A Denver dispatcher quit pending disciplinary action after a woman was shot and killed by her husband while on the phone with the call taker, according to an Associated Press report.
Kristine Kirk called 911 on April 14 after her husband, who had bought marijuana edibles and potentially taken prescription pain pills, was hallucinating. She was shot in the head 13 minutes later.
The dispatcher failed to relay to cops Kirk’s reports of increasingly erratic behavior from her husband. A report from the Denver Police Department states “there was information relayed by the caller to the call taker that would have prompted an emergency response.”
Kirk told the caller that the couple had a gun that was in a gun safe, which she later realized her husband had removed from the safe.
Officers said the dispatcher did not relay that or other critical information to them verbally but instead entered the details into a computer, information that was then forwarded to the officers’ laptops.
The dispatcher, who has not been identified, was suspended with pay the day after the shooting. Denver officials began the process of firing the dispatcher Friday. Daelene Mix, safety department spokeswoman, later said they had accepted the dispatcher’s resignation.
Richard Kirk now faces one count of first-degree murder.