"Um, he's just yelling at her saying, 'Give me the keys now,'" said a girl on the 911 call.
Just before 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 14, an 11-year-old Hayward girl called police to report her parents were violently fighting over the car keys. Their screaming can be heard escalating throughout the eight-minute 911 call. The girl said her dad had been drinking and had a knife.
Dispatcher: "What kind of knife is it?"
Girl: "It's one of those long ones... It's silver."
She said her father, 37-year-old Donny Simmons, had been arrested before. The family has publicly criticized police saying that Simmons was unarmed and shouldn't have been shot.
Girl: "He's going to stab my mom."
Dispatcher: "He has the knife?"
Girl: "Yeah."
Dispatcher: "You can see him?"
Girl: "Yeah... Please hurry."
Hayward police are still investigating the case and aren't commenting, but Hayward Police Sgt. Ken Forkus released a statement to us saying, "We released the tape for the public to understand what was unfolding while officers were responding to the call for service."
Police say they had no choice, but to shoot Simmons. You can hear the gunshots.
Dispatcher: "They're going to kick the door in so stay away, OK?"
Girl: "OK."
Dispatcher: "OK. Are you in your room right now? I want you to stay right where you are, and do exactly what the police tell you, OK?"
A domestic violence counselor we spoke with says the girl will carry the weight of that night for the rest of her life.
"If they give her kindness and love and empathy and say, 'You did the right thing. What you saw, you did what you thought was the best thing at the time, and you are not responsible for what ended up happening," said Kathleen Krenek, the executive director of Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence.
The Alameda County District Attorney's Office is conducting its own investigation into the officer-involved shooting.
