Tense situations resolve before deputies arrive
Staff writer
Saturday was a night of disturbances that sounded like serious rumbles in police transmissions but ended up being resolved before deputies arrived from elsewhere in the county.
Threats and a physical altercation between ambulance workers and band members led to three deputies and an ambulance supervisor being summoned Saturday to Tampa Trail Fest.
The situation apparently was resolved by the time the first deputy arrived, but not until after anxious moments were recorded in radio transmissions beginning at 6:41 p.m.:
Emergency medical technician Jesse Brunner — A6 [Tampa ambulance] to Marion County. Can you please — can you bring out a law enforcement person in Tampa?
Dispatcher — 10-4. Can you advise what’s going on and where?
Brunner — We have our annual hog roast here and we have a guy from the band. We can’t get the ambulance out. He’s got us blocked in. And he told me that was tough sh–t and if I didn’t like it, he’d beat the sh–t out of me. So, I’ve been threatened, and I’m not going to be threatened. I want to get the ambulance out if we get a call.
Dispatcher — Marion to 127.
Deputy Austin Spencer — 10-4, en route from Lincolnville.
Dispatcher — 18:42 [6:42 p.m.].
Deputy Josh Meliza (122) — En route from Florence.
Brunner — Can you tell me what their 20 [location] is? We’d like to have them expedited out of here.
Dispatcher— They’ll get there as quickly and safely as possible. They’re coming from Florence and Lincolnville.
Dispatcher — Marion to 122, 127. Information: This has turned into a physical altercation in Tampa.
Meliza — 10-4.
Spencer — 10-4.
Dispatcher — 18:45.
Ambulance supervisor — 705, Marion County dispatch. En route to Tampa also to back up on the call to Tampa.
Dispatcher — 10-4, 18:51.
Lake patrol officer Dan Kinning — 101, 122. You want me to head that way?
Meliza — Yeah, you can start floating that way as well.
Spencer — 127, Marion. I just got to Tampa when a train decided to pass by. I’m right outside the city limits.
Dispatcher — 10-4, 18:52.
Spencer — 127, Marion. I’m going to be in the area.
Dispatcher — 10-4, 18:53.
Dispatcher — 127, 122. Just got a call from Nathan Brunner [Jesse’s son] advising that everything is good. They have calmed the situation down, and they don’t want to do anything about it, but they still would like to have you in the area.
Kinning — 101, Marion. I’m going to 10-22 [disregard the call].
Dispatcher — 10-4, 101. 18:54.
Spencer — 127, Marion. I arrived on the scene, talked to the RP [reporting party], asked him about the individual in question. He’s refusing to give me a name or even what he looked like and is saying everything is resolved.
Dispatcher — 10-4, 18:56.
Meliza — Go ahead and resume your activities.
Dispatcher — 10-4, 18:56.
Ambulance supervisor — 705 to A6.
[No answer]
Ambulance supervisor — 705, Marion. You can show me near Tampa.
Dispatcher — 10-4, 705. 19:06.
Ambulance supervisor — [At 7:10 p.m.] 705, Marion. You can show me clear and en route back to Hillsboro.
The disturbance in Tampa wasn’t the only ruckus resolved before law enforcement officers arrived Saturday night.
At 11:55 p.m., five people were reported to be fighting at the VFW Post bar in Marion.
Even though Marion now has three fully qualified officers on its payroll, none were on duty Saturday night.
Meliza and Spencer again were dispatched, this time from the Peabody area.
“I was not able to get much information from the RP,” a dispatcher said. “She just kept advising that her husband told her to call us and there were at least five people involved. She did advise that there were no weapons, and then disconnected the line.”
Spencer arrived at 12:07 a.m. and told dispatchers that a VFW employee had told him all the people involved had left.