To the editor:
On Nov. 6, 2019, there was a hostage situation and SWAT standoff on Fair Road. At the beginning of the attack, the woman involved – though zip-tied and tased – was able to hide her phone under her body and call 911. Since both Sidney Police Department dispatchers were on other calls, her call was rerouted to Mansfield, then to the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, where it was treated as a ‘butt-dial’, and although recorded, her pleas for help were ignored.
For the next hour my daughter was tortured: beaten, tased, stomped, strangled, tased some more, head pounded until given a concussion – all while her hands and feet were zip-tied; all while waiting for the people who are hired to protect our community were not doing their job.
I attended the recent Republican Debate and brought up this event. Mr Frye stated that “…it could have (went) worse.” * That very well may be but that is no excuse to deflect responsibility for inaction. Sweeping dirt under the rug doesn’t remove the dirt, it only moves its location.
Mark Jordan, on the other hand, was the one on the platform who expressed apologies for what happened to my daughter even though he had nothing to do with the complete disregard of safety encountered here. And he pointed out that the lack of training for the dispatchers was a management problem.
The Sheriff’s Office says they have a lot of 911 butt-dials. I’ve never accidentally called 911, have you? I doubt we have a butt-dial epidemic. There was a brief acknowledgment in a press release of not knowing what the volume control knob on the 911 unit was for. So we have to ask ourselves how many other people have been ignored at their most vulnerable moments?
Mark Jordan is actually the person who developed the 911 system our county, and numerous jurisdictions, use. He ran a successful tech company and Homeland Security contracted him to install his system for the country of Haiti.
It comes down to this: do you want status quo, or a Law Enforcement professional with an understanding of running a multi-million dollar business with a large budget and who can keep current with technology? I want the person representing Honesty, Integrity, Transparency, and Accountability. That’s Mark Jordan.
Dana Geuy
Port Jefferson
*Mark Jordan video #3, minute 27:53
