"Wife missing for days before police responded"
Hours after his wife was found clinging to life in a wrecked car, Tom Rider struggled to restrain his rage at the King County Sheriff's Office, which on Friday defended its decision to wait five days to ask for the cell phone records that led to her rescue.Way to go, Sheriff Rahr! Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at September 29, 2007 04:50 PM | Email ThisFor a week, 33-year-old Tanya Rider -- her left leg crushed in the Sept. 20 wreck -- hung upside down inside her mangled Honda SUV. Thousands of drivers passed by on state Route 169 only feet away, but did not see the car, which fell 12 feet down a brushy hillside.
Tom Rider, who lives with his wife in Maple Valley, said Friday that a court order for records from his wife's cell phone provider to determine where she last used her phone could have pointed rescuers to her last Saturday -- but a Sheriff's Office procedure prevented investigators from requesting the records.
This electronic check I suspect takes seconds and generates an email. The Sherriff need to reconvene the policy team and get their act together.
Sustaining life and rescue is one of the reasons we pay them. It is not all speeding tks. and lost cats and dogs, and the easy misc. stuff.
Shave, shame on the Sheriff's office for not tasking better. Changes things at once. The public is angry as well. The family in question is not alone.
And we vote. And we pay the bill for better services and policies.
Posted by: George Bakan on September 29, 2007 05:31 PMSomeone needs to make a public records request for a copy of this "standard operating procedure", and any others that have been in effect since Sheriff Rahr took office. Did her predecessor use the same "standard operating procedure"?
Posted by: Richard Pope on September 29, 2007 05:45 PMI'll say this though: I did some accident repair work on a Honda Insight (the car she was driving) a few weeks ago and those things are a real bean can. Any other car and she probably would have walked away.
In the first week, his cell phone "rang". ie. calls did not go to Voice Mail immediately like when the phone is off. I brought this to the attention of the Chelan County Sheriff's office who was handling the search. I was told that they won't use cell info in cases like these.
I don't know if such a case was a candidate for for using cell info to pinpoint a location. However, I didn't get the impression that they couldn't, but rather that they wouldn't.
After about a week, calls went straight to voice mail. No trace was ever found.
Posted by: Seabecker on September 29, 2007 09:05 PM-donut crunching unionized and institutionalized victim status state employees, who
-rather than doing anything that would actually protect the public.....
-harrass innocent motorists with seat belt and petty speeding tickets to raise revenue.......in order to...
-increase revenues for the respective agency....so that....
-excessive salaries and obscene fringe benefits and pensions are received......to
-enable the gestapo union to charge outrageous dues in order to make excessive political contributions....to.....
-the Democratic thugs in Olympia that condone all this disgusting behavior......which means.....
-innocent victims as this thread is discussing...
aren't worth spit....
A curse on their house.....
And these WSP fools willingly transport our Socialist Governor 50 feet a day from the Mansion to her orifice......
What a jackass agency, what a jackass Governor, what jackass wages,fringes and pensions, what jackass attitudes.......fire em all......
Posted by: Hank on September 29, 2007 09:08 PMYou know it's coming.
And you know King County will pay up.
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on September 29, 2007 09:09 PMThis is another case for personal responsibility being the best front line. If we wait for the government to save us, we are already dead. So when the woman's husband starts trying to do the right thing, and is met with nothing but reluctance from those who we have foolishly trusted to provide all of our protection, then that is a severe breakdown. I hope they sue so there will be precedent to remove the political correctness that is probably the root cause that slowed down the sheriffs.
Posted by: Jeff B. on September 29, 2007 11:56 PMHeard this in a very detailed interview of an official police spokeswoman on the "Ron and Don" show on 710 KIRO.
Posted by: Hairy Buddah on September 30, 2007 12:06 AMThat is, ALL of the phones on MY cell phone contract/account.
Posted by: With_Verizon_You_Get_The_Network on September 30, 2007 01:06 AMI can't recall a single one in this state where the husband bumped off the wife.
Because of a couple of high profile cases in other states the assumption is foul play. I think the attitude should be an assumption of missing and injured first, not last.
I would think that the first thing done when a person is reported missing is to ping the cell phone. That is how this woman was found.
The police state that most missing people don't want to be found. The procedure should be the same as any other welfare check. If the cell phone ping shows somewhere on a rural highway I would think they should dispatch an officer immediately.
I guess when you get down to it, the problem is that they are still government employees.
Posted by: Vince on September 30, 2007 06:53 AMI got a great idea. Just get a signal responder implanted in every person and big brother can find you instantly. Just ping it and GPS it in--works great trying to find your lost dog as well.
To the person above commenting the search and rescue people come out right away, note that 95% of the searchers are volunteer civilians. Why did not the friends, neighbors and civilian volunteers of the family start searching if they thought she had went off the road? Reason, Mr Rider didn't report her missing for three days!
IF I were the cop I would not have been too concerned either about looking for her car in the ditch. I might have been wanting to look in the back yard for fresh dug dirt.
Sorry folks I am not in to big brother knowing my every step or my where-a-bouts.
Another feel good, knee jerk reaction---attack the cops. Is there no responsibility for the driver or the husband?
Now many in this post are predicting a lawsuit that will result in an out of court settlement, because it is cheaper than a full fledged trial that the county would WIN. Most likely a trial lawyer is all ready talking to the Riders.
Posted by: Ken Howard on September 30, 2007 09:14 AMI bet that the Simses and Gregoires are inwardly smiling over this firestorm. Now they can have one more big-brother tool at their disposal, and can unabashedly ask for the budget increase to fund it.
Instead of blaming the County, the husband should be GPS shopping. If he had had a lojack, he could have just called the Lojack people and instantly located the car and his wife. All families ought to look at implementing something like this so that they can help each other out of jams. It should be able to be turned off by the user who doesn't want to be found, however.
Here's something that everyone should know - the polygraph exam is not a "lie detector", it is a psychological method of eliciting confessions using a machine that indicates pretty much nothing at all. Furthermore, the police, and everybody that else that uses them, know that polygraph examinations produce meaningless data.
Second thing you should know - one of the best ways to get washed out for being a cop is to score too high on any of their exams. They don't want people actually smart enough to work the system easily. Much better to have a group of average Joes doing the job - not too stupid to screw up regularly, but not really smart enough to figure out when things can't be crammed into pre-conceived categories. Cop shows showing brilliant detectives solving mysteries are an entertaining farce - 99.9999% of all cops aren't that smart.
So, the automatic response when a woman goes missing is to assume the husband murdered her and start coercing a confession. Personally, I don't the police should be allowed to question anybody for any reason unless they have legal representation present.
Posted by: john galt on September 30, 2007 02:20 PMFBI agents are smart, so are CSI people. However it's probably true that the average cop on the beat isn't that bright.
Posted by: Liberal_Crusher on September 30, 2007 02:28 PMSame thing with the WSP. When we have troopers on paid leave for years after having molested female motorists, where are the calls from other troopers to end this practice? Nowhere, is where.
Posted by: russell garrard on September 30, 2007 03:14 PMI know the excuse, abd then he says he contacted them "immediately" and another DAY elapsed until he allegedly spoke to someone who was "willing to help him"??
Is everyone just buying all of this? Instead, we want to vilify the police for not doing enough "immediately"?
Please explain.
Posted by: ThoughtRogue on September 30, 2007 04:44 PMRider tried reporting on the second day, but could not find someone to help him (according to the PI article). The cell phone search wasn't ordered until a week after she was missing. With the polygraph tests, it seemed the police were focusing too much on him rather than trying to find her.
I'm not sure if this was a case of not enough resources, although I am definitely in favor of police focusing on other things besides busting prostitutes on craigslist and cracking down on strippers and traffic violations.
Posted by: Palouse on September 30, 2007 04:50 PMHer husband said his two jobs as a construction superintendent and night pizza delivery driver meant he and Tanya didn't see each other much during the week, so he didn't suspect anything was wrong until early Sept. 22, when his wife wasn't home from work.
They worked opposite shifts and he was working two jobs. It's not unreasonable that he would not suspect something until two days after last seeing her.
It appears most of us talk to our FRIENDS nore often than this husband and wife "communicate". Double shifts, day job vs night job, NONE of it is a good enough excuse to not touch base with a note left on the coffeemaker, bathroom mirror or pillow, a message on voice mail, a quick I LOVE YOU email or a cell phone call during the day... or even SEVERAL times during the day.
Good grief.
Either you had a really really bad experience with the police yourself or you are a moron beyond compare. Your rant belongs on HA not over here and your total lack of understanding of police officers defies belief.
Your absurd declaration that "They don't want people actually smart enough to work the system easily. Much better to have a group of average Joes doing the job" does nothing but show your own ignorance. Virtually every police department in the country now requires at least a batchelors degree. Many of the fine line officers I know have a masters and some even have doctorates. I'm talking about a line patrol officer working the street. Getting the job in the first place means scoring at the top of the civil service exam. If you think it's easy, go to the library and check out one of the study guides and try one ...
"Here's something that everyone should know - the polygraph exam is not a "lie detector", it is a psychological method of eliciting confessions using a machine that indicates pretty much nothing at all." Another example of your inane rant. The only part that is even partly correct is the first sentence in that a polygraph doesn't specifically detect lies. What it does do is measure physiological responses which generally can't be controlled by an individual. It is not used to "prove" anything, it is used as an investigative tool.
This thread is about policies and procedures used by a department. Those are set by the command structure of the department, not by the line officers who are required to follow them. Whether a department sets arbitrary time periods for filing missing persons reports or requires its officers to go out and write seat belt violations is not determined by patrol - if you want to get mad, direct your anger where it belongs.
Try and remember that no matter how much it paid, you wouldn't want that patrol officers job - after all, then you would have to put up with people like yourself.
Posted by: Jay on September 30, 2007 05:16 PMThat is a flat out fabrication - I currently know several police officers, and none of them have an education past a couple years at a community college, most of them stopped at high school. One of them in particular I find to be borderline stupid - which explains why she hasn't passed the sergeant's exam after several attempts.
Also, a university degree isn't particularly difficult to get. I've met numerous people with advanced degrees that weren't any more intelligent than average - all it takes is perseverance in many cases. Helps if the topic isn't that difficult either.
Getting the job in the first place means scoring at the top of the civil service exam
This isn't true either. I've taken both the civil service exam and a police exam. Granted, it was a couple decades ago, but they aren't the same test at all. I found both of them to be rather simple.
What it does do is measure physiological responses which generally can't be controlled by an individual.
That's the underlying theory, which has been thoroughly debunked for decades. I'm quite familiar with the textbook on how to conduct interrogations and how to use the polygraph, or any other "lie detector", to sweat out confessions.
I know exactly what I'm talking about, but you apparently are in the midst of being a cop-groupie. Go rant futilely someplace else.
Posted by: John Galt on September 30, 2007 06:19 PM"Virtually all" - hardly.
Posted by: BA on September 30, 2007 07:14 PMAccording to Sgt. Spinmeister (no relations) who told me this when I was on his case for looking for that loser who "fell off the trail and ended up under a log" for two days on Tiger mountain and wasting my tax money.
I asked Herr Spinmeister howcome they went after this loser, who was most likely putting his log in somewhere, instead of laying under one, right away.
Answer: Because the relatives got the press involved. Remember, Sheriff Sue is an elected creature. When the press turns the heat up, they deflect by actually doing something.
Of course, the guy on the mountain's wife was cuter than this dude. But, SOP is appearantly to "blame the man" since he was taking lie detector tests, but they didn't have the opportunity to drive the road with "trained eyes" to see what they could see.
Bottom line, before you get lost, or injured, tell your family to scream to every media outlet they can find, long and loud, to get the cops out of the donut shop, and a lookin' for your relatives.
The Geezer has spaketh.
Posted by: The Geezer on September 30, 2007 08:14 PMLet's pray that she doesn't lose her leg and that common sense prevails and the "standard procedure" is changed immediately.
Posted by: Organization Man on September 30, 2007 09:17 PM
Brave, yes, at times, really really smart, almost never.
Posted by: Bill on October 1, 2007 09:39 AMBrave, yes, at times, really really smart, almost never.
Posted by: Bill on October 1, 2007 09:40 AMTom Rider seems like a guy who is trying to deflect attention from his own lack of diligence on this.
It was THREE days before he put in a serious effort to find his wife.
If she had been sleeping in her separate bedroom while he was getting ready to leave for work or when he coming home from work, her shiny new car would have been in the driveway or garage.
Some big pieces are missing in this story.
Posted by: Bart Cannon on October 1, 2007 05:06 PMIf you believe them, then believe it is due to the press pushing on the issue.
And tiger mountain is hardly the wilderness.
Posted by: The Geezer on October 1, 2007 09:33 PMthe sheriff's office got a call from a husband about his wife being missing (a couple of days w/o contact apparently before he called).
no indications of foul play. no medical factors.
people do have privacy rights. the cellphone companies won't RELEASE the ping info w/o a warrant. remember, warrants? what all the FISAISEVILBUSHISMONITORINGPHONECALLSW/OAWARRANTWEAREINAFASCISTPOLICESTATEBLABLABLA people always want us to remember?
and then there was the issue of the bank account (possibly a misunderstanding) that the cops saw being accessed, and according to them, the husband said he had no access to, etc. etc.
sometimes a confluence of bad circumstances happens. it certainly happened in this case. but let's remember. this is a liberal society. husbands do not OWN their wives, and vice versa. thus, a spouse's right to privacy on his/her cellphone records DOES exist independent from the spouse. so, while it seems like the cops shoulda just "pinged" away, that ignores the reality of constitutional protection, and the facts of this case. it ignores the fact that, in and of itself, no phone contact with her spouse (Especially given the bank info, albeit erroneous or a misunderstanding) does not equal an automatic warrant.
Posted by: paulson on October 2, 2007 12:45 AMThe bank account discrepancy is a poor excuse for not taking action sooner in my opinion. If they looked at the charge (renting/hiring an excavator), any competent investigator could have determined that it was the husband who made that charge. Or heck, they could have just asked him about it and cleared it up in 5 minutes.
I guess the moral of the story is that if your spouse ever goes missing and you want the police to take action immediately instead of waiting a week to actually try and find her, tell them s/he's mentally unstable or clinically depressed.
Posted by: Palouse on October 2, 2007 09:29 AMThere King County sheriff's spokesman was equally skeptical, sadly I can't find the online copy of what was published in the Seattle Times on Friday. The television stations quoted the Sheriff's official's statement and the State Patrol's comments both wondering if the woman had actually been there the whole time.
Rather than apologize, give best wishes for a speedy and full recovery these official voices of law enforcement questioned if the woman had actually been crashed there the entire time.
Apologize
Posted by: Skeptic on October 5, 2007 03:25 PMThis was a deliberate act which the police would have recognized immediately. As I mentioned in my earlier post, this story has yet to fully unfold.
The marriage was reportedly not a happy one.
Posted by: Bart Cannon on October 5, 2007 10:39 PM