Attorney Says ‘Many Errors’ By Dispatchers

The attorney for a West Haven (Conn.) family says that city police dispatchers made “so many egregious errors” while handling 911 calls about a domestic violence situation that ended with a murder-suicide that, “Where do you even start?” Over a period of about 11 hours last January dispatchers received at least six calls involving Turkish immigrants Shengyl Rasim and her boyfriend Salemi Ozdemir. Police arrested Ozdemir for domestic violence, but he bailed out within hours, returned and eventually shot Rasim and then himself. But in a legal claim just filed, the family’s attorney claims dispatchers failed to use an available translation service when handling the 911 calls from Rasim and her family. They also failed to obtain sufficient information several times, the legal claim states, and did not notify officers on the radio when there were the sounds of gunfire during one 911 call. “The dispatchers appear to have a very cavalier and dismissive attitude toward this young Turkish woman who didn’t speak English well and obviously ignored direct warnings of her impending execution,” the claim states. Read more about the incident here, and a newspaper editorial on the incident here.