NBA Player Lorenzen Wright's 911 Call Ignored By Police Before His Murder, Family Says

The cell phone call came into the Germantown, Tenn., police department's emergency dispatch late one night last July. The 911 operator heard a man's garbled voice, an expletive, then as many as ten gunshots. Then silence.

The dispatcher redialed the number and got no answer, then traced the call to a cellphone tower a few miles away, in southeast Memphis -- outside the city's jurisdiction. No squad cars were dispatched to the area and the call was never passed on to Memphis police.

The handling of the call, key details of which have been revealed by an internal police department investigation, had major consequences.

As it turns out, the man on the other end of the line that July night was almost certainly former NBA player and Memphis hometown hero Lorenzen Wright, frantically seeking help moments before being cut down in a hail of gunfire. Wright's body was found 10 days later in a heavily wooded area just a few hundred yards from the cell phone tower that picked up his 911 call.

The murder remains unsolved.

On Tuesday, Wright's mother, Deborah Marion, filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Germantown and the city's police department, alleging that the mishandling of Wright's call for help represented a violation of his civil rights and crippled the investigation into his murder. Wright's nearly 7-foot-tall body was badly decomposed and weighed just 57 pounds when it was found. The long delay between the time of the murder and the discovery of the body has been an obstacle to detectives working the case, Memphis police have said.

Stacey Ewell, a spokeswoman for the city, said that Germantown's assistant chief of police, Rodney Bright, had no information regarding the lawsuit and would not comment. An internal investigation by the police department earlier this year cleared the 911 dispatchers involved of any wrongdoing or negligence in their handling of the call.

A spokeswoman for the Memphis police department, which is handling the Wright investigation, also declined to comment.

In an interview with HuffPost, Marion alleged that Germantown 911 dispatchers did nothing more than try to redial Wright's cell phone back before giving up on the call.

"They said they called back. A dead man can't answer the phone," she said. "Then nothing -- nothing else. They ignored it."

Marion said that her lawsuit, which seeks several million dollars in damages, was not just about the money, but was an attempt to force the Germantown police to acknowledge wrongdoing in their handling of her son's distress call -- and to reform their 911 call procedures.

"They still act like they didn't do anything wrong," she said. "They have taken no responsibility."

The internal investigation by the Germantown police department concluded that dispatchers followed proper procedure in the incident and noted that the sounds heard on the call might have been fireworks.

Last summer, however, police sources told a reporter for Memphis' ABC24 News that Claudia Kelney-Woods, the 911 dispatcher who took the call, did not sound confused at all about what she had just heard.

"Hello, hello. I've got nothing but gunshots," Kelney-Woods says at the end of Wright's call, the station reported.

Wright's ex-wife, Sherra Wright, also filed suit Tuesday against the city of Germantown for negligence in the handling of the 911 call.

Comments

[retromega]

02:10 PM on 07/22/2011

It seems very strange to label what the Germantown police did afterwards as an "internal investigation". I notice that they were able to find that the gun shots that 911 heard "could have been fireworks"! Now what kind of "investigation" finds what could have been rather than what is? Yeah if they were looking for EXCUSES in their investigation they "could" have found that it might have been a TV or a movie or target practice or a recording or lots of sonic booms close together or ...

Yes that's what we get when police do an "internal investigation", not a single fact just gallons and gallons of white wash saying it not our fault we did everything we could while sitting on our asses!

[charmage]

05:00 PM on 07/21/2011

How dare these people? How can anyone's call be ignored. City of Memphis is culpable, without a doubt. This story should have made national news when it happened.

[CarlyM1214]

02:20 PM on 07/21/2011

That's the thing about cops. THEY WON'T EVER ADMIT THEY ARE WRONG

[todaysjustus]

05:49 PM on 07/21/2011

I consider this to be an opinion strongly supported by facts. I can't recall ever hearing a cop say, "we didn't do X or Y or Z" right. In this case, it was the dispatcher, but still Law Enforcement is protecting her and their protocol. I mean, seriously.

[truthinperson]

07:01 PM on 07/21/2011

Dam right. fanned.

[todaysjustus]

02:08 PM on 07/21/2011

People don't really get the point of these law suits. So, let me see if I can help.

Point blank -Money is the only thing people respond to.

Simply voicing displeasure rarely changes anything. On the other hand, having to shell out millions of dollars often does.

If this law suit, in the end, makes it so that dispatchers are better trained and that protocol's are overhauled, then it will be worth it in the end. So, next time, it won't be you, or your mother or your son or your cousin or your significant other who is left to rot in the summer heat for 10 days while the killer(s) cover their tracks. It won't be your family that is left without any sense of closure or answers as to what happened to their loved one.

It's disturbing to me how so many people are willing to brush this off as if it is not a big deal. Xena (Warrior Princess) forbid that you are ever in these people's shoes.

[AFisher31]

03:17 PM on 07/21/2011

I agree with you. Every call needs to be handled with care, I believe the 911 operator was terminated because she believed she heard gunshots, and the others dismissed it, saying it was firecrackers SMDH

[gunthli]

07:44 PM on 07/21/2011

I agree with you as well. If she said she heard gunshots, or even if she thought she heard gunshots rather than fireworks, she should have dispatched the police to investigate. Like someone else said, a dead man can't answer the phone. Now that he is so badly decomposed, any evidence left behind will be compromised or none whatsoever. I feel bad for the family and hope that they didn't have to see him in that condition. The procedures for 911 calls should be standardized in every jurisdiction so that this kind of incident doesn't happen again. 911 is a wonderful tool if used correctly; in this case, it clearly wasn't and it is the fault of the 911 operator who didn't send the police out to investigate. This should never happen to anyone or anyone's families. What a disgusting oversight.

[blues7437]

01:39 PM on 07/21/2011

Several years ago police officers were replaced by civilians in Police Dispatch centers as a cost cutting measure. For the most part the system works o.k. but under an emergency situation , unfortunately, it can go terribly bad. Case in point happened here in Fla. where a woman was on her cell phone talking to a civilian dispatcher reporting she was driving behind a car where a child or woman appeared to be trying to summon help. She told the dispatcher that the car had turned and asked if she should follow. The dispatcher hesitated and called out to a supervisor for advice. Too late. The car turned and the victim's body was found a couple of days later . She had been raped, killed and burried in a shallow grave just off the street the car had turned onto. A police officer would never had hesitated, this witness was right behind the car. He would have answered immediately " If you can safely, YES! follow. This mother of two small children could have been saved. We saved some money though....sad

[LivelyLexie]

01:37 PM on 07/21/2011

Could they have picked a worse picture to accompany this story?

[todaysjustus]

02:08 PM on 07/21/2011

It's so disrespectful.

[LivelyLexie]

09:22 AM on 07/22/2011

I agree.

[AFisher31]

01:35 PM on 07/21/2011

I don't know if she really has a lawsuit. This just boils down to KNOW WHO YOU CALL YOUR FRIENDS! This is a rather simple case to resolve. Just look at the incoming phone calls on his cell phone.

[todaysjustus]

02:09 PM on 07/21/2011

To be young and naive...

[AFisher31]

03:09 PM on 07/21/2011

Here's some more insight....

As police continued to question witnesses in the investigation, Lorenzen Wright’s ex-wife, Sherra Wright, had a lot to say. According to a search warrant affidavit, on the day the one-time NBA star was last seen alive, the former wife claims Wright left the house carrying a box of drugs. A short time later, she says Mr. Wright returned to the house then left again, this time carrying a sum of money. And in the course of Wright leaving and returning to the home, Sherra Wright says she overhears a phone conversation between Lorenzen Wright and an unidentified individual in which Wright said he was going to “flip something for $110,000.” Then Sherra Wright says her ex-husband got into a vehicle with an unidentified individual and drove away. Investigators conducted a search at Sherra Wright’s sprawling, three-car garage home, but will not disclose what they found inside. But according to the search warrant affidavit, police seized documentation for guns owned by Lorenzen Wright in order to compare them to bullet casings at the crime scene and also in an effort to locate the missing weapons. Police also want to investigate the person who Sherra Wright claims was talking on the phone with Lorenzen Wright before he vanished. While reports surface Sherra Wright was one of a string of people called before a secret grand jury, during an interview with CNN she insists she had nothing to do with his death

[deanw38222]

01:24 PM on 07/21/2011

I've been in Memphis b4 and called 911. He was lucky he even got thru. I've called to report car wrecks. Sometimes it just rings for minutes and they eventually hang upon u. Other times, they have answered my call and put me on hold without ever finding out why I called first. The Memphis 911 system is a terrable place to be if u need help.

[tatashady]

01:17 PM on 07/21/2011

In California, if you call 911 and get disconnected they call you back. If you don't answer, there are officers at the scene within minutes. Something is terribly wrong here. The "internal investigation" determined there was nothing wrong. Do internal investigations ever find anything wrong? Why do the police get to judge themselves? What if criminals got to decide if their criminal actions were wrong? What a joke.

[todaysjustus]

01:56 PM on 07/21/2011

Thank you for confirming what I thought I knew since the time I was 12. Maybe it's different in TN. heh.

[gerald1961]

01:14 PM on 07/21/2011

Why don't they try and help the police find the people(s) who shot him and then sue them for millions of dollars... oh wait, murderous gangs don't much money. A cell phone is not a fixed location and if like most people the cell phone is unregistered or a pay as you go type, there would be no way to identify who the owner is. They say they pinged his location. Cell towers in sparse areas can cover a 10 mile radius or greater, that's a LOT of square miles of unknown to cover. So we have a 911 center that receives hundreds of call a night, get a call from a moving cell phone, from someone who gives no identification, only a 4 letter word and then shots fired, they try to redial the call to get more information with no answer, so they ping the tower to find its in a sparse location. All this wile still receiving more 911 emergency call from the general public. And they did what wrong again? What would you like them to do, alert police that they received a call with no name or ID and it came from a tower somewhere in that direction over there somewhere, but we don't know form who. What more could they have done, all wile still serving the public emergency needs. OK, well if that didn't work, lets get the lawyers and go for the big money and see what we can get.

[pomonaaj]

01:42 PM on 07/21/2011

Maybe they could of told that to his mother instead of completely ignoring it.

[todaysjustus]

01:58 PM on 07/21/2011

Why don't they try and help the police find the people(s) who shot him

---

You sound flipping ridiculous. I don't understand where people pick up their reasoning skills, but it's greatly lacking around these parts.

[mclkarim]

01:04 PM on 07/21/2011

This is the most ridiculous article I have ever read. What the hell does it take for 911 to do their job? I have heard horror stories about them. I had to call once myself and the woman who answered wasn't exactly the most pleasant person in the world. They need to learn how to do their freaking jobs.

[o00viper00o]

01:04 PM on 07/21/2011

First off, The POLICE are not blame for this oversite. The article clearly stated that POLICE were never dispatched to the location of the call. The Germantown 911 dispatcher dropped the ball not POLICE.

Second, speaking from first hand experience, with current cellphone technology and use dispatchers receive on average 100 NVC (No Voice Contact) 911 calls from cellphone per 12 hr shift. Most are "pocket dials" and the other majority are domestic disturbances where the dialer is interrupted. In ALL cases the dispatcher alerts the OIC of the particular Police department he or she is dispatching for, provides the information available, calls the number back to verify a problem and allows the OIC to make the appropriate decision for action. In alot of cases the return calls the dispatcher makes to the cellphone are unanswered. The dispatcher can sometimes locate the approximate area the call came from and other times only the nearest tower it relayed off of.

[todaysjustus]

02:23 PM on 07/21/2011

I agree with you that it's not the police fault. The problem is that LE won't even admit that this was handled incorrectly. That's what has most people on their bad side right about now.

[neesee]

01:01 PM on 07/21/2011

On second thought, it IS Tennesee police at their finest!

[neesee]

01:00 PM on 07/21/2011

The dispatcher needs to find a job she is qualified for, like selling doughnuts. 911 dispatchers are supposed to inform the correct department(s) of the nature of each call (fire, car accident, assault) and put as much effort into helping them locate the desperate person who made the call. She did know the cell tower was not in the city's jurisdiction so she did have an inkling of who's jurisdiction it was in, but what I want to know is this. Why would a 911 call be routed to another jurisdiction? If it is the only 911 dispatcher for the entire area, then they should be responsible for the whole area, not just up to a certain invisible line.

[Wendy Stewart]

12:46 PM on 07/21/2011

She needs to sue for negligence. If you cannot depend on the police when you are in jeopardy who can you call. Shame on the police force.