It makes more sense now why Sheriff Curtis Hill shifted gears so
dramatically in responding to the Sept. 4 incident outside Bolado
Park – and railed against prospects for a biker event that has been
canceled for two years.
It makes more sense now why Sheriff Curtis Hill shifted gears so dramatically in responding to the Sept. 4 incident outside Bolado Park – and railed against prospects for a biker event that has been canceled for two years.
He was putting up a smoke screen to cloud the real problem – that his department failed in a crucial moment and left innocent people at further risk.
The report outside Bolado involving biker-gang members brandishing guns while threatening a group of family and friends points to a systematic predicament and a need to drastically improve protocol for deputies and dispatchers in how they communicate and follow up on residents’ concerns. The incoming sheriff should use this example as a reason to set up new lines of accountability for handling reports.
In the Sept. 4 incident, an out-of-county resident who had been visiting family at Little Bolado Park called 911 at about 10:30 p.m. and reported that a group of outlaw bikers – later identified as the Vagos – had held her group with guns while denying them access to the road.
Understandably, she was rattled. She had to ask family members to clarify some details. According to the recording released to the Free Lance, she asked for a response at least seven times. The dispatcher – who carried a condescending, bothered tone throughout the conversation – confused the caller when asking her about filing an official report. He did nothing to help explain what he meant and didn’t even tell her authorities were on the way.
Two things:
Why should a resident calling 911 in an urgent situation have to get into the filing of reports and pressing charges when they are telling a dispatcher that their lives were just threatened by armed members of an outlaw motorcycle gang? It’s especially disturbing when you consider the sheriff’s office and dispatch center were fully aware of the Vagos’ presence at that very spot, as evidenced in a 911 recording the night before the incident when Sgt. Tom Keylon called communications to warn them about the gang members camping there.
Second, besides the need for a more immediate response by dispatch, the caller repeatedly asked for help. When someone is asking for help, it is not a time for playing semantic games. And it’s not a time to weigh the validity of calls – especially a dispatcher on the front lines of communication. It is their jobs to get the appropriate information in the fastest possible fashion and relay it to the sheriff’s office. There’s a reason why police respond to 911 hang-ups, why areas with certain GPS capabilities can track the precise locations of 911 calls.
When that county communications employee passed on the information to Keylon after the Sept. 4 report, the sergeant either bought into the dispatcher’s doubtful tone or he didn’t think the sheriff’s office could handle the threat.
Either way, Keylon blew it off. And either way, it points to a need for examination of the protocol in place.
What if those residents’ lives had been put in danger again? What if the outlaw bikers followed up by threatening someone else in that same area? What if another innocent resident faces serious danger and has to wonder whether a dispatcher or deputy will take his or her story seriously? Whatever happened to showing compassion for people reporting their concerns?
The crux of their jobs is to protect, after all, and the residents whom they serve must know that they can trust local authorities would respond, urgently, if danger arises.
