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'Dig deeper': Experts question response to initial 911 call in Zay Flowers case

Darcy Costello and Cassidy Jensen, Baltimore Sun on

Published in Football

BALTIMORE — The exchange through a Ring doorbell was brief, and the door never opened.

A Baltimore County Police officer outside the Owings Mills home was following up phone calls with a woman who dialed 911, then hung up, and was described as “in distress” when a dispatcher called her back.

But the woman behind the door sounded confused, asking what address police wanted and then, “Is there a problem?”

“Yeah, you called the police,” the officer answered.

“I did — I did not. I just woke up,” the woman replied.

With that, the interaction, recorded on police body-camera video, ended.

 

“OK, have a good day,” the officer said as she turned away, heading back down the snowy steps that led to her squad car. She never saw anyone inside the home.

That January 911 call would, days later, become part of a report by a woman who alleged to police in Massachusetts that she suffered bruises in a “violent” domestic incident involving Ravens wide receiver Zay Flowers. A subsequent criminal investigation in Baltimore County closed without charges against Flowers. The NFL announced last month that it would not discipline him, citing insufficient evidence that Flowers did anything that violated its policy.

While the official investigations are over, the county police department’s initial response raises broader questions about how it handles calls requesting checks on people or locations. The patrol officer’s interaction at the door was brief, and while she was at the address a dispatcher provided, it appears to have been the wrong location and the officer left without knocking on other doors.

The officer was dispatched to a unit in the same building as the home that real estate records indicated Flowers bought in 2023. Dispatch records indicate the address police used was generated by geolocation that incorporated data from the 911 caller’s cellphone, a method that can produce an imprecise location.

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