Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Police who joined chase lacked key information

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 14:50:42 -0500

Police who joined chase lacked key information

By SHEILA BURKE
Staff Writer

Goodlettsville defends actions
before crash

Communication difficulties between
Metro and Goodlettsville police along
with incompatible radio systems may
have contributed to a fatal accident in
Madison.

Goodlettsville officers continued a
high-speed chase Wednesday that
concluded with the accident that killed
an oncoming motorist. Hendersonville
and Metro police had stopped their
pursuit of Marcie Diane Warrick.

Metro officers backed off in pursuing
Warrick, 26, because a department
helicopter was in the air monitoring her
movement. Police records from
Goodlettsville and Metro show that
Goodlettsville police continued to
chase Warrick for almost five more
minutes until she crashed into a vehicle
driven by Roy Martin Cobb, who was
killed.

Warrick, who was injured, was
released from Vanderbilt University
Medical Center yesterday and arrested on charges of vehicular homicide and
aggravated homicide. She will face other charges from Goodlettsville and
Hendersonville, police said.

Cobb, 37, a married father of three, was headed home from work when
Warrick's red Saturn slammed into his car. He was pronounced dead at Skyline
Medical Center.

Goodlettsville Deputy Chief Robert Pope said the chase was moving quickly, at
speeds of 80 to 85 mph.

Goodlettsville police said yesterday they didn't know Metro's helicopter was
tracking Warrick until after the crash because the advanced technology of the
Metro Police Department's radio communications put them out of contact.

Goodlettsville and Metro police are dispatched separately. Goodlettsville's analog
radio system cannot pick up the advanced radio frequency of Metro's digital
800-megahertz radios, Pope said. Systems like Metro's are primarily used in
larger cities, and they allow ease of communication among police, firefighters and
other emergency workers.

Police supervisors in Goodlettsville, which lies in Davidson and Sumner counties,
carry a separate Metro police monitor to be able to listen in on Metro dispatchers'
radio traffic, Pope said.

Apparently none of the supervisors overheard Metro's transmission about the
helicopter. Goodlettsville patrol officers, including those involved in the chase, do
not have access to Metro's radio traffic.

Metro Police provided an audiotape of its radio conversations during the chase. A
Metro officer in the RiverGate Mall area says over the radio, ''It would help if we
could get Air 1 out here.'' The helicopter pilot immediately responds, ''We're right
on top of you.''

When the helicopter picked up the chase, it was 12:39 and 46 seconds, Metro
Police spokesman Don Aaron said. The dispatcher entered the time of the crash
at 12:44 p.m. and 22 seconds.

Goodlettsville police can be heard on their own tape of the chase wondering
where the helicopter is. A Goodlettsville officer says, ''We're fixin' to let the
helicopter take over this.'' As Goodlettsville police continue after Warrick in
Madison, one officer asks, ''What do you advise? You want to keep after her?''

Pope did say that a supervisor saw the helicopter over Gallatin Pike about 90
seconds to two minutes before the crash and was about to tell the Goodlettsville
officers to back off. But at that point a Goodlettsville officer struck a car, and
Warrick sideswiped the car of another Goodlettsville officer and kept going. The
officer and the citizen were OK, Pope said.

Less than two minutes later, Warrick's car collided with another Goodlettsville
patrol car, veered across a median and struck Cobb's car on the driver's side.

Pope defended his department's actions and said he felt his officers ''were within
our policy and within state law.'' He also said he wouldn't speculate on whether
Cobb might be alive today if his officers had backed off a few minutes earlier.

Roy Cobb's wife, Rose, questioned the timing and the communication between
agencies. ''If they were synchronized somehow, it might somehow prevent
someone from losing their life.''

She had expected to spend some time with her husband Wednesday afternoon
because he was leaving early from his job as a produce manager at Food Lion
supermarket in Hermitage, she said. Instead, the 40-year-old mother of three
boys was called at home and asked to go to Skyline. By the time she arrived, her
husband was dead. She said the doctor told her death came almost instantly. She
was thankful, she said, that he did not suffer.

Funeral services will be today in Bowling Green, Ky. Rose Cobb said the family
had moved from Bowling Green to Joelton less than two years ago.

The chase began in Hendersonville, in Sumner County. Warrick phoned police but
fled in her car after she was spotted holding a gun to her head at a pay phone,
Hendersonville Police Chief David Key said. Hendersonville officers chased the
woman to Old Hickory Boulevard but gave up the chase when Warrick fled onto
Interstate 65. She drove into Goodlettsville, where Metro and Goodlettsville
officers — who were on the side of I-65 helping a disabled motorist — tried to
stop her.

The officers raised their guns and ordered Warrick, then caught in slow-moving
traffic, to halt. Police said she tried to run them down. She fled and police
continued the chase until the fatal accident occurred at Delaware Avenue and
Highway 45.

http://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/03/01/28075717.shtml?Element_ID=28075717
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From: "Blake Bowers" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 14:17:28 -0600

This ought to be interesting.

The politics will run on this one.  Of course, were it not
for politics, Goodletsville would not have retained their
own security - I mean, Police Department when Nashville
went to metropoliton government.

With any luck, the good outcome of this will mean that
Goodletsville shuts down, and lets the real police 
department handle things.  Maybe the Fire Department
also.

But, to lurch on to topic, I wonder if they will use
Nextel....

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Marcel 
  To: [email-masked] 
  Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2003 1:50 PM
  Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Police who joined chase lacked key information

  officers - who were on the side of I-65 helping a disabled motorist - tried to 
  stop her. 

    
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