OXNARD : Police Chief Reviews Arrest of 911 Caller

Oxnard Police Chief Harold Hurtt said Monday that he is reviewing the recent arrest of an Oxnard woman who was arrested on a traffic warrant after twice calling the 911 emergency number to complain about noisy teen-agers.

Hurtt said he is taking steps to make sure that such an incident is not repeated.

Four hours after twice dialing 911 to ask police to quiet some rowdy teen-agers, Helen Golemon was arrested July 7 at her Oxnard Shores home on a 1988 traffic warrant.

After spending a couple of hours in jail, she said she dug up records of attending traffic school that proved she had cleared her misdemeanor traffic ticket.

Ventura County court officials said Monday that they are investigating to determine whether Golemon took all the legal steps necessary to have her arrest warrant cleared from the county’s computer system.

Vince Ordonez, assistant court executive officer, said his office is checking whether Golemon paid all the necessary fees to close her case.

Golemon said she suspected she was arrested because the 911 dispatcher became annoyed with her and did a records check on the county computer records system, finding an outstanding warrant for the ticket.

Hurtt said that this was a possible scenario. “I’m having the entire episode reviewed, including how the incident was initiated and whether there were any improprieties at all,” he said.

Hurtt acknowledged that it is not routine for police to check a caller’s record before responding to a 911 call, and just as unusual to make an arrest at someone’s home for an outstanding traffic warrant.

He said the woman dispatcher on duty during Golemon’s calls probably looked up Golemon’s name on the computer because of the two calls and a desire to know more about who was pressing for police action.

However, Hurtt said, the department employees involved did not step outside departmental policies and procedures.

“It’s certainly unfortunate any time when a citizen is arrested on information that was later found to be faulty,” Hurtt said. “I think we all feel bad that it happened, and we will take steps so that it won’t happen again.”

Lt. Jim Koontz, who heads the Ventura County sheriff’s records division that maintains the computer records system, said Oxnard police should not be blamed.

“They ran the warrant, and it was active,” Koontz said.

Hurtt said that although he can understand a citizen’s frustration at being kept awake by rowdy teen-agers, the 911 number is really for emergency use. A more appropriate number for non-emergency calls such as Golemon’s would be 385-7740, he said.