YOUNGSTOWN Officer punished over 911 dispatch

The supervisor says he will file a grievance.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- A police supervisor on duty when a dispatcher delayed sending officers to the scene of an armed robbery on the South Side has been given a three-day suspension.
An investigation by the Youngstown Police Department Internal Affairs Division concluded that Lt. William Centric violated two departmental rules, Capt. Martin F. Kane, IAD commander, said Wednesday.
The investigation found violations of the contract that address neglect of duty and incompetence, Kane said.
Centric, 58, is an 18-year veteran of the department. He loses roughly $678 for the three days off, which are scheduled for Tuesday, Wednesday and next Thursday.
The decision comes after a predisciplinary hearing. Kane said Centric received a letter Wednesday notifying him of the suspension.
Centric said he will file a grievance but didn't want to discuss the specifics. "I feel the charge is unwarranted and the punishment excessive," he said.
Kane said the IAD investigation showed that Centric should have been aware of an urgent call that needed attention.
"It is his responsibility to make sure that calls for service get responded to in timely fashion," Kane said. "It was internal affairs' opinion that he failed in that regard."
Large time lapse
Susan Boyd, a 34-year-old mother of five, was robbed of her purse at gunpoint in her East Philadelphia Avenue driveway Sept. 19. She believes that if police had arrived within a few minutes they'd had a good chance of finding the robber, who arrived and left on foot.
Boyd called 911 at 9:36 p.m. The call wasn't dispatched until 9:58 and police didn't arrive until 10:22 -- 46 minutes after the 911 call, records show.
Last month, Patrolman Jerry Fulmer accepted a three-day suspension.
At the time, Kane said the 911 call taker passed along via computer the information to Fulmer, who read it but misinterpreted the serious nature of the call. In the same time frame, Fulmer dispatched cruisers to handle a burglary-in-progress and domestic dispute, Kane said.
Beat cops' response
When Fulmer dispatched the call to East Philadelphia at 9:58 p.m., 22 minutes after the crime was reported, the beat cops assigned the call explained that they would be downtown "a while" because they were working with one of the new YPD onboard computers in their cruiser.
Kane said Fulmer could have dispatched someone else or ordered those officers to go immediately.
To Fulmer, the East Philadelphia call wasn't a priority call but a call to take a report, and he just missed the gun involved, Kane said.
The officers, after correcting the problem with their onboard computer, left the YPD garage at 10:13 p.m. and arrived at Boyd's house at 10:22 p.m.
During that time, calls poured into the 911 center from Boyd's neighbors.
meade@vindy.com