Conceding an obvious breakdown in reacting to repeated 911 calls from a woman before she allegedly was shot dead last week by her estranged husband, Chicago police officials acknowledged Friday that their investigation into the response is focusing on two patrol officers.
First Deputy Supt. John Thomas was careful not to say the Police Department was admitting culpability in the death May 3 of Ronyale White. He did, however, suggest that a quicker response might have saved her life.
“There is no question that something went wrong last Friday night,” said Thomas, the No. 2 official in the Police Department. “As our mission is the preservation of life, we would like to think that we could respond in a timely manner to prevent death or bodily harm.”
Still, Thomas said the exact sequence of events that night–why it took 17 minutes for the first of three cars to drive less than 2 miles–is still under investigation by police and the Office of Emergency Management and Communications.
“Do we have a sense or an indication of what happened? Yes,” he said. “Do we have a completed investigation that would let us say with utmost certainty that we know definitely all the factors involved. Not yet.”
But he and other police officials said Friday that the investigation so far has suggested the fault lies with the two Calumet District officers who were in the first car dispatched to White’s home.
“Our concern is with one particular car,” he said, explaining the two officers in the car have become the focus of the investigation.
Sources have said that car was assigned to beat 513, which includes White’s house in the 10600 block of South LaSalle Street.
Two other cars were dispatched to White’s home that night. But Thomas and other police officials indicated Friday that their actions, and response time, were not in question. Officers from those cars are being questioned aswitnesses to help investigators establish a firm timeline of events in the minutes before White was shot.
Husband heard entering home
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White’s first 911 call came at 11:40 p.m. The mother of three, who worked at a South Side plastics company, had just returned from a night out with friends when she heard her husband entering their home with a key, according to authorities and family members.
A few weeks earlier, she had obtained an order of protection against her husband, Louis David Drexel, so she grabbed the phone to call 911.
In that first call, White–reportedly in a calm voice–told the operator that her husband was in violation of the protective order, and she wanted him out.
The 911 operator talked to White on the phone for 2 1/2 minutes, asking questions, including whether the husband was armed. She said he was not, adding that she thought he had lost his gun. Beat 513 acknowledged receiving the assignment at 11:43 p.m.
At 11:45 p.m., White made her second 911 call and this time the tone was sharply different. Drexel had a gun, she told the operator, and he was outside puncturing the tires of her sport utility vehicle.
That call sent a second car to the home at 11:49 p.m. Police sources have complained that the 911 center did not send an all-car alert once they knew Drexel was armed. Instead, the call was sent only to the squad patrolling beat 511, according to police sources. Other officials familiar with the city’s 911 system say the calls can be heard by supervisors and other cars in the area.
Police sources also criticized dispatchers for not making a follow-up call to Beat 513 to determine that patrol car’s whereabouts or why it hadn’t checked in at the scene.
White’s third call, which did prompt an all-cars alert, came at 11:50 p.m.
Clearly frightened, White repeated that Drexel was armed and whispered to the dispatcher that he was now back in the home and threatening her.
911 operator hears screams
Another car was dispatched at 11:52 p.m. while the 911 operator kept her on the phone for several minutes. White can be heard dropping the phone and screaming. Then there was silence, officials said.
Police and family members said White had recently made a habit of secretly tape-recording her encounters with Drexel. Her tape was rolling that night, and according to prosecutors, the sound of her bedroom door being kicked in and two gunshots can be heard clearly on the tape.
The first two cars to arrive on the scene–the two units who responded to the later 911 calls–radioed that they were on the scene at 11:57 p.m., police said. Two minutes later, car 513, the first car dispatched, sent a computer message that it had arrived, officials said.
What remained unclear Friday was exactly where that car was in the 16 minutes after it was dispatched, and whether it was actually on the scene when it reported arriving there. Earlier in the week, police said only two patrol cars had arrived on the scene.
The focus of the investigation, Thomas said Friday, was “to determine what happened to that first unit.”
Meanwhile Friday, the head of the City Council’s Police and Fire Committee said the debate surrounding White’s death and the officers’ actions should push the city into considering equipping police vehicles with global positioning devices that would let supervisors know the cars’ exact locations at all times.
“I don’t know if it would have saved this poor woman’s life, but it would have let you know where the (police) car was when it got the call, so there would be no guesswork,” said Ald. Isaac Carothers (29th).
Thomas called the suggestion a “good thought.” He said the incident has raised a number of issues for the department, including whether officers are receiving the appropriate training.
Jacquelyn Heard, Mayor Richard Daley’s press secretary, said Daley would be willing to study a possible Police Department GPS installation.
“There is always the issue of money … but I think the mayor would agree to explore the possibility,” Heard said.