MEMPHIS – The slaying of former NBA player Lorenzen Wright is pushing officials to consider whether turf issues are hindering 911 emergency operations between Memphis and its suburbs.
Wright was found shot to death in a Memphis woods on July 28, 10 days after a 911 call with the sound of gunfire was made from his phone.
Germantown dispatchers couldn’t pinpoint the caller or location but decided it was outside their jurisdiction and didn’t send a patrol officer or relay the information to Memphis police. It took a week to link the call to a missing person report on Wright filed in another suburb, Collierville, but it eventually led police to his body.
County 911 board member Henry Brenner said at a meeting Thursday that greater cooperation is hindered by suburban towns that “want to continue their turf.”
“I call them the toy towns. They are toying with the lives of citizens,” Brenner said.
Former Shelby County Commissioner Julian Bolton called on the board to lead a public campaign to consolidate all dispatch centers in the county.
“The obvious flaw is that we don’t have uniform dispatching,” Bolton said. “Having a uniform dispatch center is a best practice which is the norm, which we have deviated from.”
Bolton said he didn’t think dispatching early on July 19 would have saved Wright’s life but it might have led to some arrests. Police haven’t yet announced suspects or a motive in the case.
Board members of the Shelby County 911 Emergency Communications District didn’t make a decision about how to proceed, The Commercial Appeal reported.
Brenner said the county tried to create a single dispatcher center in 1985 but suburban municipalities, including Bartlett, Collierville, Arlington and Millington, stopped it.
Rex Holloway of the state 911 board said Tennessee law allows municipalities the right to run their own dispatch centers. They also create their own policies on how to respond to problematic 911 calls, like hang-ups.
Collierville was the only suburban town to send a representative to the meeting. The city has recently invested about $2 million in its 911 call center and that makes it unlikely Collierville would join a consolidated system, according to Mayor Stan Joyner, who didn’t attend the meeting.
“It would not be financially prudent for Collierville to ‘unplug’ our system and begin contributing to funding a new countywide system,” Joyner said in a statement.
Joyner pointed to another 911 concern for suburban towns.
“In the event of a regional disaster, we ensure town resources and staffing will be directed to our citizens,” he said.
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Information from: The Commercial Appeal, http://www.commercialappeal.com