Wednesday, January 06, 1999
911 dispatcher gets her job back
Arbitrator calls her scapegoat in officers' deaths
BY TANYA BRICKING and LISA DONOVAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Eugenia Boiman
|
One of two 911 emergency response employees fired last year after a delay in dispatching help the night two police officers were killed was reinstated Tuesday after an arbitrator said she was a “scapegoat.”
Eugenia Boiman, a 911 dispatcher, will return to her job with full benefits and 10 months of back pay.
City Manager John Shirey fired her and 911 operator Angela Gibson last March for what he termed “egregious” errors.
The firings came after the police division's Internal Investigations held Ms. Boiman and Ms. Gibson responsible for a 47-minute delay while Spc. Ronald Jeter and Officer Daniel Pope were dying Dec. 6, 1997, in a Clifton Heights apartment.
Ms. Boiman's union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), appealed.
“Had Gibson followed the proper procedure ...,” Arbi trator Fred Kindig wrote, “an all county broadcast would have been put out, no run would have been placed on hold, no run would have been duped, and no other run would have had to be placed to West Hollister.”
In Ms. Boiman's defense, he added: “Making a very capable dispatcher the scapegoat for someone else's error is not the proper way to to handle such a matter.”
An arbitrator's ruling on Ms. Gibson's case is pending.
Ms. Boiman is “an excellent employee,” said AFSCME local President Yodie Mitchell. “She is ... deserving of this reinstatement.”
Mr. Shirey and other city officials defended the firing.
“I still maintain that Operator-Dispatcher Boiman's conduct was egregious and violated community standards,” he said.
“There's a lot of emotion tied up on this one,” said Julie Bissinger, a city attorney. “Our position is (the officers) would have been found 45 to 48 minutes earlier if these two dispatchers would have done their job.”
Officer Pope's widow, Linda, a Cincinnati fire lieutenant, had called for the dismissals.
“This is a woman who let two cops lay dying for over an hour because she's so freaking good? And cops on the street are supposed to rely on her?” Mrs. Pope said. “I can't believe she would even fight for that job back. It just makes me sick. Unbelievable.”
Keith Fangman, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said the FOP supports due process but does not necessarily agree with the arbitrator's binding decision.
“There are a number of officers who feel there is a lack of confidence in this employee, and that confidence and trust is going to take time to re-establish itself,” he said.
The night of the shootings, Ms. Boiman, 39, a former sheriff's deputy, canceled a run to the West Hollister address where the officers were shot because she thought it was a duplicate call.
The Internal Investigations report said she did not send help after telling a District 4 officer she would and that she did not have authority from a supervisor to cancel the run.
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