Lethbridge police have reviewed a 911 call and will “tighten dispatch protocols” after online critics slammed their response time involving a man wanted on a Canada-wide warrant, police said in a release Wednesday.
Police said they received a call at 5:52 a.m. Monday stating a man who matched the description of David Fomradas was at a McDonald’s restaurant on Scenic Drive.
“We use a priority matrix system,” Chris Kearns, the manager of the Public Safety Communications System, said. “The particular team that was working that day had multiple reports of sightings of this individual over the past previous several days, one of them as far away as Fernie.
“It’s difficult to know if a sighting is the person or not.”
Fomradas, who is from Lethbridge, is the subject of a Canada-wide warrant after he disappeared from a psychiatric hospital in Coquitlam, B.C., on Feb. 10. Police said he has the potential for violence when not taking his medication.
Lethbridge police said eight minutes after the initial 911 call, the file was reclassified as “pending,” when a second call indicated Fomradas had left the restaurant. At 7:20 a.m., roughly 90 minutes after the first call, an officer was sent to the McDonald’s to follow up.
Residents lashed out on social media claiming the Lethbridge police station was down the street from the Mcdonald’s where the call came from and there was no excuse for the delay.
“I don’t think the location where the person is relative to the police station is as important as who is available to go and whether the call is a priority and if we need to send someone immediately,” Lethbridge Regional Police Deputy Chief Colon Catonio said. “That’s how we assess all calls.”
“There was an assessment made and we will get someone there when we can,” Catonio said. “In this incident, we determined it was not critical we get someone there immediately.”
“The investigation has since been done and it’s been determined that it’s not likely the individual.”