The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office has arrested three suspects accused of misusing the 9-1-1 system.
Bettyann Valencia Jones, 17, Javon John Mills, 17, and Eric Marqual Telemaque, 14, were charged with threatening to discharge a destructive device and misuse of 9-1-1 system. Police say all three admitted to their involvement.
According to deputies, the Communication Center received a series of 9-1-1 calls from a single cell phone number between 7:08 p.m. and 9:23 p.m on Dec. 20. Each call, the callers threatened to shoot dispatchers and blow up the HCSO Communication Center and any responding deputies including the HCSO helicopter. The calls were as follows:
Call #1 – Incoming 9-1-1 hang up at 7:08 p.m., (length of recording 3:06) – The dispatcher makes three call backs to the cell phone number identified in the 9-1-1 hangup. In each of the required callbacks, the individuals that answered became verbally abusive and refused to provide information required to cancel a law enforcement response. Deputies responded to an area in the east side of Hillsborough County were unable to locate the cell phone callers.
Call # 2- Incoming 9-1-1 call at 7:40 pm, (length of recording 1:01) – Callers threaten to “blow up the dispatcher, and come down to the dispatch office and shoot the dispatcher with a shotgun”. A second subject says “he’s coming to blow the station up”.
Call # 3 – Incoming 9-1-1 call at 8:27 pm, (length of recording 00:52 seconds) – Callers threatened to “blow up the dispatch office”
Call # 4 – Incoming 9-1-1 call at 9:23 pm, (length of recording 1:42) Callers use obscenities and threaten to “blow up officers who come out and shoot the helicopter out of the air”. They said they were doing it “because they don’t like the police.”
