By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Three Prince George's County emergency communications workers have been placed on paid administrative leave while county authorities investigate whether they mishandled a 911 call from a music engineer who was fatally shot last week.

It appears that two 911 call-takers and one supervisor in the county emergency communications office "did not follow established procedures" in the early-morning hours Friday, when sound engineer Raymond Brown was killed, county public safety director Vernon Herron said yesterday.

"Information was not recorded properly and probably not dispatched properly," Herron said.

Brown, known professionally as Scottie Beats, called 911 early Friday to report that his car was being towed from his home in the Lake Arbor neighborhood in Mitchellville. Emergency dispatchers apparently treated the incident as a repossession rather than a theft and told him to call back later, two sources familiar with the case said. The sources asked not to be identified because the investigation is open.

As the tow truck driver left with the Chrysler 300, Brown, 36, followed in another car and was shot by the person or people in the tow truck, police said. A 911 call came in at 2:30 a.m. to report the shooting. It was entered into the dispatch system and was forwarded to police and emergency workers. The caller stayed on the phone until police arrived, Herron said.

The possible mishandling of Brown's call dismayed friends of the popular music industry figure, who was credited as the producer on the CD "Crunk Juice" by Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz and as an engineer on "Rebirth" by Jennifer Lopez.

"Oh, man, if [the dispatchers] would have got on top of it, Scottie probably wouldn't have left the house," said his friend Judah, owner of the Science Lab music studio in Temple Hills. "Something bad like this couldn't have happened to a better guy."

One of the sources said the outcome might have been the same even if Brown's call had been handled differently.

Prince George's police said that the investigation is ongoing and that the tow truck, described as a black crane-type of vehicle with white or red lettering, had not been recovered. No arrests had been made, police said.

Today, friends of Brown's plan to stop at the Night Flight Recording Studios in Fort Washington to record a DVD that will be played at his funeral Friday at the Reid Temple AME Church in Glenn Dale.

Herron said he hoped to complete his review in about a week.

"We have a murderer out there who has not been captured, that is paramount at this point," Herron said. "That is a person who valued a vehicle over Mr. Brown's life."

Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.