Re: 911:: The Rest of the Story Re: Who, ME??

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 3/25/00 10:51:56 AM Eastern Standard Time,

kjkinsey@... writes:

> The biggest problem we have at my agency is this: calltakers coding this

> call as " assist a citizen " rather than " disorder " . As a dispatcher, if I

> get this type of call coded assist a citizen, I change it to disorder

before

> dispatching. Assist a citizen is a catch-all, low priority, single officer

> call. If two people are to the point that they need police officers to

sort

> out their stuff, then there need to be two officers assigned for officer

> safety!

>

We have the same problem at my agency. We have one individual who will write

up calls like this when we are busy and her excuse is that we don't have an

officer available to respond. She thinks it looks better if a lower priority

service call waits for a while versus a trouble call. I have a real problem

with this. I would rather know that it is a potential trouble call and try

to find an officer that can leave the call he is on and respond. If I don't

have an officer who can respond, I will advise the shift Sgt. over the radio

that I have a potential trouble call. Also it's an officer safety issue. If

it's that busy that we don't have officers available, then maybe it's that

busy to actually read all the other info on the call and the dispatcher may

just go by the service code. Next thing you know an officer is in trouble

and requesting help.

[Guest guest]

It is amazing to me the amount of blame that officers, administration, and

the public place on dispatchers when something gets messed up. The Sgt's

comments in this matter was wrong, the SGt

should be talking with his bumm officer and not looking at your actions. My

former dept was a single dispatcher after 2 am, I had more then one person

come into the office wanting an assist. I made

the officers come to the pd, everytime. My question to you is this, where

was the Sgt when the officer was being a bumm?

The best rule for dispatching. Take it, and give it to someone else

as quickly and SAFELY as possible.

Joe Fehr

Ramsey Co So

***Personal opinions expressed are not the official policy of my employer,

or anyone else for that****

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[Guest guest]

Was the call aired on the radio? In my dept the Sgts are pretty good about

hearing if officers don't check out on calls, regardless of where they are.

Joe Fehr

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[Guest guest]

You assume they are paying attention...........

Joe Fehr

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[Guest guest]

The thing that gets me most about the replies is the way says they do

it at her agency. I am astonished at that! In my state, there is a county

just north of mine (for you TN people, Sequatchie) where the sheriff is

being SUED by a woman who was shot by her estranged hubby. Wife was at work

at a convenience store, hubby walked in and shot her. He was recently

convicted of att. murder. The wife has sued the sheriff on the grounds that

they knew he was a danger to her and they did nothing. They were not even

called until after he shot her, so I don't see how that can be claimed, but

it is. I would think that if the sheriff's dept is called " to prevent a

problem " and they refuse to respond, and someone gets hurt or killed, there

would be a major liability issue for the dept. , I sincerely hope that

this policy is in writing, for your protection.

The biggest problem we have at my agency is this: calltakers coding this

call as " assist a citizen " rather than " disorder " . As a dispatcher, if I

get this type of call coded assist a citizen, I change it to disorder before

dispatching. Assist a citizen is a catch-all, low priority, single officer

call. If two people are to the point that they need police officers to sort

out their stuff, then there need to be two officers assigned for officer

safety!

Kim

[Guest guest]

----- Original Message -----

>

>

>

.. My question to you is this, where

> was the Sgt when the officer was being a bumm?

>

> The best rule for dispatching. Take it, and give it to someone else

> as quickly and SAFELY as possible.

>

> Joe Fehr

> Ramsey Co So

The Sgt. was in his patrol car, and you are right....we take 'em and we give

em out. The call certainly didn't look like a domestic when she came in.

She just said she needed an office to standby while she got her property, it

should only take a couple of minutes. We get at least half a dozen of these

calls on 2nd shift every day. The officer shows, property is recovered and

everyone is on their way. Too bad step #1 didn't happen in a timely fashion

or this wouldn't have turned into a cluster.

Lyn

magik@...

[Guest guest]

911:: The Rest of the Story Re: Who, ME??

>

>

> It should be noted that the woman who came in is a frequent flyer and

so is the guy at the address I dispatched to. Many times frequent flyer

calls are taken w/a grain of salt by those responding

And we all know that too much salt can be very bad for you.....

>But something as obvious as ignoring a call for 20 minutes is

ludicrous. Especially if you are just sitting on station shooting the s**t.

Absolutely - but the size of the time delay isn't really the point. What is

important is that the officer didn't maintain control of the situation (in

fact he never had control).

We had a very similar incident involving a custody dispute a couple of weeks

ago. In this case the officers did everything that your guy didn't - spoke

to the party at the police station, planned what they were going to do, and

gave instructions to the lady. Then they drove to the target address. Lady

in her car, officers followed in the Police vehicle. En-route the officers

were delayed in traffic and arrived at the address about a minute behind

her - just in time to see her die on the ground from stab wounds inflicted

by her husband. In her excitement she had ignored the plan and rushed into

the house thinking the police were just behind......

The dispatcher who handled this call did everything right, but was still

pretty shaken, and worried that there was something more she could have

done - (yes - she and the officers involved all received critical incident

debrief and seem to be OK now),

But - no matter how hard we try, something can always go wrong. And it will

often be a result of acting on assumptions - (in this case assuming that the

lady would remember and follow the instructions she had been given about

waiting for the officers outside the house).

Brill

Auckland New Zealand