The Columbus Dispatch
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A Columbus police dispatcher was suspended for 10 days without pay for mishandling a call involving a Far West Side crash that killed two people in February.
Allison Gootee did not dispatch cruisers to the scene of the crash for more than an hour after she received the call, even though cruisers were available, Sgt. Rich Weiner said.
Gootee has served the suspension and is back on the job, Weiner said. Four other dispatchers — three with the city, one with the county — were reprimanded.
Micah Hawkins and his girlfriend, Brooke Thompson, both 18, died after their car veered off the left side of Johnson Road and struck a tree on Feb. 20.
An autopsy found that Hawkins would not have survived no matter when paramedics reached him, Franklin County Coroner Jan Gorniak said. Though no autopsy was done on Thompson, she likely would not have survived, based on the damage to the car, Gorniak said.
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