News and some comments

[Guest guest]

Our department was involved in another shooting incident on 4/27. This one was

in a rural area of rolling hills within the city limits of Bakersfield - handled

by one of our other Comm Centers, not mine - and unlike " ours " on Sunday, the

suspect shot at the officer. (By the way, our officer suffered broken ribs when

his patrol unit was rammed, and he's now out of the hospital and will be

assigned limited duty office tasks for a while.)

In this new incident, the officer had stopped to check on a possible disabled

vehicle. A man exited the car with a .410 gauge shotgun and shot at him before

running away. He's in custody now, and the officer was only slightly injured by

the shotgun pellets. (Thank god for ballistic vests!)

I'm mentioning it because the department is arranging for post incident

counseling for the involved dispatchers as well as for the officers. The

shooting incident we handled on Easter Sunday also generated the offer of CISD

for our dispatchers. (That officer suffered broken ribs from his vehicle being

rammed by the suspect vehicle; he fired in self-defense. When he announced

" Shots fired! " and subsequently asked for an ambulance - code 3 - for himself,

we really didn't know all the details for far too many minutes....)

Anyway, it's really nice to see how much better our department has become in

acknowledging the need for including dispatchers in CISD.

When our department has an unusual incident, a CommNet message is sent to all

Area Offices, the Commissioner's Office and all of our Comm Centers. These

messages always list everyone and all the players (brothers, sisters, cousins,

uncles and aunts, to quote Gilbert and Sullivan...) but seldom with any

reference to the voices behind the radio consoles. My Division - Coastal - is

much better at listing dispatchers in these Unusual Incident CommNets than most

of the other divisions throughout the state. (I'm always sniping at " my "

sergeants to make sure a CommNet goes out of our Areas with the most important

players listed. I've even asked sergeants if they " handled all that whole

incident all by themselves, without using their radios? " to get the point

across.)

This morning at 0544 hours, a tractor/trailer combination loaded with 31,000

pounds of lemons overturned and spilled the entire load of lemons on the

highway. (In Ventura County, handled by one of our " sister " Centers.) The

highway was closed for 5 hours, with CalTrans called out, detours set up, etc.

And the dispatchers were listed on the CommNet message!

<snoopydance>

(Not a single sour expression for anybody..... heheheehheehhe)

If they remember to list 'em for the fairly normal, routine, non-thrilling

" unusual " incidents, there's a far better chance they'll acknowledge 'em in for

BIG ones, too!

Happy to be here, proud to serve.