Personnel Dismissed After 911 Evidence Released

The Plant City (Fla.) police department has taken a hit after information released by the state Attorney General’s office showed that no one investigated a 911 call from a woman who was kidnapped and put into the trunk of her car, and later found murdered. Sgt. James Watkins retired, dispatch supervisor Rita Lipham and Capt. Darrell Wilson resigned, and dispatcher Amanda Hill was fired. Police chief Bill McDaniel said all the actions were in response to mishandling the 911 call and mis-information later released by Wilson, the department’s press officer. Watkins and Lipham were 20-year veterans, Hill was a 3-year employee, and Wilson had 16 years with Plant City. Jennifer Johnson talked for 73 seconds before the connection ended, but Hill failed to ask sufficient questions to obtain critical information. McDaniel said she also claimed in press accounts that police policy didn’t allow her to call back such a caller, so as not to put the caller in danger. McDaniel said that is incorrect–the policy is to call people back. Lipham failed to have Hill call back the person after being told of the call, and took no further action. Watkins took no action after being notified by Lipham of the call. McDaniel said Wilson lied to reporters, saying that Johnson’s call didn’t display her telephone number of cellular tower location–it did. McDaniel said the dispatcher did have limited information. But he added, “I am deeply disappointed that a failure is apparent in the actions taken by people in the department during this situation. Perhaps the outcome could have been different had we found out in a timely fashion the who, what, where and why Miss Johnson was calling.” Read more about the chief’s remorse here.