Houston police are investigating why it took four hours for cops to respond to a shooting with seriously injured George Floyd's four-y...
Houston police are investigating why it took four hours for cops to respond to a shooting with seriously injured George Floyd's four-year-old grand-niece.
Arianna Delane was sleeping in an upstairs bedroom next to her grandmother at about 3am on Saturday when someone fired several shots into their apartment.
Her family dialled 911 within minutes of her being shot but police officers didn't arrive at the apartment until 7am, four hours later.
She is the grandniece of George Floyd, who died in Minneapolis in May 2020 when a police officer pressed his knee onto his neck for more than eight minutes during an arrest.
Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted in April of state murder and manslaughter charges in Floyd´s death and was sentenced to 22-and-a-half years in prison. Floyd, whose death triggered protests around the country in 2020, was laid to rest in the Houston area.
George Floyd's four-year-old niece, Arianna Delane, was shot at her home in South Houston over the weekend. She is pictured making a recovery in hospital
Several bullets struck the home leaving holes in various walls and doors to the building
Arianna was shot in the torso while she was asleep in her bed leaving her with a punctured lung and liver together with three broken ribs
Arianna was one of two children asleep inside the home at the time of the shooting
LaTonya Floyd, George Floyd's older sister and the girl's great-aunt, said when police and paramedics didn't immediately arrive after the family called 911, they drove Arianna to the hospital. Police didn't arrive at the apartment until around 7am, four hours after Arianna was shot.
'We didn't wait ... The baby had to get to the hospital. If we didn't get her there when she did, she would have died. The doctor said that,' LaTonya Floyd told The Associated Press on Thursday.
LaTonya Floyd said she and her family are very upset with the delayed response to their 911 call.
LaTonya Floyd, the older sister of George Floyd, gestures towards a bullet hole in the window of her apartment
The little girl was asleep in a front bedroom of the apartment on the second floor when the attack occurred
Arianna's family members say they're not sure why their apartment was shot at several times.
Arianna remained hospitalized on Thursday. She was shot in her side and the bullet pierced her liver and lungs and broke three ribs. No arrests have been made.
Houston Police Chief Troy Finner and the Houston Emergency Center, which handles 911 calls for the city, have announced separate investigations into the delayed response.
'Collectively, we will determine whether changes in protocols and training will need to be made as to how calls are handled and coded for dispatch,' Finner said in a statement.
Doug Griffith, president of the Houston Police Officers' Union, said he believes the call was miscoded not as a shooting but as a less urgent call.
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was killed in Minneapolis, Minnesota during an arrest for allegedly using a counterfeit bill. White police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes while handcuffed face down in the street, begging for his life and repeatedly saying 'I can't breathe'.
Griffith said officers did respond quickly to the apartment complex where Arianna lives after they were notified by ShotSpotter, an algorithm-powered detection technology used by law enforcement to detect gunfire.
'They drove around the complex. Nobody flagged them down. They didn't see any spent casings or anything like that. They cleared it,' Griffith said.
The notification by ShotSpotter, which came at 3am, did not give a specific apartment that officers needed to go to but only that there had been gunfire near the complex.
Emergency Medical Service workers arrived at the scene within six to seven minutes after the shooting, but no one was there anymore, Griffith said.
Delane showed the media where the home had been hit by various bulletholes
'My daughter jumped up and said, ''Daddy, I been hit'',' her father, Derrick Delane, pictured, said
Finner said officers who responded to the area around the apartment complex after the ShotSpotter notification didn't know that Arianna had already been taken to the hospital in a private vehicle within three to four minutes after the shooting.
'We continue to pray for her recovery,' Finner said.
The Houston Emergency Center says an initial review indicates Houston police were not notified about the shooting at the same time as medical personnel.
Griffith said Houston police were short-handed on New Year´s Eve as over 400 officers were out sick with COVID-19 and notifications by ShotSpotter were 'dropping like crazy' and continued through 6 a.m. on New Year´s Day.
He added that emergency medical workers arrived at the scene within seven minutes of the shooting but no one was there anymore.
LaTonya Floyd said she is confident that whoever is responsible for shooting her grandniece will be arrested and that the investigation into the delayed response will result in improvements to how such calls are handled.
'We will get justice for our niece,' she said.
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