Girl Swears to 911 operator and he hangs up

Originally Posted by odoreater

Click to expand...

It's called respondeat superior.

This guy is a ******* jerkoff. I hope he loses his job, never works as a cop again, and these people get a million dollars from the city.

+1

So the guy yells at a frantic 17 year old girl who calls 911, refuses to send an ambulance, and arrests her for a crime that doesn't exist, and this results in a two week suspension. I wonder what you have to do in Lincoln Park to be fired from the police force...

Originally Posted by Jumbie

Click to expand...

I don't.

Like I said, I hope that the asshole loses his job (and it doesn't seem like he did; 2 weeks without pay? seriously!!) but I don't see why they deserve anywhere near a million dollars for this.

If something happened to the father due to the delay in care, then I do agree that medical expenses and something extra should be awarded (barring the guy actually having died; in which case I don't know) for "pain and suffering" but it's this idea why the US is such a legislative country. The answer to everything is seemingly to sue for millions and the fact that something as obviously ridiculous as that case about two years back where the judge tried to sue the Korean drycleaners for some ridiculous sum of money for losing his $800 pants and it wasn't just laughed out of court and the guy told to go eff himself shows that something is very wrong with the system IMO.

Because if nobody died this time, somebody might die next time. A strong message needs to be sent that this can't be tolerated.

What a prick. He's shithead pure and ismple.

Originally Posted by odoreater

Click to expand...

Because if nobody died this time, somebody might die next time. A strong message needs to be sent that this can't be tolerated.

Who are you sending this strong message to? The city/taxpayers? I'm pretty sure they don't encourage their employees to act like jackasses and endanger the lives of the very people they're being paid to protect. I'm pretty sure that losing one's job and possible charges being filed (I'm not a lawyer but perhaps negligence or endangerment??) should be enough to send a message to someone without billing the city one million dollars and awarding it to someone for reasons they don't really deserve (IMO).

It's not going to cause the city to explicitly tell police officers "hey, we're here to save lives and you shouldn't hang up on 911 calls or we'll be sued and forced to fire you". That should be common sense and an unspoken rule/understanding. As I said, the guy should lose his job over this and that should be punishment enough. Obviously he's such a fucktard that even if the city did tell him this I don't think he'd care enough to not do it since it's so obvious to everyone with the slightest little bit of sense that it's grossly wrong.

Giving this girl and her father even $50k serves what purpose exactly? Justice because they were wronged? IMO all it does is further the idea that the US seems to have where the answer to everything is to sue and try to get money out of every wrong or perceived wrong that happens.

The same kind of thing happened here when someone got lost in some nearby mountains and tried to call our version of 911 - he ended up dying from exposure because he couldn't give a street address (while lost in said mountains) to the operator, who then refused to transfer him on or deal with his call.


A two week suspension without pay is laughable. Is that really the punishment for detaining someone for a crime that does not exist? Society takes the freedom (and removal of it) very seriously. The 911 call aside, this officer arresting people for fictitious crimes is an unbelievable abuse of his power - could you imagine what would have happened if she had resisted?

Let alone that he then proceeded to cover up what he'd done (several times) to his colleagues, and now refuses to accept culpability to the people he serves for what he's done.

IMHO, that kind of abuse of power needs to be answered with jail time.

This chick is kind of a ***** but that cop is a major asshole.

Originally Posted by Connemara

Click to expand...

This chick is kind of a ***** but that cop is a major asshole.

True, but the whole "I think my Dad might be dying and I'm frantically trying to get him help" bitchiness is a lot more understandable than the smalltime cop on a powertrip against swear words.

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

Click to expand...

True, but the whole "I think my Dad might be dying and I'm frantically trying to get him help" bitchiness is a lot more understandable than the smalltime cop on a powertrip against swear words.
Yeah I know. But you can tell she is the type of white trash girl who starts fights in school for no reason. "DO WE HAVE A PROBLEM?!?!" I can see the hair-pulling and name-calling now!

Originally Posted by Jumbie

Click to expand...

Who are you sending this strong message to? The city/taxpayers? I'm pretty sure they don't encourage their employees to act like jackasses and endanger the lives of the very people they're being paid to protect. I'm pretty sure that losing one's job and possible charges being filed (I'm not a lawyer but perhaps negligence or endangerment??) should be enough to send a message to someone without billing the city one million dollars and awarding it to someone for reasons they don't really deserve (IMO).

It's not going to cause the city to explicitly tell police officers "hey, we're here to save lives and you shouldn't hang up on 911 calls or we'll be sued and forced to fire you". That should be common sense and an unspoken rule/understanding. As I said, the guy should lose his job over this and that should be punishment enough. Obviously he's such a fucktard that even if the city did tell him this I don't think he'd care enough to not do it since it's so obvious to everyone with the slightest little bit of sense that it's grossly wrong.

Giving this girl and her father even $50k serves what purpose exactly? Justice because they were wronged? IMO all it does is further the idea that the US seems to have where the answer to everything is to sue and try to get money out of every wrong or perceived wrong that happens.

Obviously this city isn't getting the message since they're contemplating a two-week punishment for this asshole.

The thing is though that it doesn't matter if she's a *****. It's not his job to teach her life lessons about politeness, it's his job to place the call.

Originally Posted by odoreater

Click to expand...

Obviously this city isn't getting the message since they're contemplating a two-week punishment for this asshole.

Agreed. I am honestly astounded by the leniency of this outcome. Like I said though, I still feel that he should have been terminated but no monetary award should be granted.

Perhaps I'm somewhat misunderstanding your stance on this so let me pose this question - do you feel that even if he were terminated she should still due for "damages" or do you think that because of the relative inaction on the part of the city that they should be hit where it hurts to "incentivise" them to hand down stricter punishment in the future?

Originally Posted by Jumbie

Click to expand...

Agreed. I am honestly astounded by the leniency of this outcome. Like I said though, I still feel that he should have been terminated but no monetary award should be granted.

Perhaps I'm somewhat misunderstanding your stance on this so let me pose this question - do you feel that even if he were terminated she should still due for "damages" or do you think that because of the relative inaction on the part of the city that they should be hit where it hurts to "incentivise" them to hand down stricter punishment in the future?

A huge judgment would be the only way to incentivise other municipalities to spend the money it takes to make sure that their 911 operators are well trained and well supervised. The only way you could convince a town or city council to spend money on that is if there is a possibility that they will get hit with a huge judgment if they don't.

Having said that, if this case were in my jurisdiction and this girl came to my office asking me to represent her, I would decline the case. I don't think they have a particularly good case. On liability, the sticking point will likely be whether the operator's actions were discretionary or ministerial. There's a good argument that they were ministerial because there are probably policies in place on what kind of information a 911 operator has to get from every caller and this guy obviously broke those policies.

What would really call the case (at least in NJ) is the damages aspect. The only way to make any money on this case is for a court to award punitive damages (because it doesn't appear that there are any compensatory damages - at least that we know of). But, at least in NJ, punitive damages are capped at 5 times compensatory damages, so the case is essentially worthless.

What a POS. Hopefully he'll get his ass out of the station to do some real work and catch a bullet.

dl

Originally Posted by Jumbie

Click to expand...

Agreed. I am honestly astounded by the leniency of this outcome. Like I said though, I still feel that he should have been terminated but no monetary award should be granted.

Perhaps I'm somewhat misunderstanding your stance on this so let me pose this question - do you feel that even if he were terminated she should still due for "damages" or do you think that because of the relative inaction on the part of the city that they should be hit where it hurts to "incentivise" them to hand down stricter punishment in the future?
Lawyers don't get paid if the guy gets fired.