By Jane Prendergast
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Seven Cincinnati police officers have been counseled about their 16-minute delay in responding to the killing of an 81-year-old Price Hill woman in March.

Chief Tom Streicher approved the counseling session, held June 11 with Assistant Chief Richard Janke and District 3 Commander Drew Raabe, according to a police department memo.

The meeting with the officers is considered corrective action, not discipline. Summaries of the discussion will go in each officer's personnel file.

The memo refers to the incident by its dispatch number. It doesn't mention Laverne Jansen, whom officers found dead inside her Clevesdale Drive apartment the afternoon of March 19.

A neighbor of Jansen called 911 at 2:12 p.m. and said a man knocked on Jansen's door and ordered her to be quiet and lie on the floor. The neighbor stayed on the phone for 20 minutes, and described the man as he left and walked up the street.

Officers arrived 16 minutes after the incident was dispatched as an "unknown trouble'' call.

No one has been charged in the death.

According to the memo, the counseling discussed how officers can assess calls, including being attentive to the radio, recognizing the importance of initial information and asking questions to clarify the circumstances.

Streicher said the call could have been upgraded to a more serious kind of run, but dispatchers say "unknown trouble" is already classified as the highest-priority type of call.

E-mail jprendergast@enquirer.com