I thought you could sue for punitive damages if you were falsely arrested. In my quick study on answers.com and subsiquest online law search brought this up.

“…An action can be instituted for the damages ensuing from false arrest, such as loss of salary while imprisoned, or injury to reputation that results in a pecuniary loss to the victim. Ill will and malice are not elements of the tort, but if these factors are proven, punitive damages can be awarded in addition to compensatory damages or nominal damages.”

So it appears you can, however it must be done only after the first factors are met. Please note I am not saying she can in this case, because I am not a lawyer. I am only showing the possibility is there.

Now on the side, and my opinion it would seem that the court and public outcry is the only recourse her family has available. No matter what personal reason the officer had (with that background he must have brought personal issues to work, which is a huge no-no!) his actions could have caused serious issues. He should have faced criminal charges, but he DID end up sending support (so he will get through by the skin of his teeth). It is up to the people of the township to persue the issue to the full authority they have to pressure the department to either fire him, or push him into early retirement. They can hold further tax support and other recourses over the department and force their hands.

Deejayqueue, are you by chance a Lileks fan? “Douchey McNegligence” sounds like a nickname for one of the perps in the Lance Lawson mysteries on buzz.mn.

And yes, the cop should have been canned immediately for that little stunt.

This “Officer” for whatever reason no-longer had the ability appropriate the amount of response to the proper incident. That is to, when an officer comes upon an event he immediately begins triage-What needs to be done NOW?- this officer did not do that and especially when dealing with something so critical, you cannot just not take issue with something that irks you.

As to what was going on, he broke. After 30+ years on the force, his mind just couldnt take it anymore. The problem is, 2 weeks wont fix it. When you break, thats about it.

One major flaw here though is that theres seems to have been only one operator. Where were the rest? Any city of any sorts needs at least 2-or more likely 4, unless its the size and technological equivilant of Mayberry-They do still exist and they are that creepy.

Now I dont know enough about it but I’m just guestimating logistics and possibillities. At any rate there should have been someone else in the room.

She cussed, he broke, everybody is still alive.
Watch the father in future. Get the girl a lawyer. Get the officer a pension plan that includes psychiatric. Make the 911 room occupancy minimum 3.

Follow through and get over it.

‘«The world is full of idiots, and here we have two of them.»

Yeah, there’s nothing here that would excuse that girl from not being completely 100% totally rational. It’s not like she could think her father was dying. Oh wait.’

I believe the reference to the girl being an idiot wasn’t about her conduct during the phone call, but the conduct of her and her family afterwards (asking for $$$).

Don’t worry, the government will save you.

The sound of the phone dialing and the ring tone are inserted sounds. Unless your phone is 100% tapped and rolling 100% of the time there is simply no way to record a call that hasn’t been placed yet. Listen to the beeps, there are WAY too many to be 9-1-1 and they aren’t even standard touchtone beeps.

What happened is most likely this:
She called 911 which in this town is patched into the local police dispatch where Douchey McNegligence was “on duty” or more likely on the can. When nothing happens and nobody picks up she hangs up and calls again. This time Douchey picks up the phone but she’s distracted for a split second (by her possibly dying father, seizing on the floor) and thinks it’s still ringing. Maybe he picks up during that pause between rings? So she’s like “WTF?” only he’s picked up and hears it.

From there it’s all downhill.

I work in a call center and in our standard, he won’t be suspended.It doesn’t matter how many awards and commendations he’s received. He’d be fired right on the spot and sued as hell!!! He hung up three times, he interrupted her many times, he quickly denied her an ambulance when HE DIDN’T EVEN ASK WHY SHE’S CALLING OR WHY SHE NEEDS AN AMBULANCE (AND COMMON SENSE, IF PEOPLE SAY THEY NEED AN AMBULANCE, IT ALREADY MEANS IT’S AN EMERGENCY SO HE SHOULD HAVE JUST SKIPPED THE ARGUMENT AND SENT HER AN AMBULANCE), and he even called her A STUPID ASS, A BUFFOON, A FILTHY-MOUTHED GIRL!!! Let’s not forget, she got arrested!!!

Since he’s a 911 operator, the first thing that he should be well trained at is listening to clues or cues like speed, tone of voice, etc. He should have known how swearing is definitely a clue to how grave the caller’s situation is!!!

He’s lucky her dad didn’t die or else he’s in a even bigger problem!!!

One question though, IS HE THE ONLY OPERATOR THERE?

That’s just my theory. I have a friend whose both mother- and father-in-law died when their vehicle sank into a river, because 911 hung up on them multiple times (it apparently sank slowly, which is horrifying), because they weren’t speaking intelligible-enough English. (They were Korean immigrants.) I keep telling myself that it happened because the operators were working in a rough part of town, East Dallas, and had too much to deal with.

Still not that comforting, though. Regardless of stress, desensitization, whatever, 911 operators should not be hanging up on people unless they’re VERY sure it’s a prank call.

Nope, any excuse you give to help them downgrade your emergency will be exploited. Because it saves money.

That should be one of the first things that Emergency line operators are trained to deal with, and should respond by attempting to calm down the (rightly) stressed person on the other end. (I’m not knocking other 911 operators, and I’ve no doubt that this particular one is just a bad apple.)

Somebody just got their career ruined.

You would think he would be used to freaked out people swearing.

On another point, the quality of journalism in that report was excessively low. Is this what passes for reporting these days? That was some skewed & objectionable subjective shit the reporter was coming up with.

Most of these people are not idiots like the operator in the story. I had to call 911 about a week ago when I was in a car accident. Despite being totally pumped full of adrenaline I managed to get most of the important stuff out – I’vebeeninacaraccidentI’matsantamariawayandhollyoaklaneI’mnothurtbutIcan’tgettotheotherdriver… the operator did an admirable job of sorting all of that out, asked a few other relevant questions, and got help there within a few minutes.

Same story just about every other time; the operator asked for all of the information I should have given in the first place but was too shaken up to think about, e.g., “no, there are no hazmat markings on the overturned truck, looks like a reefer, and it’s not blocking the lane.”

The one exception would be the time I couldn’t get through to 911 for an injury accident that happened right in front of me at the grocery store. That time I may well have been swearing at the busy signal I kept getting on my phone, and like the caller in the story I’d probably have been swearing if it kept ringing without being picked up.

The real problem that time was that the woman in the gathering crowd (the only other one trying to help) who did get through didn’t communicate clearly that it was an injury accident and we were there for 10 or 15 minutes (a mile from the hospital and about that far from the police station) before a single traffic cop showed up. Once he got there and called it in properly, a medic unit was there within 3 minutes. In the meantime I got to put my rusty EMT skills to work assessing the driver who was too drunk to tell if he was seriously hurt, and trying to get the bleeding non-drunk driver to calm down and stay put, while trying to get the owner of the parked car that the drunk guy knocked the other guy into to stop badgering everyone for insurance information. Good times.

A person can’t sue a municipality of other government entity for punitive damages, unless there is a statute that expressly allows for it. This rule is laid out in the Supreme Court case City of Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc., 453 US 247 (1981). So, in other words, there would have to be a Michigan statute that says “a person can recover punitive damages against a city for violations of that person’s rights,” or something to that effect. I’m not sure what you’ve quoted up there, but it’s probably talking about suing the individual officer (i.e., if you sued him and won, he’d pay you out of pocket, not from city funds). Like I said above, a person can sue a municipality or other government entity (like a police department or sheriffs’ department) for compensatory, not punative, damages. Without getting way into the details of it, succeeding in even that is usually hard. Typically, you’d have to show that the person at the top had some role in the officer’s misconduct, for example, that they failed to train their police officers, or knew that police officers were doing illegal things and failed to stop them, or had some kind of policy (like, “when you pick up a 911 call, feel free to do whatever you want”). So as a general rule, it’s usually pretty challenging to get the city on the hook for misconduct by any individual officer.

I’m just speaking totally in generalities here and truly have no opinion as to whether this girl or her family could succeed in a lawsuit. I’m just trying to clear up how damages work.

But really, sometimes swear words are a “trigger” of sorts to some of the people with imaginary authority.

I called 911 and was swearing and screaming and freaking out. The cop was cool, calm and professional. She stayed on the phone until the ambulance found us and she made sure I was calm too. I swore, ALOT, and before I hung up I apologized. She laughed and said “Hey, that’s why they pay me the big bucks babe. I hope you and your friend are ok.”

That’s how you do it.

Absolutely disgusting; so far, haven’t found anty follow-up reporting on the fallout, if any.

The reporter is Steve Wilson a great investigative reporter that was a thorn in Kwame Kilpatricks side for a long time.