COLORADO SPRINGS — The widow of a man killed in a murder-suicide in Colorado Springs last June is still searching for answers about his death.
The Colorado Springs Police Department (CSPD) said 31-year-old Qualin Campbell was found dead inside his company vehicle at a parking lot along South Nevada Avenue in between the Taco Bell and Wendy's. Police said another man, later identified as David Karels, was dead in the passenger seat of the car with a gun in his lap. It was an apparent murder-suicide and, according to police, both men died from gunshot wounds.
Tali'Ja Campbell, Qualin's wife, said she had no idea who the man in the passenger seat was or how he got into her husband's car. She still has many questions about that day, including why her call to police about a frightening text message from her husband was not set at a higher priority.
"911 Send please!" was the text Qualin sent her at 1:07 p.m. that day, along with his location and a picture of the unknown man in his passenger seat. Tali'Ja called 911 a few minutes later and was transferred to a CSPD call taker at 1:15 p.m., according to dispatch logs obtained by News5.
In an audio recording of the 911 call, Tali'Ja describes the text from her husband to the call taker and goes on to say, "I don't know if this is like a hostage thing. I'm not sure what's going on. I tried to call him and he's not, he's no longer answering."
Dispatch logs show the call taker placed the call as priority two for an unknown call for assistance. The call taker told Tali'Ja dispatchers would send units as soon as possible and to call back if she got more information.
Tali'Ja, who was at her home in Peyton, said she decided to make the nearly 45-minute drive to the location her husband sent her.
"When I got there, I was surprised to see that there were no police officers there," she said. "I could see that he [Qualin] was slumped over and so it was at that moment that I fell to my knees, and I was like, 'He's dead.'"
Tali'Ja's uncle met her at the scene and made another call to 911, nearly an hour after Tali'Ja's call. News5 obtained the audio recording of the call, where he describes a "strange man" sitting in Qualin's passenger seat with a gun, describing both men to be "asleep or knocked out."
The 911 call from Tali'Ja's uncle was placed as priority one for a shooting, according to dispatch logs. The first officer arrived 10 minutes later at 2:20 p.m. CSPD said both men were found dead at the scene from gunshot wounds in an apparent murder-suicide.
"When we got the results from the coroner, it turned out that he was actually shot in his chest and in the back of his leg," said Tali'Ja. "We don't know exactly what time he was shot, or when the man got in the car. I just, I don't know, right?"
Through records requests to police, News5 learned Qualin was the first person to call 911 for help that day. Dispatch logs show he called 911 at 1:09 p.m., just a few minutes after sending the text message to his wife. In the audio recording, a call taker answers the phone, and a person on the other end of the line is heard breathing heavily.
“He did a lot to save his own life, and unfortunately, it wasn't enough. So it's like, what is enough?" said Tali'Ja.
She said her unanswered questions about that day still keep her up at night. How did the man get into Qualin's car? Why was he in there? But her main question remains the same: Would Qualin still be alive today if police responded faster? It took officers more than 65 minutes to get to the scene from the time Tali'Ja called for help.
Tali'Ja said her call to the police should've been placed at the highest priority, instead of priority two for an unknown call.
"It doesn't make sense that she would put his call basically as unknown... when I've given you an ample amount of information. So it wasn't unknown. I told you what I thought it was," she said. "I think there should be an effective change to their priority system. You know, like I said, if I was able to put context clues together and say, 'This isn't right,' then I would think that a dispatcher who was trained in that field would also be able to do the same, but she didn't that day."
News5 reached out to Colorado Springs Police for an interview about their response to the shooting. A spokesperson denied the request but sent an email including a timeline of the incident and an explanation about how the department prioritizes calls for service. The spokesperson said priority one calls represent a known imminent life-threatening situation that requires immediate action by police, including an active shooter, assault in progress, carjacking, hostage situation, or shooting.
The spokesperson said priority two calls represent a critical situation that's potentially dangerous but no apparent or imminent threat to life, including a burglary in progress, some domestic disturbances, or shots fired.
The CSPD spokesperson also included the following statement:
This situation really captures the difficult decisions our officers, call takers, and dispatchers deal with every day as we work to continually balance the priorities of calls for service and resources we have to respond at any given moment.
Qualin's family said they're still trying to piece together the unknown and have little answers more than a year after his death. Tali'Ja said she would like to see faster response times from police. CSPD said the department's latest city-wide response time data from March shows an average priority one response time of 16 minutes and 37 seconds, while the average priority two response time is 50 minutes and 27 seconds.
CSPD said it has not turned up any surveillance video near the scene that shows the moments the man got into Qualin's car.
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