TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — Tacoma’s police chief has been reprimanded following revelations that the department’s spokesman was being paid to be on-call the morning he fell back asleep instead of issuing an Amber Alert for an abducted 12-year-old girl.
The News Tribune of Tacoma reports that City Manager Eric Anderson issued the reprimand to Chief Don Ramsdell.
Zina Linnik was abducted and murdered on July 4, 2007. Early the next morning, a detective called and asked spokesman Mark Fulghum to issue an Amber Alert. Fulghum fell back asleep and the alert was not issued for another six hours.
The city manager says Ramsdell never told him that Fulghum was on call. Anderson says he only recently learned it when The News Tribune requested a copy of Fulghum’s time card.
