Published: July 05, 2008 06:25 pm            

New Albany Police Department doesn’t respond to 911 call

Dispatcher reportedly hit wrong button when woman called for help during burglary

A family is upset after the New Albany Police Department failed to respond to a 911 call during a violent burglary. The police department is calling it “human error.”

On June 4, Katerina Videnova was at her home on the 3300 block of Saddlewood Court when dogs began barking, and she heard someone in the house, she told police. She grabbed the phone and walked toward the bathroom when a man kicked open the door. She said he threatened to kill her if she talked to police. She claimed he had a black semi-automatic handgun.

Videnova dialed 911 but was unable to speak before the perpetrator grabbed the phone from her and hung up, according to a police report. The dispatcher received the first call at 1:46 a.m.

Col. Mike Lawrence of NAPD said the dispatcher called back and did not get an answer. Officers were never called out to check on the situation.

Charles Conner, the victim’s father who owns a jewelry store in downtown New Albany, said a

detective told him that police have a recording of the call which lasts a few seconds. In the recording, the daughter is screaming and the intruder can be heard yelling at the victim, Conner said.

“The reality of it is they knew she was in distress, and they did nothing about it,” he said. “Whether they’ll admit it or not, they made a really bad mistake.”

Lawrence thinks the dispatcher was trying to transfer the call to another person in the department and accidentally hit the cancel button instead of the call button.

“The normal procedure is to call back, and sometimes people answer. A lot of times they don’t,” he said.

The department receives hang-up calls almost daily, according to Lawrence, who said this is the first report of a problem he has ever had.

The perpetrator allegedly began demanding jewelry and money, and after she gave it to him, he tied her hands with the electric cord of an iron, the report states.

Videnova then called her parents, who were in Pennsylvania at the time. When her parents called 911, dispatchers would not transfer the call to New Albany police, said Conner.

The dispatcher eventually looked up NAPD’s phone number and gave that to the parents. They called NAPD at 2:13 a.m. — nearly 30 minutes after the first 911 call.

Lawrence said the dispatcher realized the mistake immediately when the parents’ call came in, and six units were sent out. The first arrived within four minutes. The burglar had already left.

According to the police report, the burglar stole nearly $8,000 worth of property.

Police still have no suspects in the robbery.

“The robbery is under investigation,” said Captain Keith Whitlow. “We have requested and received the assistance of (Louisville) Metro Police.”

He said LMPD has an expertise and talent that they need in their investigation.

The suspect is described as thin, less than 6-feet-tall and biracial — white and black or Hispanic. He had gold teeth and was wearing a T-shirt.

Lawrence said they will work with training dispatchers to ensure that this error does not happen again in the future.

According to the victim, the intruder asked for her father’s jewelry. Conner buys scrap gold for his jewelry store and keeps copies of driver’s licenses of every person he buys from. Thinking the burglar might know him, he checked the licenses, and he found one that matched the description of the suspect. His daughter identified the picture as the man who robbed her.

 Conner said police found a knife and are waiting on DNA and fingerprint analysis. It could take weeks, if not months, for the results to come back though. He said his daughter is also working with a sketch artist.

Conner is frustrated that more has not been done already. He has met with lawyers and has not ruled out trying to take action against the police department, although he is not sure if there is anything he can do.

        

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