On June 2, Talija Campbell received a series of frantic texts from her husband Qualin Campbell. Not only did Qualin send “his wife a photo of a man she didn’t recognize sitting beside him in the passenger seat of his car. He’d also dropped a pin sharing his location.”
Qualin’s next panicked text read, “911,” before typing what would be his final message, “Send please!”
Talija immediately dialed 911, telling “the emergency dispatcher that she believed her husband was being held hostage in Colorado Springs and needed someone to check on him.”
But, unfortunately help was not on the way. During a press conference Talija claimed that the call-taker lacked a “sense of urgency in her voice.” She explained, “That didn’t sit right with me. So, I decided to drive to the location that he shared.”
After arriving at the location from her husband’s pin drop, police were still not there, despite the fact that it was almost an hour after she had originally placed the 911 call.
Talija was met with her worst nightmare—she saw her husband “‘slumped over’ in the driver’s seat of his car next to an unknown man with a gun in his lap.”
“I fell to my knees and I started screaming,” Talija said, as she recalled the horrifying moment. She then tried to resuscitate him, saying “It was me that had to try to perform CPR on my husband in a pool of blood. I shouldn’t have been the one to have to do that.”
Police identified the other man in the car as 44-year-old David Karels, and “confirmed the incident is being investigated as a murder-suicide.”
Harry Daniels, a civil rights attorney from Georgia, who’s representing Talija, stated “No law officers came until Campbell was found dead having bled out from a gunshot to the abdomen roughly an hour later.”
Attorney Daniels and his client are demanding answers—believing that a quicker response from police could have saved the father of two’s life. “I can’t think of anything that could take higher precedence than a hostage situation, except maybe an active shooter,” said Daniels.
They both “want to know how many officers were on duty and available when her 911 call was made and what other calls took precedence. A call log on Campbell’s phone shows she called 911 at 1:13 p.m. An incident report from police shows officers were dispatched about an hour later – at 2:09 p.m.”
The Colorado Springs Police Department, released a statement “our condolences go out to Mr. Campbell’s family, who we know are suffering greatly. Our top priority is to provide them with answers.” The statement continued, “We are aware there is information circulating about this case, and we understand the concerns and questions that arise as a result. We will continue to gather all relevant details about Mr. Campbell’s death and ensure the accuracy of our findings.”