CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. — When you call 911, you expect the dispatchers to give your life or death emergency their undivided attention – but, investigators say, a South Florida dispatch supervisor was watching Netflix on the job.
Police say, on June 9, Guadalupe Herrera called 911 after someone shot out her car’s windshield.
A dispatcher logged the call as a “suspicious incident” rather than a “priority.” According to the internal affairs investigation, that misclassification led to a 34-minute delay in response time.
Thankfully, Herrera wasn’t hurt. She called back 16-minutes later, spoke to a different dispatcher – and was told an officer was on the way.
"It was a drive-by shooting," Herrera told the Sun-Sentinel. "My windshield was shattered. Nobody showed up."
She ended up driving herself to the police station.
That triggered a lot of questions. Among them – how could dispatch supervisor Julie Vidaud have missed the mistake?
When investigators pulled data from Vidaud’s computer, they found she was frequently streaming Netflix, Hulu and Xfinity TV at work. Police say the Hillary Swank movie “I Am Mother” was playing for two hours on Vidaud’s computer during the time Herrera called for help.
According to investigators, Vidaud told a sergeant the movie was just on in the background – but she wasn’t actively watching it.
Both dispatchers who answered Herrera’s call were fired. Vidaud was disciplined for “failure to supervise” and suspended for two days without pay.
According to the report, she promised to no longer have movies playing while she’s working – and a policy has now been put in place to ban the streaming of any media services on the job.
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