911 Dispatcher Shoots Daughter by Mistake

A 911 dispatcher who reached for a gun instead of a phone when she thought there was an intruder in her home shot her own daughter dead, according to police in St. Cloud, Fla. Police say that in what they're treating as an accidental shooting, the 27-year-old daughter was killed by the single round that her mother fired, reports CNN, which notes that police have asked the media not to identify the family because the mother's husband, a 17-year veteran of the St. Cloud Police Department, has served as an undercover narcotics officer. The mother, an Osceola County dispatcher, has not been charged.

In a 911 call made Tuesday night, the husband tells dispatchers that his stepdaughter has "passed out. She has a pacemaker. She has a heart problem," but he doesn't mention that she had been shot, the Orlando Sentinel reports. Police say that was because he was asleep at the time of the shooting and didn't realize what had happened until his wife explained. The officer has been on administrative leave for family medical reasons, CNN reports. Bay News 9 reports that police believe the daughter was visiting for the holidays. "That is one of the saddest things I've ever heard. That's horrible. I mean, just terrible," a neighbor tells the station. (Police in Georgia say a 911 dispatcher may have saved a woman's life by pretending to be her boyfriend.)