9-1-1 Caller, Volume 5, Number 2, March/April 1993 Page: 4
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Operations
She Missed the Call,
But She Got Her Man!
By Sue Smith, West Central Texas Council of GovernmentsOn Saturday, November 28, 1992,
at 2:00 a.m., 9-1-1 call-taker Ester
Palafox left the Sweetwater Police De-
partment as usual in a marked patrol car
for her dinner break.
At 2:34 a.m., rookie officer Lester
Holsey, substituting for Ms. Palafox,
received a
9-1-1 call
from a
C o n v e -
nience Store
So c a t e d
on Inter-
state 20 in
Sweetwater
with only the
sound of
voices yell-
ing at each
other in the
background
to beheard. Officer Holsey immediately
dispatched units of the Sweetwater PD to
Skinny's and continued to monitor the
call.
What Officer Holsey heard was an
armed robbery in progress. He was able
to relay to the police units that shots had
been fired and that Clerks Tommy Wayne
Lansford and Jeffery Keith Coy were
being threatened by the perpetrator who
kept repeating, "You'vegot more money;
give me all the money or I'm gonna kill
y'all." Officer Holsey also heard the
clerks being told, "You better not call
the police or I'll kill you; if the laws
show up, y'all are dead; I'll be back."
Holsey advised the officers of the
situation.
Returning to the police department
near the end of her dinner break, 9-1-1
call-taker Palafox headed to the same
Skinny's Convenience Store to get some-
thing to drink to take back to the PD.Realizing the situation from radio trans-
missions between Office Holsey and the
police units, she contacted Sgt. J.D.
Smith at the scene to tell him that she was
in a position to observe the store and
would watch to see if anyone left the
store and what direction they might take.At this
point in the
call, three
teenage
boys drove
up to the
store and
entered,
causing the
perpetrator
to exit the
store run-
ning east
with the
money and
cigarettes.He was pursued by Sgt. Smith and Offi-
cer Mark Taylor and started running
back toward the store firing at the offic-
ers who returned his fire, wounding him
slightly. He was apprehended a short
distance from the store.
The police report of the incident
reveals that Clerk Tommy Lansford took
the opportunity of the perpetrator's con-
fusion when Clerk Jeffery Coy fled to a
storage room in the store to knock the
phone off the hook and dial 9-1-1, tip-
ping the telephone on its side so the
perpetrator would not wonder about the
receiver being off the hook. When it was
noticed that the phone was off the hook,
Clerk Lansford told the perpetrator that
the combination to the safe from which
he wanted money was written on the
bottom of the telephone. Although
Continued on page 10Trained
9-1-1
Dispatcher
Saves Local
Child's
Lif e
Article Reprinted with Permission from
The Gonzales Inquirer, December 29,
1992
The enhanced 9-1-1 system and the
training that the Gonzales dispatchers
receive combined to help save the life of
a local four-year-old that was choking on
a piece of food.
The incident started at 5:19 p.m.
when Gonzales Sheriff's Dispatcher Lisa
Zumwalt received a 9-1-1 call from
Lorinzo Camarillo, with the man stating
that his child was choking and could not
seem to catch his breath.
Zumwalt immediately paged the
Gonzales EMS to the location, and then
went back to the phone to see if she could
help the parents of the child until the
emergency crews could arrive on the
scene.
She asked Camarillo if the child had
been eating anything before he started
choking, and if so, what it was.
He said that his son had been eating
a small sausage just before he started
choking.
The dispatcher told Camarillo to
have his wife turn the child over on his
stomach while holding him in her lap,
and strike him lightly on the back. The
parents followed the dispatcher's instruc-
tions, but then told her that the child was
Continued on page 104 9-1-1 Caller March/April 1993
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Texas. Advisory Commission on State Emergency Communications. 9-1-1 Caller, Volume 5, Number 2, March/April 1993, periodical, March 1993; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1203437/m1/4/: accessed June 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.