Police release 911 recordings

The 14-year-old girl on the phone said she was scared.

Her stepdad hit her, and he threatened to do it again if she called police, she told the 911 dispatcher.

Now he was at the front door.

"Please hurry," she sobbed.

Las Vegas police officer James Manor and another officer got the call. They were speeding her way when a pickup turned left in front of Manor's patrol car early that May 7 morning. The collision killed the 28-year-old Manor, whose car was hurtling along Flamingo Road at 109 mph with no emergency lights or sirens.

The incident that led to Manor's fatal crash began about 15 minutes earlier.

The girl called 911 at 12:33 a.m. and reported the violent confrontation with her stepfather in their apartment at Flamingo and Jones Boulevard, according to 911 call recordings released Friday.

She said he was mad because her 7-year-old sister was "throwing a huge fit."

She said he hit her and gave her a black eye before leaving to pick up her mother at the hospital.

"He said if I called the cops he's going to come home and beat my ass. That's why I'm scared," she said.

"Don't worry about it," the dispatcher said. "We're going to send an officer over."

Ten minutes later the girl called again, crying.

"My stepdad just got here and he's ... going to hit me even more," she said. "Just please hurry."

She locked the front door. Someone was knocking. He had a key, she said.

The door opened and the voices of a woman and man can be heard in the background.

"Who's on the phone?" the man demanded.

"Nobody," the girl replied.

The woman asked about broken things in the apartment, and the phone hung up.

The dispatcher called back three times. The first two were busy. The girl's mother picked up on the third try.

"She's got anger issues. Very, very bad ones," the mother explained.

She said her daughter had been kicked out of school and both her uncle's and grandmother's houses. She said she was going to take her daughter in for mental health treatment.

The dispatcher asked about her husband's whereabouts.

The mother said he was gone.

"He's scared to death that she's lying about him," she said. "I'm not going to let you arrest him for no reason."

The dispatcher asked about the black eye.

There was no black eye, the mother said.

"I would know," she said. "I've seen black eyes. I've had black eyes. My ex-husband's in prison."

Throughout the six-minute call, the girl sobbed in the background.

When her mother implied that the girl had hit herself, the girl screamed.

"I did not hurt myself! He did," she said.

"Nobody has been beaten here," the mother told the dispatcher.

The dispatcher ended the call shortly after sirens were heard passing in the background.

In the aftermath of the crash, Las Vegas police arrested the truck's driver, 45-year-old Calvin Darling, on charges of drunken driving causing death and failing to yield to an emergency vehicle. He was released from jail when tests showed his blood-alcohol level was less than half the legal limit, and Sheriff Doug Gillespie said Wednesday that police probably would change the charges in light of Manor's driving.

Officers arrived at the apartment about an hour later and left without making an arrest. The incident remained under internal investigation, but the girl will not face criminal charges in connection with the call, police said.

Contact reporter Brian Haynes at bhaynes@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0281.