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County Communications Director Tom Brindle and 10-year veteran dispatcher Jody Rollins were dismayed when they read an account of Monday night's Pierceton Town Council meeting in Tuesday's Times-Union.
A recording of the conversation between Robert Lee Joy and Rollins differed from Joy's recollection at the town council meeting.
Pierceton residents began calling central dispatch for assistance early Sunday morning when they discovered their tires slashed. When the day was done, there were 57 tires slashed on vehicles owned by 33 people.
Monday, Joy insinuated he was treated rudely by Rollins when he called to say a neighbor's tires were slashed. Joy's calls was one of many from Pierceton that morning.
Because the call did not come in on the 9-1-1 exchange, Joy's address did not appear on the the dispatcher's computer. Rollins asked for his address, which he did not give. He said his neighbor's tires had been slashed and asked if an officer had been sent.
Rollins asked for Joy's address.
"You'd better get an officer out here or there's gonna be a hanging," Joy said.
Rollins again asked for Joy's address because she had received a number of similar calls that morning. These pending calls were listed to one side of her computer screen. She was trying to determine if Joy's call was a duplication.
Kosciusko County Sheriff's Department Deputy Rick Oliver had been dispatched and was at one scene two minutes after the initial call was received at 8:11 a.m. At that time no one knew the extent of the criminal mischief.
"You'd better get an officer out here or there's gonna be hell to pay," Joy said. He said the tire-slashers, who vandalized their neighbors in the snow, had been tracked. He gave an address where the footprints led. "So, you'd better get an officer over here."
Rollins said "You don't make threats against me, OK?"
And Joy hung up on Rollins.
"I realize now, after listening to it five or six times, that he wasn't threatening me, personally," Rollins said Wednesday afternoon. "It's not every day you have 33 tire slashings in a morning."
Brindle called Rollins a top-notch professional. "They all are. If I'm not here, I never have to worry about the dispatchers being able to handle anything."
As a matter of routine, Town Marshall Tim Sammons was advised of the situation. He told Rollins another officer would soon be coming on duty and asked that the KCSD officer disregard further calls.
"We're a neutral dispatch center," Brindle said. "We take calls for 48 agencies - police departments, fire departments and EMS. If there are no officers in North Webster, Syracuse, Mentone or Silver Lake, our procedure is to dispatch a sheriff's deputy. If it's critical, we notify the marshal. What he does with the information is up to him. At least he's notified."
Sammons, Pierceton officer Jim Brumbaugh and reserve officer Josh Denlinger handled the situation throughout the day, which ended with taking five juveniles into custody.
