The Interior ministry’s report on the intervention action of the authorities in the Caracal case where a 15-year-old teen girl Alexandra Măceşanu is reportedly missing for one week, with a local confessing to murdering her and another girl, reveals that the officers in the field as well as the police chiefs from Olt County Policy Inspectorate had breached numerous procedures. Moreover, the documents says that the 112 operator from the Olt County police is working alone on a 24-hour shift.
What does the report say?
Alexandra Măceşanu’s father has reported his daughter’s disappearance on July 24 at 20:30, but policemen have kicked off searches only the next day, on July 25 at 08:30. Searches have started late, the report admits.
The ministry also argues that the chief of the police station in the girl’s village, Dobrosloveni, has not reported the situation to his bosses and he conducted searches all by himself on Thursday from 08:00 to 11:00hrs on a small area, without having other policemen to help him.
The head of the Caracal Police, on the other hand, is accused of not sending urgent messages to his superiors in the Olt County Inspectorate to warn them about the gravity of the case and ask for help. “The Caracal Police chief has not reported the case to his superiors and has thus limited the involvement of more agents in the disappearance case,” the report says.
However, a policeman seemed to have informed the deputy chief of the Olt Police Inspectorate about Alexandra’s case, but the chief preferred to attend other unimportant local events, such as the balance sheet meetings of the police sections in some small towns.
“Therefore, the deputy chief has completely ignored the existing information that was available at that time and has taken no decision in this case, and reported about the case only on an internal Whatsapp group”.
The report says that the two deputy chiefs of Olt Police Inspectorate have researched on the case only on Thursday afternoon at 18:30 and have also failed to directly inform the Romanian Police chief about it.
“Although they eventually found out about the case, about the girl’s being kidnapped, none of the two police deputy chiefs have coordinated the teams under their command.”
The Interior Ministry’s report also points that the 112 operators have failed in obtaining enough information from the victim about the location she might have been and in providing advice on how the victim should behave. The 112 operator is also accused of having „a reluctant attitude” towards Alexandra and has thus not complied with the requirements of the job description.
Moreover, it was ascertained that the 112 operator was alone on a 24-hour shift, and he was allowed to take over several calls at the same time “which can reduce his capacity of efficiently managing various risking situations, involving potential victims”.
On top of all, the report mentions that the Special Telecommunications Service (STS) is currently having no capacity to track locations accurately during a phone call.
What is more outraging about the intervention is that an application that would have allowed the information to be sent by the 112 operator to the police chiefs was not working that day.
Just in: The dismissed police chief of the Caracal Police, Nicolae Mirea, has just asked for retirement, submitting the necessary papers to start the retirement procedure.
Nicolae Mirea has been working within the Caracal Police since 1990, and has been named chief as of September 2017.