Delaware does not deserve bungled 911 responses to threats. Gov. Carney must act | Our view

When threats of violence are made against students in Delaware schools, who is responsible for keeping students safe and what happens if the threat becomes real?

That question, raised by DelawareOnline.com/News Journal staff writer Isabel Hughes in a special report published last week, was obvious in assessing a distressing incident last October, when it took police more than 70 minutes to respond to threats against students and staff at Academia Antonia Alonso Charter School near Christiana.

While the threat was ultimately proven to be a hoax, it took 19 calls to 911 from teachers, administrators and parents —and 76 minutes before law enforcement arrived.

As we’ve seen far too frequently across this country — in horrendous mass shootings in Buffalo, Uvalde, East Lansing, and just this week in Nashville, police response to mass shootings is essential — and can be pivotal to the resolution of threats against those endangered.

19 calls and 76 minutes are data points that are simply unacceptable.

Parents, teachers, administrators, students — and Mercedes Alonso, the school’s director who placed the initial 911 call to police to report the Oct. 24, 2022 threat — have every reason to have sustained and serious concerns about the Delaware State Police’s response.

Equally concerning, we believe, was the silence the DSP maintained after the incident and, just as frustrating is a lack of concern — and lack of calls for investigation and change — from members of the General Assembly and Gov. John Carney.

Where, simply put, is the outrage?

Subscriber exclusive: A caller threatened to kill Delaware students. It took police 76 minutes to respond.

What we found

Hughes reviewed hours of surveillance video, fought for 911 call records and conducted hours of interviews with police, parents and administrators and, in turn dissected a series of missteps that lead to the poor handling of the shooting threat at Academia Antonia Alonso Charter School.

Experts told Hughes that, of course, mistakes happen in emergency responses — and instead focused on the troubling lack of transparency in the Alonso incident’s aftermath.

That lack of transparency, of course, was heightened by the scrutiny of police response to the major mass shootings the nation continues to experience.

Delaware State Police, for their part, said the delay in response to Alonso last October was largely due to an initial misunderstanding by a 911 dispatcher.

State police have said the agency “has taken accountability measures by way of an internal affairs investigation, policy review and training.”

Sgt. India Sturgis, a spokesperson for the DSP, said the agency is “confident we can move forward in a positive direction.”

That’s all well and good, but Delaware — and its students — surely deserve better.

A better response is needed

Within a day after the incident at Alonso, Delaware State Police issued a brief press release, outlining news that officials had determined that a former student at the school, a 12-year-old girl, had called in the threat.

Beyond the responses Hughes received for our special report, the agency has remained mum.

Again, so have officials in Dover.

As Hughes asked at the conclusion of the report, what would have happened if the threat at Alonso had been real?

Gov. Carney and members of the General Assembly — as well as leadership of the Delaware State Police, we need accountability here.

Errors were made. Lives could have been on the line.

Can Delaware really run the risk of another bungled response to the threat of a mass shooting?

As we grieve — over and over again, and this week for the families of the victims in the Nashville incident — we have to ask, where is the transparency in Delaware?

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Delaware State Police 911 response was bungled-better responses needed