Boy's Failed 911 Pleas Bring Calls for Change

Detroit cops investigate in mom's death; family upset

By Ben Schmitt, Free Press Staff Writer
Originally published in the Detroit Free Press, April 8, 2006

The Detroit Police Department promised a thorough investigation Friday after coming under intense scrutiny both locally and across the nation for an incident in which a woman died after her 5-year-old son's calls to 911 were dismissed as a prank.

Robert Turner, now 6, called 911 twice after his mother collapsed Feb. 20 in her bedroom on Detroit's west side. A recording of the calls, which family members gave the Free Press on Friday, revealed that the boy's pleas for help weren't taken seriously.

Sherrill Turner, 46, died of complications from an enlarged heart, family members said. Police were investigating whether the same operator handled both calls.

The story, first reported Tuesday on Fox 2 News in Detroit, reverberated across the country Friday, with Web sites asking readers whether any operator involved in taking the calls should be fired. No operator's name has been released. Police also said they were fielding calls from people across the nation.

Meanwhile, relatives of Sherrill Turner, who had 10 children, called for the immediate firing of the operator or operators involved and demanded better training for dispatchers.

"From now on, when a child calls 911, they need to follow up, no questions asked," said one of Robert's older sisters, Anitra Turner.

In a statement Friday, Detroit Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings urged the public not to rush to judgment, saying city residents "can be assured that our department is meticulously examining every aspect of what occurred." A spokeswoman for Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick had no comment other than to say the police were investigating.

One operator, an 18-year veteran who took at least one of the calls, will remain on the job during the investigation, Detroit Police spokesman James Tate said.

Robert, who turned 6 in March, told the Free Press his mother taught him to call 911 during emergencies.

According to the recording, when the boy—who was alone with his mother—first called 911 about 6 p.m., an operator asked him to bring an adult to the phone. Robert told the operator he couldn't.

At one point, "she hanged up on me," Robert said Friday. The recording indicates the dispatcher hung up after saying she would send police to the home. They did not arrive.

Robert called back about 9 p.m. An operator told him: "You shouldn't be playing on the phone. — Now put her on the phone before I send the police out there to knock on the door and you going to be in trouble."

Robert said he was scared and hung up the phone.

One of the boy's older sisters, Delaina Patterson, who lives in Novi, said police—not EMS workers—arrived at the home after 9 p.m. "From what I understand they were dispatched to a call about a child playing on the phone," she said. Robert's mother was found dead. It was not clear at what point she died or whether she was alive when Robert made the first call.

Although there are no exact guidelines on how to handle emergency calls, Rick Jones of the National Emergency Number Association said operators have to take all calls seriously.

"There's such a wide range; you have children that call," he said. "You have adults under the influence of drugs that call and sound totally erratic."

Union local president Kimberly Harris defended one operator involved.

"Every call, you have somebody's life in your hands," said Harris, a 911 operator who leads the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1023. "If I had an emergency, I would want her to be on the other end of the line. I will swear to that."

Harris said more than 25% of calls that 911 operators receive are pranks and that Robert's voice was inaudible at times.

"Of all the people's lives we save, this one incident has put a black cloud over us," Harris said. "People are calling for her job and for her head."

Detroit City Councilwoman Barbara-Rose Collins said the council has not dealt with many complaints related to the 911 system, but she described this incident as gross negligence, saying, "It's not up to her to decide if it's a prank or not."

Public scrutiny is part of the job when 911 mishaps occur.

At least one Detroit Fire Department dispatcher was disciplined after a Ferndale man died in an auto accident on Christmas Eve. Although the man died almost instantly, the department came under scrutiny because his body—and the car—burned for more than 20 minutes before firefighters extinguished the flames.

In Philadelphia in 1994, seven 911 operators were fired or disciplined after being accused of mishandling 20 calls regarding the fatal beating of a 16-year-old boy who lay bleeding on the steps of a Catholic church.

In New York City in 2000, three 911 operators were disciplined after they ignored pleas from women being brutalized by groups of young men during a Puerto Rican Day parade rampage.

Retired Detroit Police Lt. Ricardo Moore, a former community relations officer for Detroit, said the flaws in 911 cut both ways.

"We always tried to educate the youth not to play with 911, because it's serious," he said, adding operators sometimes "see the caller as an enemy, and that's not usually the case."

Detroit's emergency dispatch system has had a troubled history, too.

In the 1970s and '80s, Detroiters were robbed, burglarized, beaten and even killed as their emergency calls were bungled, misrouted or ignored.

One case even became known as the so-called 911 murders. Clifton and Lydia Ledbetter were shot to death in 1974 as Lydia Ledbetter told a 911 operator someone had shot their dog and ransacked their east-side home. The call ended in a burst of gunfire that the operator mistook for hammering. Lydia Ledbetter was shot more than a dozen times in the back and head.

In another incident, the city authorized a $3.6-million payment in 1989 to settle a civil lawsuit, nine years after Peggy Saffold's relatives called police four times in 2 1/2 hours about an ex-boyfriend who had threatened her and was hiding in a garage. Police cars weren't dispatched; Saffold was killed, and a sister and a niece were wounded.

In 1987, Benjamin Anderson died despite his wife's repeated calls for EMS. The calls became lost in the shuffle, and he died as an EMS unit stood idle just eight blocks away. Mayor Coleman Young admitted the EMS had become "a shambles."

Contact BEN SCHMITT at 313-223-4296 or bcschmitt@freepress.com. Staff writers Bill McGraw, Tamara Audi, Marisol Bello and Joe Swickard contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2006 Detroit Free Press Inc.