By Jim Woods and Stephanie Czekalinski, The Columbus Dispatch
Original publication date: Feb. 22

Columbus, Ohio — Columbus police are investigating how 911 operators handled the initial call Sunday morning on a Far West Side crash that killed two teenagers. More than an hour elapsed before officers responded.

Micah Hawkins, 18, was driving westbound on Johnson Road, east of Smartweed Drive near Bolton Field, when the car veered off the left side of the road and struck a tree. Sunday, a Columbus police report said. A passing motorist spotted the car and called 911 about 5:15 a.m.

Hawkins and his girlfriend, Brooke Thompson, 18, died in the crash. It was Thompson’s car.

But it wasn’t until 6:28 a.m. that officers responded, said Sgt. Rich Weiner, spokesman for Columbus police. The Fire Division was called at 6:40 a.m. and arrived about five minutes later.

The teens were dead at the scene. Autopsies will be performed today, Franklin County Coroner Jan Gorniak said yesterday.

Later on Sunday, one of the radio-room supervisors called for the review after noticing the large discrepancy between the initial call and when officers responded, Weiner said.

The first call came over a cell phone and was routed through the Franklin County sheriff’s office to Columbus police, Weiner said.

Weiner said the report initially came in as a hit-skip crash with property damage.

“We need to see what information we received. Was it properly coded?” Weiner said. “There would be more of a sense of urgency when you have a report of an injury accident.”

After the first 911 call, there was another call from a motorist about the crash.

Meanwhile, Chris and Tara Rieser, Hawkins’ parents, have some questions about why they had to learn through their son’s friends about his death.

Four of his grieving friends came to their house at 11:30 a.m. Sunday.

“I asked them ‘Why are you crying?’ And they all started looking at each other,” Mrs. Rieser said. It was then that the friends told them Hawkins and Thompson had died in a crash on Johnson Road. The word had gotten out through friends after the Thompson family was notified earlier.

The Riesers said they last saw the couple alive at their home about 3:30 a.m. They don’t know where they had been during the earlier hours.

“He’s 18,” Mrs. Rieser said. “I don’t question everywhere he goes.”

Mr. Rieser said that despite a report from friends at a memorial service that the two had been drinking, he thought they seemed sober.

The Riesers had given Thompson permission to sleep over at their house, something she had done before. She usually slept on the living room floor, with Hawkins in a recliner.

Mrs. Rieser said she was not alarmed when she came downstairs at 8:20 a.m. Sunday and saw they weren’t there. She said Thompson had a job and probably needed to leave.

Hawkins was a junior at Central Crossing High School but was hoping to take enough classes to graduate and start at Columbus State Community College. Thompson was a senior at Westland High School.

The couple had been dating for about a year, Mrs. Rieser said.

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