Canton Police Chief Jeff Lance resigned Thursday after a scathing independent report said he and his department mishandled the initial investigation into last month's disappearance and gruesome murder of 7-year-old Jorelys Rivera.
Canton Mayor Gene Hobgood, who asked for the review last month after criticisms of the department's search for Jorelys, called the 19-page report by LaGrange Police Chief Chief Louis Dekmar "indicting."
Lance, who had said last week he didn't expect the report to cost him his job, didn't return calls seeking comment Thursday.
Apartment maintenance man Ryan Brunn, 20, pleaded guilty Tuesday to molesting and killing Jorelys and was sentenced to life in prison. Brunn killed himself Thursday at the state prison in Jackson.
During his sentencing hearing, Brunn described how he lured the girl into a vacant apartment on Dec. 2 and sexually molested and murdered her before dumping her body in a trash compactor.
The report released Thursday, which examined police actions during the first 48 hours after Jorelys' disappearance, concluded the Canton force didn’t follow its own policies after receiving a call about the missing girl around 7:30 p.m. Dec. 2, more than two hours after she was last seen on a playground of the River Ridge Apartments, where she lived.
The department operated under the idea the first-grader had simply run away rather than investigating the case as a potential child abduction.
The report said police were told by the missing child's family she had previously run away, and that a week prior to her vanishing Jorelys had an argument with her mother in which she threatened to run away. But Jorelys' mother did not report her missing on previous occasions, and the report concluded the mother's specific concern for her daughter's welfare on this occasion apparently did not factor into the police department's response.
Numerous mistakes or lapses were cited. Among them:
- Police failed to enter the child's information into the National Crime Information Center's Missing Person File until 23 hours after she was last seen.
- Officers waited six hours after Jorelys' disappearance to initiate an immediate community notification protocol that uses the telephone system to deliver a recorded message about a missing child to residents in the vicinity.
- The police department initially sealed and protected the area of the child's apartment, including her personal articles, but released the scene later without processing it.
- Detectives did not arrive until more than two hours after the incident was reported.
- The police chief did not arrive on the scene until mid-morning on the day after the child went missing, and personnel described his demeanor as "laid back." He ultimately turned on a television to a University of Georgia football game.
- The police department suspended the search twice, the first time around 2 a.m. Saturday, about seven hours after receiving the missing persons report, and again at around 8 p.m. Saturday.
- Canton police made a modest request for assistance initially, but failed to activate substantial investigative assets for almost 48 hours after the child was last seen.
"There was a clear absence of leadership by the agency head predicated on the assumption that this was a routine runaway or missing child, and she would turn up," wrote Dekmar, who was contracted by the city to conduct the review at a rate of $150 an hour.
Lance told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week that he would give his department's handling of the investigation an "8 out of 10," and said he did not expect the report to cost him his job.
"I do not understand why, having so many years as a police officer, he did not conduct the case how it should [have] been conducted," Jorelys' mother, Jocelyn Rivera, said Thursday through a translator.
"How could he not take things seriously?" she said. "I am sure there was discrimination against me because I am Latin and because I do not speak English. Maybe they could not prevent the death [of Jorelys], but at least they could have found her body earlier."
City Manager Scott Wood said the city will begin a search for a replacement for Lance, who was named chief in 2007 after joining the police department 20 years ago. Wood said Deputy Chief Todd Vande Zande will serve as interim chief.
In his review, Dekmar wrote that while evidence indicated Canton police could not have saved the girl's life because she died within two hours of her disappearance, "it is clear that if a subsequent missing child report were to be approached in the same manner as was the Rivera case, the Canton Police Department may indeed miss an opportunity to save a victim's life."
Dekmar declined further comment Thursday, saying "my report speaks for itself."
Mundo Hispanico reporter Mario Guevara contributed to this article.
Timeline
Friday, Dec. 2, 2011
Around 5:15 p.m. Jorelys Rivera, 7, is last seen near the playground of the River Ridge Apartments in Canton.
7:30 p.m. Canton police respond to a report that Jorelys is missing. Within an hour they request additional officers and fire department personnel, and ask for assistance searching for her from Cherokee County Sheriff's Office deputies and the Cherokee County Search and Rescue Team.
Saturday, Dec. 3
2 a.m. Search effort is suspended, but police maintain a presence in the apartment complex.
5:30 a.m. Searching resumes
3 p.m. Canton police reclassify the incident from a missing child to an abduction.
8 p.m. Search concludes.
Sunday, Dec. 4
10 a.m. Cherokee County Search and Rescue Team is re-activated along with Canton Fire Department and other outside agencies.
4 p.m. Cherokee County Sheriff Roger Garrison requests the assistance of the GBI and their Child Abduction Recovery Team.
9 p.m. Canton officers again search apartments that had previously been inspected and locate the crime scene in a vacant unit at River Ridge Apartments.
Monday, Dec. 5
The body of Jorelys is recovered in a trash compactor at the complex.
Wednesday, Dec. 7
Ryan Brunn, a 20-year-old groundskeeper at the complex, is arrested and charged with the murder of Jorelys.
Tuesday, Jan. 17
Brunn pleads guilty to numerous counts, including enticing a child for the purposes of molestation and the murder of Jorelys. He is sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Thursday, Jan. 19
Brunn kills himself at the state prison in Jackson.
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