scout26
Member
Good thing it wasn't anything serious or something......
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...ebsep26,0,1327187.story?coll=chi_tab01_layout
I don't want this to devolve into cop bashing or even Chicago cop bashing, but as more to point of "When seconds count the police are only minutes or sometimes hours away."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...ebsep26,0,1327187.story?coll=chi_tab01_layout
By Jason Meisner | Tribune staff reporter
9:35 PM CDT, September 25, 2007
The calls came in for more than an hour, some calm, others frantic, but all asking for help at the scene of a brawl at a Southwest Side park this summer.
Newly released 911 recordings from the July 14 melee at Durkin Park contain 51 separate calls to dispatchers, the first coming about 10:15 p.m., when a neighbor calling from the 8400 block of South Kolin Avenue reported seeing several youths armed with sticks and bats threatening people in the park.
Three minutes later, an out-of-breath caller yells that he is being chased in an alley near the park by youths with weapons. "We need [expletive] help!" he yells before hanging up.
The recordings were released Monday by a court order stemming from a lawsuit filed against the city on behalf of Richard Cruis, 40, one of several people injured when a car drove into a crowd during the fight, said Cruis' attorney, Michael Gravlin.
Richard Valdez, 16, of Chicago was in a coma temporarily after getting hit in the head during the fight.
Twenty-six minutes passed between the time the first call was logged and the time officers arrived on the scene, said Tony Ruiz, the executive director of the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communication. Ruiz called the delay "unacceptable."
Last month, the office suspended two 911 dispatchers for failing to notify police about the brawl. One of the dispatchers was suspended for 20 days, the other for 15 days.
"It is the nature of this incident, and the manner in which these dispatchers failed to do their jobs, that demanded a stern response," Ruiz said of the suspensions.
Ruiz said the calls the 911 center received for an assault in progress at the park were "priority-one" calls, meaning police should have been dispatched within 2 to 3 minutes.
A squad car was not dispatched until a police officer from another district, who was called by his son at the scene, contacted police headquarters, officials said. Officers responded as soon as they were notified at 10:45 p.m.
In the emergency recordings released Monday, the frustration of the callers can be heard as time elapses.
By 10:25 p.m., more than eight minutes after the original call, another caller repeatedly asks for a response, saying there are "about 30 to 40 kids out in the street fighting."
"There's cars and everything. They're chasing each other," the caller says.
There is confusion on the recordings, with some callers claiming they heard shots being fired and others saying they saw as many as 10 people get shot. Police later determined that there were no shots fired in the incident.
A 15-year-old Mississippi resident was ticketed for driving without a license after he drove a sport-utility vehicle through a crowd to protect his sister, police said. He also was ticketed for not having insurance and reckless driving.
No criminal charges have been filed against anyone in the fight, police said.
Gravlin said Cruis suffered broken feet, a broken rib and back injuries.
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I don't want this to devolve into cop bashing or even Chicago cop bashing, but as more to point of "When seconds count the police are only minutes or sometimes hours away."
