The family of Nizah Morris doesn’t have all the 911 transmissions related to the death of their loved one, because local authorities haven’t accounted for several key communications.
But the transmissions they have raise the possibility that officers Elizabeth Skala, Thomas Berry and Kenneth Novak manipulated events that morning to keep the Morris incident based in the 9th police district — even though the ride originated in the 6th district.
Keeping the incident based there paved the way for police paperwork depicting Morris as a slip-and-fall 9th-District hospital case, rather than a 6th-District courtesy-ride recipient and assault victim.
The tapes also indicate that officers feigned confusion about Morris’ anatomical gender to stop their dispatcher from connecting Skala’s courtesy ride to Berry’s hospital case — a connection the dispatcher had been correctly making for about 30 minutes.
Gender confusion in the 9th District
Morris was anatomically male, and any police report written about her would be expected to reflect that fact, per police policy.
But at the 9th District post-injury scene on Walnut Street, Berry told the dispatcher that he was responding to a female.
Berry’s female reference was in keeping with two 911 callers, who also reported that a female was lying on Walnut Street, bleeding and unconscious.
But a third 911 caller, William Jackson, realized Morris was anatomically male, because he attended her drag performances at a local night spot.
Jackson told investigators he informed Berry that Morris was a man. And the 911 tapes tend to confirm his story, because Jackson consistently refers to Morris in gender-neutral terms.
Over the years, police have stated that Berry made an honest mistake when the officer did not inform the dispatcher of Morris’ correct anatomical gender.
But it’s also possible that Berry declined to do so, because to make a point of it would require a police report to back up his assertion.
And Berry evidently had no intention of writing a report, while Skala’s courtesy-ride job was still pending.
If Berry initiated a police report of his hospital case while Skala’s courtesy-ride job was open and pending, documentation of the ride would be inevitable — because the incidents were linked by the dispatcher.
So Berry evidently waited until Skala told the dispatcher her job was unfounded, thus voiding Morris’ 6th District tracking numbers.
Three minutes later, at 4:06 a.m. Dec. 22, 2002, Berry went over police radio and told the dispatcher to give Morris 9th District tracking numbers because she was a hospital case.
The belated unfounded designation for the ride is apparently due to Skala’s misperception that Morris was neither the Key West 911 target nor the Walnut Street 911 target.
The 911 tapes, however, show that Skala wasn’t confused at all about Morris’ status as a 911-target outside Key West.
Skala can be heard telling the dispatcher that she located the drunk female, and that medics can be canceled because she’s giving the person a ride to 15th and Walnut.
On the tapes, Skala said nothing about the incident being unfounded at that juncture.
However, there may be other evidence in support of Skala’s belief that Morris wasn’t the 911 target at Key West, which hasn’t yet been released by local authorities.
Morris is taken back to 6th District
The tapes show that Berry remained in the vicinity of the crime scene for 37 minutes -— until 4:06 a.m., when medics began transporting a brain-dead Morris to Jefferson University Hospital, which is in the 6th District.
Critics of the policework on this case have noted that it’s unusual for any officer to spend 37 minutes at a potential crime scene without writing an onsite report, or accompanying an unconscious person to a hospital for more information.
No direct communication among Skala, Novak and/or Berry can be heard on the tapes during that time period.
But later that morning, all three officers went to Jefferson, where they agreed that Morris probably was a hospital case, not a crime victim. Thus, the 9th District tracking numbers that Berry secured for her would suffice.
Berry was tasked with the responsibility of writing a police report about the hospital case.
Skala and Novak filled in their patrol logs to reflect that they spent varying amounts of time on the hospital case — both before and after the subject became unconscious.
The structuring of their paperwork allows officers to convey pre-injury observations of Morris to supervisors and hospital staff — which bolster their slip-and-fall theory — without going into details about the ride.
And the time periods recorded in the logs give the impression that Berry spotted the hospital case first, rendering it understandable that he would be the officer to write the report.
911 recordings undermine Berry’s report
In his report, Berry cited 911 caller William Jackson as a “witness” who caused him to believe Morris was probably a slip-and-fall victim.
But Jackson never expressed any such opinion about Morris on the 911 tape.
To the contrary, Jackson clearly stated that he didn’t know what happened to Morris.
The 911 recordings also corroborate Jackson’s statement to investigators that Oscar Padilla was the first person to show up at the Walnut Street scene.
And Padilla told investigators that a taxi cab was actually ahead of him, but didn’t stick around.
To this day, Berry has never explained why he didn’t interview Padilla.
Information about a possible hit-and-run taxi driver would necessitate a report, yet the timeline seems to suggest that Berry had no intention of writing one until well after Skala’s job was deemed unfounded.
Berry’s report corrects gender mistake at Walnut Street
Berry’s report describes Morris as a “John Doe” male, but it also indicates that Berry thought Morris was a post-operative “transsexual” female — before going to Jefferson and learning otherwise.
That would explain Berry’s inaccurate statement over police radio about Morris being a female.
But it also points to confusion Berry and Skala may have cited to investigators when explaining why Skala apparently indicated to their dispatcher at 4:03 a.m. that Berry’s hospital case wasn’t her ride recipient.
The official police story is that Berry happened upon Skala and Morris at the ride’s conclusion.
If Skala told Berry that Morris was transgender (thinking he understood she meant pre-operative) and Berry referred to his hospital case over police radio as a female (thinking Skala meant post-operative), that could explain why Skala didn’t make the connection.
Fractured skull not documented
Novak was in charge of the fact-gathering process at Jefferson because he was routinely assigned to the facility, and hospital personnel didn’t call for a 9th District officer because they had no idea where Morris came from.
But after summoning Berry and Skala for help in figuring out what happened to Morris, Novak apparently ceded his report-writing duty to Berry.
He could do that because the officers concluded that Berry’s initial assessment was probably correct: Morris was a hospital case, not a crime victim.
If Morris had been deemed a crime victim, a different approach to the paperwork would be needed.
In that scenario, Novak would have to write a report, because the information he gathered at the hospital triggered Morris’ new status as a crime victim.
Documentation of the courtesy ride would be inevitable, because the ride couldn’t be camouflaged with “hospital case” designations in the patrol logs any longer.
But since the officers didn’t think Morris was a crime victim, there was no need for Novak to write a report, nor document any information he gathered about Morris’ head injury.
And since Berry ostensibly didn’t know anything about Morris’ fractured skull at Walnut Street, he was under no obligation to document it in his report.
So Berry wrote a very vague report, and Novak noted his time at Jefferson in his patrol log as meeting with a “complainant” whom Berry had already written a report about.
Thus, the officers had no documentation of the courtesy ride and Morris’ subsequent assault.
It is uncertain whether this was all due to a series of coincidences or deliberate manipulation remains.