Gatineau's police chief Mario Harel says an internal investigation shows that a 911 operator didn't correctly evaluate an emergency call. That call was about an agitated man now charged with murdering a well-known senior.
83-year-old Therese Gauvreau was found dead inside her Gatineau home January 18th, after police responded to a 911 call about an agitated man who had been trying to break into a neighbor’s home. It took police 30 minutes to get to the scene because a patrol car wasn't available in the area. That caused outrage in the community and a peaceful march on Sunday involving Gauvreau’s family, neighbours and community. Therese Gauvreau was a well-known and much loved mother and grandmother whose family had built the successful business Gauvreau Top Soil. Police launched an internal investigation and today concluded that thirty minutes was too long because the call wasn't properly evaluated.
“When our 911 person picked up the phone and received the information from the plaintif,” Harel told a news conference at Gatineau city hall this afternoon, “it is clear that the urgency of the matter was not evaluated properly and it caused some delay for the police officers to respond to the call.”
Asked whether avoiding that delay could have prevented Gauvreau’s murder, Harel said it would by a hypothetical to presume that.
The police chief says disciplinary measures have been taken against the employee and a deeper analysis of its 911 system will be conducted over the coming months.
The 21-year-old charged in connection with the murder appeared in court today. Jean François Dupuis will be sent to Montreal for 60 days for a psychiatric assessment.
