“Quit Crying”: 911 Dispatcher To Rape Victim

A 911 dispatcher showed “zero sympathy,” according to a rape victim who says she was told to “quit crying.”

The comment was made amid a terrifying 911 call that the dispatcher received around 4am last Sunday. The victim, who was staying with friends in an off-campus sorority house at Ohio State University, awoke to find a man demanding that she perform a sex act on him, and threatening to shoot her if she did not comply. The man also allegedly stole cash and an iPhone from the building after the completion of the sex act, while the victim fled and called 911.

The dispatcher who received the call, however, was anything but sympathetic. In a recording obtained by local CBS affiliate WSYX, the dispatcher can be heard telling the distraught victim to “quit crying,” amid other things. When the girl was asked about the address at which the attack occurred, she responded by saying that she was from out of town and asking the dispatcher if she would be able to track the phone from which the victim was calling, MailOnline reports.

The woman went on the describe her attacker as a “small white male,” wearing a white t-shirt, to which the impatient dispatcher replied with the unthinkable comment that the girl should “quit crying so I can get the information from you.” As if that wasn’t bad enough, the dispatcher also told the woman that police were “not going to be able to find him with the information that you’ve given.” The stunned girl snapped, lashing out at the callous dispatcher:

“Don’t you understand how horrified I am? I am a 20-year-old from Upper Arlington. I don’t know what you deal with every day, but the kind of sympathy you have is zero.”

Police eventually arrested 30-year-old Michael Callaghan for the assault. According to WSYX, 911 supervisors admitted openly that the dispatcher “could have handled the call better.” Yet in a surprising twist in the case, they also said that the offensive dispatcher would not be reprimanded for her treatment of the victim. Supervisors also said that despite the fact that dispatchers are trained to approach calls with empathy, their primary responsibility is to gather the information that will assist first responders.

Shockingly, the incident comes tightly on the heels of a report out of Milwaukee, where a town councilman claims that 911 callers are being placed on hold by dispatchers in the midst of emergencies. As The Inquisitr reported, it was far from the first time that such an incident transpired, with several 911 callers claiming in 2013 that dispatchers put them in the same position.

The girl from Ohio State has yet to file a complaint against the dispatcher.

[Image via WSYX]