By Matt Patterson, The Oklahoman
Original publication date: Jan. 17

Oklahoma City — Three days before Christmas, Oklahoma City police were dispatched to an apartment on S Douglas Avenue after a disconnected 911 call.

They found a man whose hands were covered in blood, kneeling beside a battered and bloody woman who had been stabbed at least once.

The man told police “you need to help her.”

More blood was found on the floors of the apartment.

When police later interviewed the woman in her hospital bed, she told them the man had beaten her and choked her until she passed out. He also tried to keep her from calling for help, the woman told police, by yanking the phone out of the wall.

Jamie Lee Tate, 35, was charged with assault and battery with a deadly weapon, domestic abuse by strangulation and another charge he might not have known was coming: interfering with an emergency phone call.

Hanging up on 911 operators is a crime in Oklahoma, and so is interfering with someone else’s efforts to make an emergency call. It’s a misdemeanor punishable by a fine up to $4,000 and a year in jail.

The woman told police she and Tate had lived together for two months and had been drinking and arguing before the fight became violent. Tate remained Friday in the Oklahoma County jail.

The interfering with a 911 call law is a helpful one, said Lt. Eric R. Holtzclaw, Enid Police Department spokesman. “It is an additional charge that can help the victim.”

Holtzclaw, a 32-year veteran, said he has gone on thousands of domestic violence calls.

Enid police are sent on four or five domestic violence calls a day, he said. For every 10 calls, there is one where someone has yanked the phone out of the victim’s hand, torn a telephone from a wall or thrown away a cell phone, he said.

Holtzclaw recalled going on one call where the man had a history of domestic violence.

“She tried to call and he yanked the phone out of the wall. There were wires still hanging from the wall when police arrived,” Holtzclaw said.

The man was prosecuted for interfering with the call as well as the felony domestic violence charges on which he was convicted.

Disconnected 911 calls are common, dispatchers say. Reasons for the call being disconnected include domestic violence, a child’s prank, a dialing mistake or a situation where someone dialed 911 and then realized it wasn’t an emergency.

“Officers are sent to the residence if they can’t get the caller back on the phone,” Oklahoma City police Master Sgt. Gary Knight said.

That’s how help arrived for the S Douglas Avenue domestic violence victim; the call from was interrupted but had made it to the dispatch center where operators could pinpoint where it came from.

If the call comes from a landline, the dispatcher easily can find the address. With cell phones, it’s a bit trickier.

Larry Klein, daytime supervisor at the Oklahoma City Emergency Communications Center, said dispatchers can access phone records from some wireless carriers.

“We usually will call them and explain the situation and very often we can get the information we need, especially if it’s a situation where lives may be put at risk,” Klein said.

Klein said when a call comes in from a cell phone, a tower number appears on the call-taker’s screen.

“Technology has taken us to a place where we know where a call comes from,” Knight said. “It makes it easier for us to enforce laws because we typically know the exact address of the person with the phone.”

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