TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL)-- The Consolidated Dispatch Agency went before a grand jury Wednesday for the handling of dispatch calls in several high profile cases.
On November 22nd, Leon County Deputy Chris Smith was killed while responding to a house fire in a northwest Tallahassee neighborhood.
Just two weeks before the incident, an officer safety alert was placed on file with the address following claims that the home's owner threatened to kill any law enforcement that came to his house.
So the question for some is if dispatchers were aware of a threat,
why weren't officers warned before arriving on scene?
So State Attorney Willie Meggs brought the CDA before the grand jury. "The grand jury is considering the issue of the joint dispatch agency and took some testimony on that."
ONe of those testimonies came from the CDA itself, as Director Timothy Lee took the stand.
"I think we had very good dialogue in the grand jury. So some things were key identifiers that over the multiple instances that we've had even down to the last incident that involved a Leon County Deputy getting killed. Some of those things were identified and what pre-cursors we're taking to correct those actions so that won't happen in the future," said Lee.
The agency is also under scrutiny for the handling of the FSU shooting, in which first responders were not dispatched quickly enough.
At the close of Wednesday's session no formal recommendations for the future of the Consolidated Dispatch Agency were made. The grand jury will meet again on February 26.
