San Juan County Sheriff Ron Krebs and County Councilman Rick Hughes will be having a Town Hall meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 24 from 5 to 7 p.m. at the senior center in Eastsound to discuss the sheriff’s office failure to respond in a timely manner to a 9-1-1 call.
Assaulted at gun point in the middle of the night in his home on Orcas island last week, Josh Mayson and his family are still reeling over the fact that a sheriff’s deputy didn’t arrive to investigate until 8:30 a.m. the next morning.
“This was a huge error on the part of the dispatcher and the on-duty supervisor that night,” said Krebs. “The family is rightfully incredibly upset, as are we here at the Sheriff’s office. Everyone involved understands it was not the right thing to do.”
Mayson, a newly hired OPALCO apprentice lineman, was staying in a vacation rental cabin when a masked, gloved assailant allegedly came into his home around 3:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 9. He says the man held a gun to Mayson’s head, threatened to kill him and his daughter.
He also allegedly stated that he “had nothing left to live for” and was “not afraid to die,” according to Mayson’s stepfather Dan Kimple, who spoke during an OPALCO board meeting on Feb. 19.
According to Kimple, his son texted his brother just after the assailant left. His brother came to the cabin, where they together called 9-1-1. They both spoke with the dispatcher who allegedly told them that since the gunman had left there was no need to wake the deputy on-call.
“It is this very thing that erodes the community’s confidence in us,” said Krebs. “This is one of the most violent, in your face calls we’ve gotten. It was a home invasion with a gun. This (not sending a deputy immediately) should’ve never happened. Everyone here feels that we let the community down. ”
Krebs says new protocols to ensure this will not happen again are already in place.
“It is being dealt with, it has been dealt with, it was not a malicious thing, it was an unfortunate error that will never, never happen again,” said Krebs.
A reward for information about the incident is now up to nearly $20,000. For the full story on the break-in and death threats written on the OPALCO building, go here.
