Tragedy Shows Need for New Hot Line : * A Centralized, Well-Funded Center Could Have Steered Woman From a Violent End

The shooting of a distraught woman by sheriff’s deputies answering a call to a hotel room in Mission Viejo last month raises troubling questions about the county’s preparedness to handle such personal emergencies.

In the aftermath of DeLoura Harrison’s distress call and subsequent death, we learn that it has been no secret for some time that a number of hot-line numbers in Orange County have folded their operations. So says Timothy P. Mullins, director of mental health services for the Orange County Health Care Agency. Harrison, 43, found out for herself when she tried two numbers given to her by a Sheriff’s Department dispatcher and got no answer.

Indeed, when the leader of a human-services group in South County called to complain some time ago, Mullins’ office began a review and updated its listings of county crisis lines. But then came this call. Harrison, distraught over a divorce, dialed 911 in search of help. According to a partial transcript, after trying two suicide hot-line numbers, she called back minutes later to say she had received no answer at the numbers.

Deputies eventually traced the call to the Hampton Inn in Mission Viejo. The Sheriff’s Department says that after Harrison refused to let deputies into the room, they got a passkey and entered to find the woman pointing a .25-caliber semiautomatic handgun at an officer, who fired single fatal shot.

Was it necessary for this woman to die in this manner, at the hands of officers who were responding to a distress call? One must wonder.

It’s not hard to understand that a distressed woman with a weapon handy--indeed any armed person--might well point a gun at someone making an uninvited entry into a hotel room. There ought to have been some better way of drawing this troubled soul out to neutral ground where she could have been talked to, with weapons on the table. If the authorities are called in, what good is there in trying to save a woman’s life if it becomes necessary to take it?

But the larger question is the utter disarray of county hot-line services that led up to this unfortunate shooting. Instead of having so many different numbers and services, some struggling to stay afloat and others going under when the budget collapses, why not have one well-funded, well-staffed, 24-hour hot line that everybody contributes to sustaining? That would certainly make it easier for a troubled person, whose crisis may not occur on the rare night when the present hot lines are staffed.