Anne Arundel County and Baltimore police began a door-to-door search yesterday for the woman they believe was the last person to see a 26-year-old Glen Burnie pharmacist before she was abducted and killed last week.
Police say they believe the woman -- who called 911 in Glen Burnie but did not identify herself -- saw Yvette A. Beakes being attacked by four young men who rammed into the young woman's car with a van Aug. 8 as she returned to her townhouse.
Beakes was carjacked and held hostage as the men used her automated teller machine card at banks in the Baltimore area. After robbing her, police said the men abandoned her 2001 Acura and took her to a wooded area in Southwest Baltimore where they shot her in the head.
City police arrested four men Sunday and charged them with first-degree murder in Beakes' death after the suspects allegedly implicated one another in the crime.
Police want to talk to the woman who saw the initial confrontation between Beakes and her attackers because officials said it was possible she saw more than she reported to 911.
"She may be able provide information that detectives don't have," said Officer Charles Ravenell, a county police spokesman.
About 25 county police officers canvassed Beakes' neighborhood yesterday in search of information about the caller. Officers passed out fliers in the new townhouse and condominium complexes off East Ordnance Road where police believe Beakes' attackers staged the accident to lure her from her car.
County police -- who are assisting Baltimore homicide detectives -- also talked to employees who work at the Governor Plaza Shopping Center where the woman made the 911 call from a pay phone.
Dispatchers received the call just before midnight on Aug. 8, detailing the accident and assault on the young woman and describing the group of men and the vehicles involved.
The report was critical initially because police believe Beakes' abductors drove her around for several hours before they killed her. However, the information from the 911 call was never relayed to officers on the street who could have been looking for Beakes' Acura and the suspects' van, officials said.
News of the 911 error has upset residents and Beakes' relatives and friends who have said they wonder whether officers might have been able to prevent the young woman's death.
The criminal records of the four men charged with Beakes' murder have upset the public -- evidenced at a small rally on Wednesday outside the Circuit Court in Baltimore where people held signs saying: "City judges get tough!" and "Out with complacency."
Anne Arundel County's police chief suspended two 911 operators Wednesday for failing to report the carjacking to officers.
A lawyer alleging another bungled 911 case filed a request yesterday for the state Court of Appeals to hear a lawsuit brought by the mother of a 15-year-old Harford County girl raped and left outside, where she died of exposure.
Tiffany A. Fouts of Edgewood was carried unconscious from a party she was attending in 1995 and was left partly clothed in a narrow strip of woods, authorities said.
The lawsuit alleges that a 19-year-old party-goer anonymously called 911 to alert authorities to Fouts' whereabouts shortly after she was carried from the home. The caller gave authorities a partly incorrect street address -- a problem that was compounded by the fact that the 911 dispatcher gave a deputy sheriff the wrong address and did not mention that the caller said the teen-age girl was in the woods, according to the suit.
In the petition, the lawyer, Clifford L. Hardwick, is asking Maryland's highest court to reverse a lower court decision to dismiss the $1 million lawsuit against the 911 operator and other Harford County officials.
Noting the apparent mistake made by Anne Arundel County dispatchers in Beakes' case, Hardwick argues that no state law exists regarding the liability of 911 operators.
"Doctors and lawyers are held responsible," Hardwick said. "Why should it be any different for emergency operators?
"You teach your children that 911 is a safety net," he said. "And as a taxpayer, you assume the operators are dispatching the information correctly to police."
In the Beakes killing, Baltimore County prosecutors acknowledged yesterday that one of the suspects who was facing car theft charges there was released after authorities failed to summon the victim. The charges against Jamal D. Barnes were dismissed in March.
"When it came to trial, the owner of the vehicle was not summoned," said Howard B. Merker, Baltimore County deputy state's attorney, who didn't prosecute the case but was familiar with some of the circumstances. "Had we gone forward, [Jamal Barnes] would have been found not guilty."
The woman whose car was stolen, and who was not summoned, would have had to testify to convict Barnes, Merker said. A judge had already granted one postponement in the case because the investigative officer wasn't available.
