Wagoner County Dispatcher Recalls Triple Shooting Call

The Wagoner County dispatcher who took the call in this week’s triple shooting stayed calm while getting information from Zach Peters and relaying it to deputies.

Related Story: Wagoner County Investigators Interviewing Second Witness To Triple Shooting

When the call came in Monday the voice on the other end of the line was Delaney Thorp, a rookie dispatcher with Wagoner County.

“I do it to help people,” said Thorp. “I answer the call and you know it's a shooting, and I'd never gotten a shooting before so that was my first.”

But listening to her, you'd never know she'd only been on the job for eight months.

“I don't think I had time to be nervous,” she explained. “That sort of situation, we always revert back to a training.”

She's trained to stay cool, calm and collected in a job that can often present some chaotic situations, and she did just that on Monday.

She said her main focus was keeping the victim calm. But at the same time, she had to relay all the information the victim was giving. It goes into a system where her partners push it out to deputies.

“We do all we can to help people and make sure that we get help to them quickly,” she stated.

Help was on the scene in four minutes. And once the dispatcher hangs up, a call like Monday's can be hard to shake.

“It's a little bit difficult to let go of that, but that's the job,” she said. “We have to be able to separate our lives from our work.”

Thorp worked about eight more hours after taking the shooting call Monday, and her boss said she did it like a pro, not a rookie.

When she got home, she decompressed and learned the oldest of the home intruders that was killed was the same age as her, just 19. 

“It's strange knowing we are in two completely different situations, and you were the same age,” she said.

Thorp starts school this fall.