Mother died while boy’s 911 calls dismissed as jokes

FIVE-YEAR-OLD Robert Turner’s mother had collapsed on the floor, and he was scared, but he knew what to do. He called 911 for help.

Even so, the Detroit boy was twice scolded by a dispatcher who told him to stop playing around.

Michigan lawyer Geoffrey Fieger, calling the mishandling of 911 calls in Detroit an “endemic” problem, says he’ll file a lawsuit today over the death on February 20 of Sherill Turner, whose enlarged heart took her life at 46.

“We’ve alleged wrongful death and infliction of emotional distress,” Fieger said in an interview. Even though Robert knew calling 911 was the right thing to do, Fieger said, “he had to sit there while his mom died in front of him”.

When Robert called 911 and reported his mother had passed out, a dispatcher asked to talk to an adult. At one point, “she hanged up on me,” said Robert, who turned six last month.

A recording of the 911 call, provided by the family to the Detroit Free Press, indicates the operator hung up on the boy after saying she would send police to the home.

When the boy called back three hours later, the dispatcher told him he “shouldn’t be playing on the phone”. The dispatcher said at one point, according to the tapes, “Now put her (his mother) on the phone before I send the police out there to knock on the door and you going to be in trouble.” Turner was dead when police eventually arrived.

Delaina Patterson, the oldest of Turner’s 10 surviving children and the representative of her estate, said several friends had urged her to call Fieger, who is best known for defending assisted-suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian.

“Because the city of Detroit hasn’t covered this up, maybe there’s a possibility that they’ll come forward and attempt to resolve this matter,” Fieger said.

In 1989, Detroit paid $3.6 million in a civil settlement over the death of Peggy Saffold, whose relatives called police four times in 2½ hours about an ex-boyfriend who was threatening to kill her.

Police never arrived.