A copy of the police log which documented the 911 call made after for President Barack Obama's longtime chef went missing while paddle...
A copy of the police log which documented the 911 call made after for President Barack Obama's longtime chef went missing while paddleboarding has left out or obscured key information, the Daily Mail reported.
According to the Massachusetts State Police, at 7:46 p.m. last Sunday, someone at the Martha's Vineyard mansion owned by Obama called 911 to report that a man, later identified as 45-year-old Tafari Campbell, had gone missing underneath the water of Edgartown Great Pond while paddleboarding with a companion. Campbell's body was discovered 12 hours later about 100 feet from shore and in area where the water was about eight feet deep.
There was no visible external trauma to his body when it was recovered, and a toxicology report has not yet been released. MSP claimed that the death is not considered suspicious.
According to the Daily Mail, which provided a screenshot of the log, the Edgartown Police Department left the reason for the call about Campbell blank, even though all other calls listed at that time have reasons. The call log also gave Wilson's Landing, a paddleboarding launch site on Edgartown Great Pond, as the location from which the call was made, even though Wilson's Landing is located approximately two miles from the Obamas' estate.
Speaking on behalf of the department, Edgartown police chief Bruce McNamee told the outlet that the 911 call logs are generated by the Dukes County Sheriff’s Office, not Edgartown PD. For that reason, he could only speculate as to why the reason section would have been left blank in that case. He suggested that the person who contacted police about the incident may have dialed a business line directly, rather than 911.
As to the location discrepancy, McNamee suggested that at the time the search for Campbell was initiated, law enforcement had established Wilson's Landing as a command post for the rescue efforts. Since police did not know the location of Campbell's body at the time, they may have listed the command post as the incident location. McNamee said that 911 call locations are logged automatically.
The Daily Mail added that the Obama estate has its own paddleboarding launch site.
Questions also remain about the companion who had been paddleboarding with Campbell when he went into the water. Initial reports indicated that the companion was male, but no further details have been released, and it's not even certain that those initial reports are accurate. The Daily Mail claimed that "police refuse to name the person [Campbell] was with," though that person is said to have witnessed Campbell go into the water without resurfacing.
Dispatch records have confirmed that the 911 caller who joined police in the initial search efforts was female. "We met with the reporting party," said one member of law enforcement, "she is on a boat with two individuals and they're going back and forth as well" (emphasis added). Whether the unidentified woman was also Campbell's paddleboarding companion is unclear.
Reports now state that Barack and Michelle Obama and their two daughters, Sasha and Malia, were on the island last weekend as well, though the former president and first lady were reportedly not at home when the 911 call was made. Whether their daughters were at the residence at the time is still unknown. The young women have since left Martha's Vineyard, but as of Friday, Mr. and Mrs. Obama are believed to be there still.
In a statement following Campbell's death, the Obamas called the chef "a beloved part of our family" and "a warm, fun, extraordinarily kind person who made all of our lives a little brighter."
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