Orlando Fires Dispatcher After Death of Woman

[deanmine]

Orlando police fired a 911 dispatcher Thursday who handled calls seeking help for a kidnapped woman who was found slain hours later, a department spokeswoman said.

Police ruled Alan F. Ballard, 60, made several mistakes in the case of Loyta Sloley, 24, who was found Jan. 27 on the floor of a downtown Orlando hotel room, shot at least four times. Her ex-boyfriend James Clayton, 46, was collapsed on top of her, dead of a single gunshot to the head.

guy could have played this call two different ways.

The morning of Sloley's death, Ballard told her she was making police "do a lot of work that we don't need to be doing," according to a recording of the call. He also failed to warn his supervisor that the case was urgent, an internal investigation found.

"Our employees have to be held accountable for their actions," police spokeswoman Sgt. Barbara Jones said

Ballard did not comment, saying he is in the process of appealing the decision. In a written rebuttal to police he said the accusations against him are unfair.

"I, to this very moment, can think of nothing I would have done differently, given the facts I had at the time the situation was unfolding," Ballard wrote.

Ballard had not previously been disciplined.

An internal report casts the four hours that passed between the first call for help and the discovery of Sloley's body as a series of missed opportunities and delays. During that time, Ballard handled a flurry of phone calls between Sloley's concerned loved ones and officers, plus unrelated emergency calls.

The first call for help came at 8:15 a.m. when Sheryl Blake-Robinson, a supervisor at Lucerne Hospital and Sloley's co-worker, told 911 dispatchers the victim may have been kidnapped.

Sloley, a hospital technician, called in sick. Blake-Robinson knew Sloley was having trouble with her ex-boyfriend, and coaxed the victim to tell her that he had kidnapped her.

The report notes a 23-minute delay took place between Blake-Robinson's call and when it was entered into a computer dispatch system.

When Ballard did so, it was noted as a suspicious incident, not a possible kidnapping -- a classification decision that could have triggered a different response by police, the report said.

Blake-Robinson told investigators said she was frustrated by police's response to the call.

"I wasn't taken seriously," the hospital employee said.

Ballard's supervisor Taunya Harris complained that when Ballard told Sloley he was creating unnecessary work for police, he was blaming the victim. "It seems that he was chastising the victim in . . . in lieu of trying to assist her," Harris told investigators. Ballard wrote in his rebuttal that he was trying to pressure Sloley to give him her location.

"That's how I would talk to my kids almost," Ballard said.

A 911 operator is under investigation for lecturing a kidnapping victim who was later found slain.

While operator Alan Ballard was on the phone with victim Loyta Stoley, he told her, "You are making us do a lot of work that we don't need to be doing," a tape of the 911 call reveals.

Eyewitness News has learned that the operator tried to find out where the victim was by asking her kidnapper.

The ordeal began the morning of Jan. 27, when police say Loyta Stoley was abducted and eventually taken to the Marriott Courtyard Hotel in downtown Orlando. Stoley's worried supervisor called 911. The operator later made a three-way call connecting Stoley's father and Stoley on her cell phone.

However, police didn't get on the case until a half hour after the 911 call and the victim ended up dead. Police found the woman four hours later. Officers said they found the woman dead, as well as her kidnaper, both from gunshot wounds.

911 operator Alan Ballard is under an internal affairs investigation by the Orlando Police Department for the way he handled several calls for help.

At 9:46am January 27, OPD 911 call handler Alan Ballard did a three-party call, connecting Loyta Sloley's concerned father, who was at home, to her cell phone, even though Ballard had already been told during the first 30 seconds of the first 911 call, made by Sloley's work supervisor, that she was being held against her will.

The following is what Ballard said to Sloley when he finally got her on her cell phone more than an hour and a half later.

911 operator: "Okay, we are under the impression that you are being held against your will."

Loyta: "Yes."

911 operator: "Okay, you need to talk to me straight up. Are you being held against your will?"

Loyta: "Yes."

By this time Loyta and her captor had checked into room 548 at the Marriott Courtyard Hotel downtown. Ballard tried to keep her on the phone, but she kept telling him that she had to go.

Instead of picking up on her cues and the stress in her voice, the way Sloley's supervisor and her father had, 911 operator Ballard started berating her.

"We're going to be launching a major search for you and you could be charged with all that expense if you don't cooperate with me ... You need to tell me where you are and not hang up this phone or you are going to be in some serious trouble ... We need to look for you just like we looked for that little girl who was missing. If you hang up you are creating a whole lot of work for a lot of people," the 911 operator told her.

Almost 11 minutes into the call with the victim, her alleged captor, James Clayton, got on the phone with the 911 operator and Ballard told him to stay put and say where he was so police could find them.

"We have launched a major search," the 911 operator told Clayton.

Even though 911 operator Alan Ballard has been on the job for nine years, he waited almost an hour before he sent police to talk to Sloley's supervisor.

Ballard was still being paid to answer calls Monday. Police won't talk and he can't talk about the incident until the investigation is complete.

Investigators said Clayton had 16 prior felony arrests with three convictions, including a conviction for murder in 1989.

[Pigeon]

She stayed on the phone, even though she kept saying she had to hang up, because he started berating her... so then the kidnapper caught her making a 911 call. Gee, I wonder why she didn't want to stay on the phone?

Now she's dead when she could have been saved, because, "That's how I would talk to my kids almost." NICE GOING.

[~Just~Me~]

From what I can hear, the dispatcher can't get her to say where she is...he's using the only tactics he knows to use to get her to tell her location and she's not willing to do it. What else was he suppose to do? He can't get her help without her location. Obviously, phone locations weren't an option, so he just tried his best to keep her on the phone and get her to tell him where she was. Totally not his fault in my opinion. Yeah, something was definitely wrong, but the dispatcher did all he could do in the situation. He got no cooperation from the woman or her abductor. Even the woman's own father couldn't get her to give her location and she spent a lot of time on the phone, so it seems to me she could have said more than that she was "downtown" taking care of "business."

[rachellovesgore]

I feel the cop got her killed by telling James what she did by calling her job n so on..So sad

[NoSolution]

This is odd. If she was kidnapped then how was she able to talk on the phone? It doesn't sound like the kind of thing a kidnapper would permit her to do.

[justjux2]

Originally Posted by NoSolution

This is odd. If she was kidnapped then how was she able to talk on the phone? It doesn't sound like the kind of thing a kidnapper would permit her to do.

He knew he would kill her before anyone got to her regardless so.

[Chiapunkarelli]

horrible emergency contact...... that lady has no knowledge of this chick that suppsedly works for her and absolutely no sense of urgency ...cannot believe that lady is a nurse