Philadelphia’s emergency response system is under scrutiny after news that a dispatcher gave officers the wrong address in a recent shooting was made public.
Community members are saying had police received the correct information, the mass shooting could have been prevented.
Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw hosted a news conference on Monday, July 10, saying, “Hindsight is always perfect,” when addressing how her staff dropped the ball.
“While it may have given us an investigative lead, the likelihood of cutting that off, or cutting off what happened later on, we just don’t know,” Outlaw said, according to CNN. “It’s tragic. It’s unfortunate. And we don’t like the fact that we’re adding to the atrocities that already occurred because now folks are second-guessing our actions.”
The Philadelphia Police Department later determined that Kimbrady Carriker, the alleged gunman in the July 3 tragedy, was the same person they say killed 31-year-old Joseph Wamah Jr. 44 hours before the attack on the Kingsessing community.
Patrols were dispatched around 2 a.m. on July 2 to the 1600 block of North 56th Street to respond to gunshots heard by neighbors. However, the department reported on Sunday, July 9, the address provided to the cops was incorrect.
The 911 call had originated near the 1600 block of South 56th Street, which is three miles opposite the scene of the police response. The woman who reported the incident described hearing shots and seeing a man in dark clothing enter a house across the street from hers, followed by more sounds of gunfire and the same man in dark clothes — now believed to be Carriker — fleeing the scene. Authorities say the 911 call about this incident came about 90 minutes after the shooting, which happened around 12:30 a.m. on July 2.
Wamah lived with his father, who was not home when his son was shot. Joseph Wamah Sr. came home and discovered his son’s body in the house at…
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