Late last week, an unfortunate event unfolded that revealed opportunities for improvement locally.
The issue involved a law enforcement response to an incident at a local child care facility/school.
From our understanding after communicating with Ben Fox, director at Wings Early Childhood Center, and Archuleta County Sheriff Mike Le Roux, on Friday, July 17, a noncustodial parent showed up to Wings attempting to access their child and refused to leave when they were unable to access the child.
That prompted Fox to call 911 to report that the noncustodial parent was refusing to leave the school premises and to seek help in getting the individual to leave. Fox reported he shared with the dispatcher he was at Wings, which is in the town boundaries, and that, in response to a question from the dispatcher, the individual was not being violent.
The area was previously annexed into the Town of Pagosa Springs. Due to an error in the mapping being used by dispatch, however, the location showed as being under the jurisdiction of the Archuleta County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) instead of the Pagosa Springs Police Department, and an ACSO deputy was dispatched out for a priority level two trespass call — a page which was not heard by other law enforcement agencies.
Fox reported putting the school on lockdown during the incident.
According to Le Roux, all of the ACSO’s deputies who were on duty at the time were in Arboles carrying out an operation on County Road 975 with Colorado State Patrol Port of Entry personnel, leading to a delayed response time of about 30 minutes. Fox reported calling more times during that response window.
Le Roux outlined that an ACSO sergeant was pulled out of the operation in Arboles and responded, but wasn’t running with lights and sirens because the situation had not escalated to violence. He noted deputies respond as quickly and as safely as they can based on the info provided by dispatch.
Ultimately, the individual — who at that point was sitting in his vehicle — left following the ACSO sergeant’s arrival.
Le Roux acknowledged that the delayed response time was not optimal (something we agree with).
We join Fox and Le Roux in being grateful the situation unfolded without violence or continued threat, and that questions can be asked and reflections made without that look back being on the heels of a tragic situation.
We appreciate Fox’s passion and attention to securing the safety of the children entrusted to Wings, and understand the frustration in not seeing a quicker, more robust response.
We also appreciate that Le Roux took steps even while the incident was unfolding to make corrections, such as to the mapping used by dispatch.
We also appreciate that discourse has continued following the incident and that action has taken place to improve and refine future responses in our community.
Le Roux explained he spoke with Pagosa Springs Police Chief William Rockensock and reviewed the standard operating procedure. He indicated upgrades were made so that if a call stems from a school, child learning center or place of worship and there is a delayed response for any reason by the agency with jurisdiction, that leading jurisdiction will be asked if other agencies should be dispatched to help.
“We can only look at moving forward,” Le Roux said, pointing out this incident is an opportunity to learn, change and become better.
In today’s world especially, we want certainty that any child care and education facility — and congregate living facilities, medical centers, senior centers, etc. — are as safe as possible. We hope discussions will continue on a regular basis as situations arise so those charged with protecting and teaching our children (and other vulnerable populations) and those charged with protecting the community can continue to work better and better together, such as Fox’s suggestion that dispatchers ask more yes/no questions to allow a caller to provide more information with less risk of further escalating a situation. We feel that could be applied to a wide variety of calls dispatch receives if it doesn’t already occur.
We are thankful that everyone sprung to action — Wings for immediately calling law enforcement to help diffuse and end an escalated situation, and law enforcement for quickly working to correct errors and ensure better response in the future — but hope that we never have the need to test the improvements.
Randi Pierce
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