Denton Police Chief Roy Minter has initiated an internal investigation after learning that a man lay unconscious for 17 minutes in the street two blocks from the po­lice department waiting for help before it arrived April 20.

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  Denton 911 call

And local civil rights activist Willie Hudspeth, who made two 911 calls trying to get help for the man, says he believes the delay is typical of the emergency response to Southeast Denton.

“The response time for our area is different,” Hudspeth said. “We’re just sitting there on our side of town believing the re­sponse time is very slow. But I don’t know that for a fact.”

Minter said human error is to blame.

“I’ll be the first to admit that, based on the initial investigation, we did not handle this call correctly,” Minter said. “I don’t think this has anything to do with location. It has everything to do with how we handled the call. We did not handle it appropriately.”

Roy Minter

“I’ll be the first to admit that, based on the initial investigation, we did not handle this call correctly. I don’t think this has anything to do with location. It has everything to do with how we handled the call. We did not handle it appropriately.”

Hudspeth said he was walking for exercise at about 5:45 a.m. that Sunday when he noticed a man who appeared to be unconscious and not breathing. He called 911.

According to the 911 recording, Hud­speth identified himself and told the call-taker that he was with a man at the intersection of East Sycamore and South Bradshaw streets.

The man was not moving, he said.

The call-taker said she would have an officer come by.

Hudspeth waited and waited. No one came. He called 911 again.

“He was unconscious and his breathing slowed to nothing. I called back the second time and asked why haven’t you sent someone? She said, ‘OK, I’ll get right on it.’ I asked what happened and she didn’t

answer me,” Hudspeth said. “I asked her name three times and she just changed the subject.”

The 911 recording shows that the call-taker asked Hudspeth if he would perform CPR and he said he would not.

Willie Hudspeth

“The response time for our area is different. We’re just sitting there on our side of town believing the response time is very slow. But I don’t know that for a fact.”

An officer and paramedics ar­rived and determined the man was heavily intoxicated, according to an arrest warrant for the man. He was checked out and then taken to jail on a charge of public intoxication.

“It could have been something else,” Minter said. “Someone could have died. The fact that we allowed someone to lie in the street for 17 minutes before we initiated a response is disappointing and totally unacceptable.”

Police and fire dispatchers have a stressful job, the chief said. Since he came to the department in August, he has not seen such a mistake and he believes they do a good job.

But not this time.

His initial investigation shows that the call-taker initially misjudged the situation, he said. That morning, one dispatcher was acting as call-taker and another one was operating the radio to send officers to calls. The call-taker codes the calls according to the nature of assistance requested and sends them via computer to the dispatcher.

The call-taker coded the call a “welfare concern,” which is a “priority 2” and means an officer should check on the situation when there is time. The call should have been coded an “unconscious person,” a “priority 1” call that would require immediate response from an officer and paramedics, he said.

Even with the priority 2 code, the dispatcher did not send an officer, though the investigation shows four officers were not busy at the time of the initial call. Six minutes later, the dispatcher did ask an officer to check on the man lying in the street. He was assisting another officer on a call by then and did not immediately respond, which was acceptable because of the priority 2 status, Minter said.

When the officer cleared that call, he responded and found the man lying half in the street and half on the sidewalk near Oakwood Cemetery.

Minter called Hudspeth as soon as he learned of the complaint, the chief said.

“I thanked him first for placing the call and remaining there and for calling us back when help didn’t arrive,” Minter said. “And when he felt the call was not handled correctly, he called to make us aware of the problem and I thanked him for that.”

Minter said the call-taker should have told the caller her name when she was asked.

“That is not acceptable. That disturbs me. That should not have occurred,” he said.

The chief attended a meeting of the Southeast Denton Neigh­borhood Association on Monday night and told the audience what had happened and what he was doing about it, he said.

He expects the investigation to be finished by Tuesday. If the investigation finds that it is needed, disciplinary action could include days off without pay or even termination. He did not release the name of the call-taker.

Hudspeth said Minter has responded well to him so far and promised to meet with him as soon as the investigation is finished to let him know the outcome.

“He assured me that wouldn’t happen again,” Hudspeth said. “I hope that’s true.”

DONNA FIELDER can be reached at 940-566-6885. Her e-mail address is dfielder@dentonrc.com .