{"id":77561,"date":"2022-11-09T14:09:43","date_gmt":"2022-11-09T14:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/loopbeatzz.info\/wp\/dispatcher-answers-teen-daughters-911-call-during-mcdonalds-robbery-the-washington-post\/"},"modified":"2022-11-09T14:09:43","modified_gmt":"2022-11-09T14:09:43","slug":"dispatcher-answers-teen-daughters-911-call-during-mcdonalds-robbery-the-washington-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/loopbeatzz.info\/wp\/dispatcher-answers-teen-daughters-911-call-during-mcdonalds-robbery-the-washington-post\/","title":{"rendered":"Dispatcher answers teen daughter's 911 call during McDonald's robbery – The Washington Post"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Teri Clark immediately recognized her daughter\u2019s phone number when it popped up on her 911 dispatch screen last month.
Clark, a veteran emergency dispatcher in New Orleans, long ago taught her daughter, now 16, that she couldn\u2019t call 911 to talk to mom. Before picking up, she peeked at her cellphone to see whether she\u2019d missed a call from her. She hadn\u2019t.
And so Clark answered her daughter\u2019s 911 call the same way she had answered thousands of others over more than two decades.
\u201cNew Orleans 911, what\u2019s the location of the emergency?\u201d
It would be unlike any other crisis Clark had dealt with in her 24-year career \u2014 her teenage daughter begging to be rescued from an armed robber as she cowered in a walk-in freezer with her McDonald\u2019s co-workers.
Tenia Hill, a junior in high school, attended classes at Eleanor McMain Secondary School on Oct. 17, a Monday. Then, she put on her uniform and at 5 p.m. went to the McDonald\u2019s where she worked part-time as a cashier.
Clark, 45, had started her shift at the Orleans Parish Communication District at 6:30 a.m. and, even though she was scheduled to get off at 7 p.m., decided to work overtime.
The call came in around 8 p.m.
\u201cI was seeing her number pop up, and in my mind, I\u2019m like, \u2018What\u2019s she calling for?\u2019 \u201d
Clark answered.
\u201cMama, can you please send a police officer right now to McDonald\u2019s?\u201d Tenia asked, according to an audio recording obtained by The Washington Post.
\u201cWhere at?\u201d Clark asked her.
\u201cAt my job, Mama!\u201d
A daughter worried when her 80-year-old mom didn\u2019t text her Wordle score. A man was holding her hostage, police say.<\/a><\/span>
Clark knew where her daughter was. Tenia had started working there a week earlier \u2014 her first \u201creal\u201d job, not counting her stints as a counselor at summer camp. It had been, at least in part, Clark\u2019s idea. Tenia wanted to go to driving school. Her mother agreed but, wanting to teach her daughter how to earn and save money to achieve a personal goal, told her to work for it.
\u201cI was trying to show her a little responsibility,\u201d Clark said.
The communication district\u2019s computer system also informed Clark of where her daughter was calling from. Still, protocol required her to coax the caller into confirming their location. Clark had done it with thousands of others struck by panic, and she did the same with her daughter.
That doesn\u2019t mean she felt the same way.
\u201cI processed the call like I normally do with any other citizen that\u2019s calling,\u201d Clark said, \u201cbut I knew it was my child. I was trying to remain calm.\u201d
It was an unexpected blessing for Tenia. Thinking her mother had already gotten off work, Tenia said she didn\u2019t think she\u2019d get her when she called 911 but immediately recognized her voice. \u201cI felt relieved, and I felt calm because of the comfort of my mama\u2019s voice,\u201d she said.
During the call, Tenia told her mother that a woman entered the McDonald\u2019s and forced the roughly half-dozen employees into the restaurant\u2019s walk-in freezer. Clark said she would later learn that the robber initially ordered Tenia and her co-workers to get on the ground. Looking at each other, they initially thought she was pranking them. Then she pulled a gun and said something like, \u201cYou think I\u2019m playing?\u201d before herding them to the back, Tenia said.
From there, the teen called 911.
\u201cWhen my child told me that they was locked up in the freezer, I guess the mama part of me panicked, but the operator in me knew, \u2018Hell, I\u2019ve got to get help to my child,\u2019 \u201d Clark said.
\u201cI had tears coming down my face, but I still had to do the job,\u201d she added.
The call lasted three minutes and 45 seconds.
Over the years, Clark has calmed parents watching their children bleed out after being shot, given CPR instructions to a mother trying to save her baby from choking to death, and guided women escaping physically abusive husbands or boyfriends they fear might murder them. In all those situations, she said, her goal was to beat back or stave off panic so callers could give her the information she needed to send help.
On the night of Oct. 17, Clark found herself doing double duty \u2014 trying to calm her daughter while keeping her own terror in check.
After Clark dispatched police and hung up, she went to her shift manager. She told her that the caller who\u2019d just reported the robbery was her daughter and that she needed to leave. Clark rushed to the McDonald\u2019s, where police were investigating. Officers recognized Clark, told her that her daughter was okay and let her know that Tenia would come out as soon as detectives were done interviewing her.
\u201cBut I could see my child inside \u2014 hysterical, crying hard,\u201d Clark said.
Twenty to 30 minutes later, police cut her loose. Tenia came out, and Clark held her daughter. That night, the high school student struggled to sleep and, when she nodded off, nightmares tormented her, Clark said. Tenia said she\u2019s scared to go back to work, and Clark said she worried about letting her do so. She hasn\u2019t been back since the robbery and doesn\u2019t like going places generally.
\u201cThey took that innocence away from her,\u201d Clark said.
The New Orleans Police Department did not respond to an email asking for updates on the case, but Clark said they haven\u2019t notified her of any arrests.
Clark herself was rattled by what happened. She said she considered retiring but was buoyed by co-workers insisting she did a great job.
Most importantly, she said, mother and daughter have taken solace in each other. They\u2019ve wept together, held each other. Tenia said they\u2019re closer now, that\u2019s she\u2019s found sanctuary in the safety of the person she trusts the most.
\u201cWe really just have had each other\u2019s backs throughout the whole situation,\u201d Tenia said.
Her mom said much the same. They\u2019re struggling, but they\u2019re struggling together.
\u201cWhen she cries, I cry,\u201d she said, adding, \u201cI\u2019m not doing good, but we\u2019re surviving.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Sign inTeri Clark immediately recognized her daughter\u2019s phone number when it popped up on her 911 dispatch screen last month.Clark, a veteran emergency dispatcher in New Orleans, long ago taught her daughter, now 16, that she couldn\u2019t call 911 to talk to mom. Before picking up, she peeked at her cellphone to see whether she\u2019d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":77562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/loopbeatzz.info\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/loopbeatzz.info\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/loopbeatzz.info\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loopbeatzz.info\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loopbeatzz.info\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/loopbeatzz.info\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loopbeatzz.info\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/loopbeatzz.info\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loopbeatzz.info\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loopbeatzz.info\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}