Jimmy Gates with the Clarion-Ledger reported on a $1 million verdict in Hinds County on Friday in a case alleging Jackson police mishandled a 911 call:
A Hinds County Circuit Court jury has awarded $1 million to the family of a 67-year-old Jackson woman killed in 2014 after family members and others say Jackson police bungled the woman’s 911 call about a prowler.
“If they would have followed policy and procedures, more likely than not, it would have saved her life,” said attorney Dennis Sweet III, who represented Ruth Helen Harrion’s family members….
The lawsuit said that after Harrion called 911 to report a prowler, the dispatcher failed to keep her on the phone, failed to ask the location of the prowler and whether she could see the prowler. The suit also said officers dispatched to Harrion’s residence failed to make contact with her and failed to search the perimeter of the home prior to leaving the residence.
Alonzo Stewart, 33, is charged with capital murder in Harrion’s death. He confessed to the crime, according to authorities, and told police he was in Harrion’s home when the officers came and left.
Then-Jackson Police Chief Lindsey Horton said in 2014 that JPD mishandled the case. At the time, he told the Clarion Ledger that the two officers failed to thoroughly check the property from which the call had originated….
Dennis Sweet of Jackson represented the plaintiff. Assistant City Attorney Richard Davis represented the City.
Hinds Circuit Judge Adrienne Wooten presided in the case.