Fired 911 Operator Says She's A Victim Too
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - A former 911 operator, fired for the way she handled a call involving the death of Deanna Cook, says she is the victim of a broken system.
On August 19, Angelia Graham answered an emergency call from Deanna Cook's family, who was worried Cook was missing. Instead of sending officers to Cook's home, Graham instructed family members to contact the jail and local hospitals.
"That's what I was taught back in the 90's. Now if it changed throughout the timeframe, I didn't go to any other training to be updated," says Graham.
Cook's family ultimately forced their way inside her home, to find her body floating in a bathtub.
Two days earlier, on August 17, Cook herself called 911 screaming for help. Police did respond to that call, knocked on the door and then left. A lawsuit filed by the family alleges police made two stops along the way and showed up 50 minutes after the initial call. Police say the call was not relayed to them as an emergency.
Graham says her termination has "affected everything in my life. 18 years being devoted to the city and for something just…to just be taken away from us."
Police say Graham had previously been disciplined for failing to report a call of a police officer being assaulted, and for disconnecting a woman reporting a man with a gun outside her home.
"If that incident happened two years ago and it had been that critical, she should have been let go then and she shouldn't be working that many hours now," says Graham's sister.
Graham claims she was working almost 70 hours a week, sometimes 16 hours in a row, while the 911 call center struggled to fill more than two dozen vacancies.
"We were overworked, but we chose to work overtime. They needed our bodies."
Graham says she volunteered for those extra hours after her husband lost his job in May. Now, neither have work and the family is struggling.
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