Deputy files civil lawsuit against 9-1-1 caller after he was injured during

[webeagle12]

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- It's something you would probably least expect after calling 9-1-1 during an emergency -- a lawsuit. If a deputy was hurt, would you be financially responsible?

 

A deputy is now suing a woman who called for help during an emergency. It all stems from a deputy-involved shooting that happened in Katy last year.

The deputy says he was injured when she made that call from her subdivision. In this lawsuit, he claims the homeowner failed to adequately warn 9-1-1 of the dangerous situation he was walking into.

The lawsuit just filed in Harris County is raising some eyebrows.

 

Sheriff's deputy Brady Pullen is suing a woman named Camina Figueroa after a 9-1-1 call the deputy responded to at Figueroa's Katy home back in December.

The lawsuit claims Pullen was violently and physically attacked by a man who'd allegedly been using bath salts as a drug for several days.

"Look, it's unprecedented" Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia said. "So we're allowing our legal staff to manage this case and we'll see where it takes us."

 

Sheriff Garcia wouldn't say much about Pullen's civil lawsuit but called the filing by his deputy unprecedented.

 

In the court documents, Pullen alleges Figueroa was negligent because she knew the man's mental state rendered him a danger to others.

Pullen says he suffered a broken nose, concussion, lacerations and bruises when the man in Figueroa's house attacked him. That man was ultimately shot and killed after investigators say he reached for Pullen's gun.

The deputy's Austin-based attorney told me his team's operating under the theory that if someone is injured due to a homeowner or renter's failure to warn of dangerous circumstances, then you have a right to sue.

 

"The deputy should know, if it's a 9-1-1 call, the deputy has to know it is a dangerous situation," KTRK legal analyst Joel Androphy said.

Androphy calls Deputy Pullen's lawsuit frivolous.

 

"It sends a bad message out there. And if this lawsuit succeeds, it basically shuts down 9-1-1 calls to some degree, because people will be afraid if they make the call they are going to get sued. And the sheriff should not condone this type of action," Androphy said.

 

So far, Figueroa has not responded to our requests for comment.

 

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=9207650

 

 

 

 

[neufuse Veteran]

shouldn't It be the dispatchers responsibility to collect that information? not the person calling? the dispatcher should of asked the caller all the pertinent information

[Rohdekill]

Cops are trained to be ready for anything at any given moment.  He obviously failed to be prepared. 

Nothing new in this day of age, blame everyone for your mistakes, except yourself.

[xendrome]

Cops are trained to be ready for anything at any given moment.  He obviously failed to be prepared. 

Nothing new in this day of age, blame everyone for your mistakes, except yourself.

 

Ridiculous comment, you can't prepare yourself for someone high on bath salts, inside of someone elses house, ESPECIALLY when you were not informed of this important details when going into the situation.

 

And no, cops are not trained to be ready for anything at any given moment, that's impossible. Most are given the proper tools and knowledge of how to handle, deescalate or end a situation in the best way possible for all parties involved. But no one situation is like any other, and every situation changes constantly.

 

Edit: I just read your comment again, and it's totally backwards from normal thinking.

 

You just said "blame everyone for your mistakes, except yourself", funny, since the guy high on bath salts is the one to blame for the entire situation, not the cop.

[McCordRm]

The cop is to blame for going after a victim.

If he wanted to sue someone, sue the guy that beat him up. Oh, wait... that guy is dead.

End of story.

 

People are not trained to "give proper 911 calls". Cops, however, are trained to evaluate

any situation they go into. They may not be trained specifically for violent meth-heads,

but so what? If he didn't realize it was a dangerous situation when he got there, how can

he hold a civilian responsible for not realizing the dangerous situation?

[IM_bck]

Doesn't every 911 call have the potential to be dangerous?

 

Although, somewhere in the call there should have been mention of some guy wacked out on bathsalts.

[threetonesun]

Err, so if say, she was being held hostage and couldn't get out that there was a man there high on bath salts, it would be her fault the cop wasn't prepared?

 

I imagine there's some "boy who cried wolf" effect here, in that some high percentage of the calls they respond to are just someone who can't reach the remote, so they didn't immediately see this as being an actual crisis.