MEMPHIS, Tenn. — “I don’t know.”
That was Mayor A C Wharton’s response when pushed for details in the drowning death of a teenager at a city pool.
WREG continued to push for answers after a group of teens jumped a fence and one, 13-year-old Cedric Walton, died.
WREG first told you Monday the security camera at the pool went off line Saturday.
The city’s outdoor pools are supposed to be monitored 24/7 using security cameras, but the internet went down over the weekend.
“It’s complicated,” Mayor Wharton said about why a security camera at the community pool on South Orleans was not working when Walton drowned.
The city has a $30,000 contract with Delta Security to monitor the outdoor pools when they are closed, but the company said it called the city to tell them the camera was not live-streaming on Saturday.
Nobody came to fix it.
Two days after the drowning, Mayor Wharton said he was still not sure who was called and who was responsible for calling Delta back to fix the problem.
“We want to ascertain precisely who it was, name, phone number. I should have those details within 24 hours,” he said Tuesday afternoon.
But now, the Mayor’s office said it would be days before it knows anything.
Parents said, while internet problems are understandable, not having a Plan B to monitor the pool was unacceptable, regardless of the holiday weekend.
Mayor Wharton promised he would get to the bottom of it, but parents said it is far too late, especially for the boy’s family.
Mayor Wharton also told WREG he assumed the camera was back up and running Tuesday afternoon.
It was not.
Delta said it hoped to have it running by the end of the day.
