and a woman: one from Duvall and one from a pizza-delivery man.
The delivery man calls first. John Chauvin does not know Nguyen or Green. He describes seeing a black male jumping into the passenger side window of a car that a young Asian woman is driving.
Chauvin: He jumped through her window while she was speeding away. … He's still in the car with her.
Price: OK, but are they yelling and screaming at each other -- are they talking? Are they fighting?
Chauvin: I think he's just telling her what to do.
Price: Normally if they need help, they're going to fight or scream or something. So they may have just been playing around.
Chauvin: No, I don't think so.
Price asks him again and again: "Are they fighting? Is she screaming?" It is a question Price asks eight times during her two-minute call with Chauvin and three times during her eight-minute call with Duvall.
Chauvin says Nguyen is not screaming, but makes it clear that he does not think things are fine.
Nguyen's mother calls soon after Chauvin. She has been called by the nail salon where her daughter works. The women in the salon, who are related to the victim and knew her former fiancé had been stalking and threatening her, have seen Green jump into the car.
They immediately call Nguyen's mother, who in turn calls 911 to report that her daughter is "being carjacked by her ex-fiancé, who we're trying to get an order of protection against, because he abused one of the children."
"My daughter is very scared of him. He abused their 4-year-old baby. He's threatened my daughter," Duvall tells Price during the call. She also says that her daughter has applied for an order of protection against Green, but that she does not realize that the order is in place but it has not been served yet on Green.
The dispatcher asks whether it is possible they could be getting back together. In the ABC News interview, Duvall said she felt Price kept interrupting her.
Duvall: Right but she tried to escape from him but he still got into the car.
Price: Right, but we didn't even talk to her. Does she have a cell phone or anything?
Duvall: No she doesn't. What the problem is that he's been stalking her … and she moved in with me last month because he hit their 4-month-old baby.
Price: I mean a lot of times they end up making back up together, they end up making up?
Duvall: Right well, that's not this case.
Price: Well we don't know because we haven't talked to her.
Duvall: Right, well I would just like to record it because she fears for her life from him.
Price and her lawyers maintain that she was just doing her job.
"Emergency services call takers and dispatchers are required to make critical judgments under very tight timelines for the purpose of quickly determining whether a particular situation requires a response and if so, the nature and the necessary personnel and equipment," said Price's attorney, Jennifer Gifford. "The commitment of emergency services resources in situations that do not warrant them can diminish the availability of these resources for other emergency needs. Ms. Price utilized her professional judgment and training in an effort to ascertain what would be an appropriate response."
Duvall's lawsuit is an uphill battle because like all states, Colorado has tough laws that make it very hard to sue city, state and local governments.
Her lawyer, Greg Gold, has named Price the defendant in a wrongful-death lawsuit and says her actions contributed to the murder.
"What enters my mind, when they ask, is she kicking is she screaming. … I've been carjacked before … the first thing they tell you is don't kick, don't scream," Gold said.
To win the case, Duvall will have to prove that the dispatcher "willfully and wantonly" disregarded a serious threat to someone's life.
"We feel she's as dangerous on the other end of the 911 call as any criminal out on the street out there," Duvall said.
If Duvall wins, Colorado law says that when suing a government official, the plaintiff can only get $150,000 per person. Nguyen's two children would recover $300,000. In addition, the state says that if the plaintiff loses the case, the plaintiff must pay all fees incurred by the government employee.
Duvall's attorneys were spurred on by some members of the jury that convicted Green. Several jurors approached the lawyers and said: "Look, we think something has to be done about that dispatcher. We listened to the 911 tapes many times, and we were appalled by her conduct. Something must be done."
Duvall said that she wished she had been more forceful on the phone and had not tried to collect herself before calling.
"Don't take no for an answer," she said. "Keep pushing. Keep trying. I thought I was doing everything right and it still didn't help. You have to push past all resistance to keep your loved ones safe."
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