Houston 911 operator found guilty of hanging up on callers

A former 911 operator has been found guilty of hanging up on people calling for emergency services and sentenced to 10 days in jail and 18 months of probation.

Harris County jurors on Wednesday found 44-year-old Crenshanda Williams guilty of interference with emergency telephone calls, a misdemeanor.

Williams worked as a 911 operator for a year and a half at the Houston Emergency Center, Texas, until she was caught in August 2016 and fired.  

Records showed that thousands of calls lasting less than 20 seconds were attributed to her hanging up.

Two calls found during the investigation included a caller trying to report a violent robbery and another where a caller said two drivers were racing down an interstate.  

Williams told investigators she often hung up because she didn’t want to talk to anyone at those times.

Williams was a former 911 operator for Houston Emergency Center, Texas, before she was fired in August 2016 for dropping calls 

An investigation found that Williams dropped ‘thousands’ of calls during her year and a half at the emergency call center 

Emergency caller Jim Moten told ABC 13 he called 911 in 2016 to report the two vehicles speeding down the interstate. He initially thought his call had dropped. 

Court documents, according to the news station, revealed Williams took Moten’s call. 

After he finished explaining the emergency, she allegedly said: ‘Ain’t nobody got time for this. For real.’ She then hung up the phone call.  

‘The citizens of Harris County rely on 911 operators to dispatch help in their time of need,’ Assistant District Attorney Lauren Reeder said in a statement. ‘When a public servant betrays the community’s trust and breaks the law, we have a responsibility to hold them criminally accountable.’ 

Documents also stated, ‘thousands of short calls have been attributed to the defendant from October 2015 through March 2016.