XPost: alt.food.safety, az.politics, ca.general
XPost: ba.politics

You don't like it here? Go home to Mexico. Today.

A 911 call dispatcher at the Albuquerque Fire Department has
resigned after audio was released from a recent emergency call
in which he told a teen, who called to report her friend had
been shot, to "deal with it yourself" before abruptly hanging up.

This past June 26, Esperanza Quintero, 17, made a 911 call after
her friend Jaydon Chavez-Silver, also 17, was shot in a drive-by
shooting at a house party, the Albuquerque Police Department
told ABC News today.

Matthew Sanchez, the dispatcher who answered the call, can be
heard repeatedly asking if the victim is breathing in audio
obtained by ABC News.

Quintero, who can be heard in the audio soothing her friend and
telling him to "stay with me" in the call, said she got
"frustrated" after Sanchez kept asking the same questions "over
and over and over again," ABC News affiliate KOAT reported.

After asking if her friend was breathing again, Quintero
replies, "He's barely breathing. How many times do I have to
f****** tell you?"

"OK, you know what ma'am? You could deal with it yourself,"
Sanchez responds. "I'm not going to deal with this, OK?

"No, my friend is dying," Quintero responds before the
dispatcher seems to hang up and the audio cuts off.

Melissa Romero, a spokeswoman for the fire department told ABC
News today that "the dispatcher did dispatch units prior to
disconnect" and that the "response time was four minutes and 26
seconds, which exceeds national standards."

Chavez-Silver was taken to a hospital, where he later succumbed
to his wounds and died, police public information officer Tanner
Tixier told ABC News today. A homicide investigation is ongoing,
and though no suspects have been arrested in connection with the
drive-by shooting, police are following up on numerous leads, he
added.

Quintero told KOAT she isn't sure if her friend would have made
it or not if Sanchez had stayed on the phone, but she wished
Sanchez had done more to help her.

"It was his job," she said. "I don't understand why he would've
hung up. I cussed at him once. I was frantic, I was scared. You
know, I'm only 17. I don't know how to handle the situation. I
did as best as I could. I tried to keep calm.

"He didn't talk me through it," she added. "Obviously, helping
people is not for him."

Before Sanchez resigned Tuesday night, Albuquerque Fire Chief
David Downey told ABC News in a statement that he was
"immediately removed from the dispatch center and placed on
administrative assignment."

"An internal investigation has been initiated," he said. "As the
Chief of the department, I am taking the allegation very
seriously."

http://abcnews.go.com/US/911-dispatcher-hung-friend-teen-dying- gunshot-resigns/story?id=32764611

 

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)