Off The Record
Daughter Calls 911 To Order A Pizza, But Saves Her Mother’s Life Instead
At first the dispatcher puzzled by the call:
“You called 911 to order a pizza?” Tim Teneyck said.
“Uh … yeah,” she said.
The dispatcher told the caller that they dialled the wrong number, but the caller was persistent.
Then Tim realized this wasn’t a mistaken caller…
Earlier that month, the police in Oregon, Ohio, arrested a man on a domestic violence charge. They now think the woman who faked a pizza order is rather a cry for help.
The dispatcher told that he was never taught to identify a food delivery call with suspicion; he made a decision that the caller made a mistake calling 911 to order a pizza, but with her persistence he knew something was wrong…
“If it’s your only option, and that abusive person is next to you and listening to everything you say, then by all means — you call and order that pizza,” he told The Washington Post.
Domestic violence group promoted the pizza strategy as something that may work under difficult circumstances. A PSA aired during the 2015 Super Bowl showed a woman using the pizza tactic with the tagline, “When it’s hard to talk, it’s up to us to listen.”
Authorities know that sometimes the word “pizza” can be a code word.
“This is false. Text to 911 is a much better option,” the Los Angeles Police Department tweeted in response to one post that got viral promoting “pepperoni pizza” as a secret word for assistance. “Your exact location & the nature of your emergency is what’s needed to send the right resources.”
However, the 911 line in Oregon, Ohio, cannot receive texts, according to the dispatcher Teneyck. He says that anyone calling 911 should stay as long as they can so that police can hear what’s going on in the background.
Audio released shows Teneyck figured out quickly the daughter’s real reason for calling.
“I’m getting you now,” he said at 20 seconds in, after she told him, “You’re not understanding.”
The police arrested Simon Lopez, 56, who was jailed for domestic violence, according to the court records. The public defender’s office which was representing Lopez did not comment on the case.
The victim told police that Lopez came home under the influence and argued first but then he punched her on the arm with a closed fist and shoved her so he hit herself in the wall ,the Toledo Blade reported.
She told the police that Lopez was loud, disorderly, verbally and physically abusive, adding that he said he would beat her. Lopez denied her allegations, according to police records.
“I do believe that in other cases, it’s a very real possibility that another dispatcher in a larger jurisdiction could have handled it differently and lost the call,” Tim Teneyck said.
Oregon Police Chief Michael Navarre said that he is “extremely proud” of Teneyck’s work — and plans to use the pizza call in training.
“He picked up on a woman who was in distress but was in a position where she couldn’t convey it to him in those words,” Navarre said.
A job well done by the woman who acted under immense pressure and the dispatcher’s work to swiftly assess the true nature of the situation.
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