I Guess There's A Bit Of Controversy Surrounding The Suicide Of Lawrence Phillips

TMZ- TMZ Sports has obtained the Lawrence Phillips' 911 call -- in which a prison staffer tells the operator to send help because the ex-NFL star "has attempted suicide right now."

During the call, the staffer says he's in the dark about Lawrence's condition or how he tried to take his own life ... but says he was instructed by other Kern Valley State Prison staffers to call for an ambulance asap.  

By the way, officials say the call came in to 911 at 12:14 AM -- 9 MINUTES after prison officials say they found Phillips unresponsive in his cell.  

As we previously reported, Phillips' next of kin -- along with his biological mother and his lawyer -- do NOT believe Lawrence committed suicide ... and are demanding an investigation into the death. 

Prison officials say Phillips was found unresponsive in his cell early Wednesday morning and was pronounced dead 90 minutes later after he was transported to a nearby hospital. 



Wait, am I supposed to feel badly for Lawrence Phillips? Is that's what is happening here? The former athlete that assaulted his girlfriend, amongst a host of other charges, and then killed his cellmate while he was serving his sentence? Is that who we are mustering up sympathy for? I don't think that anyone should wait nine minutes to make a phone call when a life is potentially at risk, but before I criticize the decision I want to know what that person was doing for those nine minutes. 

Was he checking emails? Refilling his coffee? Staring intently at his computer screen as if to look like he was working diligently? Swiping through Tinder? Masturbating? Reading this very blog? All those things are infinitely more important than getting Lawrence Phillips medical help in a timely fashion. As long as this guy was doing something other than looking directly at his watch then I can excuse the delay in communication. To put it simply, I don't think the health of a career criminal - that's spending the rest of his life in prison - necessarily has to be a priority. I'm not exactly marking that one as urgent. I can think of a lot of more important things to tend to than his last breath. In fact, it's harder for me to think of things I wouldn't rather be doing than keeping him alive. So I'm not really sure what we are implying here. I think it's that the Kern Valley State Prison either had a hand in his death, or was complicit in letting his suicide end successfully (AKA watched him die slowly), but I really don't see the need to spend more than 9 minutes trying to figure it out. The guy is dead and pretty much the entire world - including his fellow convicts - are better off because of it. No need to confuse ourselves with the logistics when the result is so overwhelmingly positive.