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‘I was held at gunpoint with my two very small children:’ Orangeville man speaks out against delayed response from police during home invasion

December 12, 2024   ·   0 Comments

By Paula Brown, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

From a young age, many of us are taught that when you’re in danger or experiencing an emergency, the first step is to pick up the phone and call 911.

For Orangeville resident Theo Meadows, in his moment of crisis, he found his calls for help put on hold.

Shortly before 5 a.m. on Nov. 3, Meadows was lying awake in bed when a rustling sound at his front door prompted him to get up and head downstairs. It wasn’t until he made it down the flight of stairs that he realized the sound he had heard was breaking glass.

“My brain couldn’t figure out what was going on. I walked down stairs to see what was going on and I look at the front door and I see this guy breaking through the glass. He stuck the gun up at me through the window,” recalled Meadows.

He said he ran back upstairs to the second floor of his home, first closing the doors to the bedrooms his five-year-old daughter and two-year-old son were sleeping in, and then grabbing his phone to call for help.

“I was able to let off one 911 call and it got put on hold. I tried to hang up, because my idea was, hang up and call right back and that’ll go through,” said Meadows. “By the time I hung up, all of them were inside my room.”

Meadow described how in the next moments he was grabbed, pinned to his bed and held at gunpoint while the intruders demanded money and valuables.

It was at this moment that Meadow’s five-year-old daughter opened her bedroom door and the gunman turned from him to point the gun at her.

“I was physically being confined to my bed while someone held a gun against my daughter and I was watching; me and her had our eyes locked on each other,” said Meadows. “I’ve fought myself since then thinking how could I have let this happen.”

Meadows said he told the armed group there was a safe in his closet and while the armed intruder went downstairs to retrieve the keys for the safe, he was able to make a second and third call to 911.

“I called 911 again and was put on hold again. I tried to call them back but I didn’t have time because he was upstairs again,” said Meadows.

From there, Meadows told the armed group that he didn’t have any other valuables, which led them to flee the house. With the group gone, Meadows made a call to 911 for a fourth time and finally connected with an operator, but they couldn’t hear him properly.

“At this point I’m thinking why am I even trying to call anyways, they’re not going to do anything,” said Meadows. “It was a very scary thing that happened.”  

No injuries were reported from the Nov. 3 incident, but the entire experience has left Meadows questioning his safety.

“I was held at gunpoint with my two very small children, absolutely defenseless in my house and 911 wouldn’t respond,” said Meadows.

While the OPP said they can’t comment on Meadow’s case, as it’s an ongoing police investigation, Dufferin OPP media officer Cst. Andrew Fines did note that home invasions with weapons are not a common occurrence in Dufferin County.

According to statistics from the Dufferin OPP detachment, in 2022 there were 86 reported incidents of breaking and entering incidents in Dufferin County, in 2023 there were 108 reported incidents and to date, in 2024 there have been 54 reported cases.

“It’s an unfortunate situation that occurred,” said Fines.

Speaking with the Citizen, Meadows said he wanted to share his story to make other residents aware of what happened and prompt changes in how 911 calls are responded to in Dufferin County, so it doesn’t happen to other families.

The County of Dufferin is the 911 Authority for the eight municipalities within the region and has contracted a third-party dispatching system called Northern911 to serve as the Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP).

When a call is placed to 911 in Dufferin County, a call-taker will answer asking if the individual needs police, fire or ambulance. Based on the caller’s answers they are transferred to the emergency dispatch they need. During this time, the PSAP call taker remains on the line to ensure the caller is connected to a dispatcher before disconnecting from the call.

In a 2023 General Government Services budget package for the County of Dufferin, it was reported there were a total of 14,242 calls made to 911 in 2022 in Dufferin County. Recent reports indicate that in 2023 there were 15,766 calls to 911.

According to the County of Dufferin, 90 per cent of all 911 calls arriving at the PSAP are answered within 15 seconds and 95 per cent of the calls should be answered within 20 seconds. Northern911 has a reported average answering time of 5.9 seconds, which is less than one ring cycle.

The County of Dufferin has seven possible dispatch centres that callers can be connected to during an emergency, but calls for police are singularly routed to the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Call Centre in Orillia.

“On the morning in question the County of Dufferin’s PSAP, operated by Northern911, functioned as designed and each call was directed to the OPP dispatch centre without unnecessary delay,” said Steve Murphy, manager of Preparedness and 911 for Dufferin County.

It’s at the OPP dispatch centre where the issue took place.

Being left on hold by the OPP during his family’s emergency has left Meadows with significant distrust in the ability of 911 call centres to respond without delay.

“I was put on hold multiple times by OPP and I had given up on calling,” said Meadows. “I know if I call 911, they’re not showing up and nothing could convince me otherwise.”

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