Maine State Police apologized to parents and daycare providers after taking hours to respond to a 911 call in Dayton on Friday.
A daycare worker from Little Hands Big Hearts Childcare called 911 because she believed an intruder was inside the home.
The Department of Public Safety is taking full responsibility for the delayed response time. They are conducting an internal investigation to find out exactly what went wrong. The Chief of the State Police addressed the issue in a press conference Wednesday morning. Col. Robert Williams said State Police cover the town of Dayton. At the time of the call, the on-duty troopers were busy. Williams said that's when someone should have called the York County Sheriff's Office for back up.
The incident has raised questions about whether there are enough officers to respond to calls in York County. Williams said this is not a case of there not being resources available.
"We have a call sharing agreement, a resource coordination agreement with the sheriff’s department," Williams said. "We regularly back each other up. They would've responded if we called. This is a case where we just didn't use the resources at our disposal timely."
An internal review of the incident is now underway and three State Police troopers from outside York County will lead the investigation. At this point, no one has been disciplined.
