Posted: 5/5/2007 6:13:13 PM EDT
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Just came on at a new agency and learned there is no dispatch the first day there is some paperwork on order, but it keeps getting postponed anyone else in this situation and how do you deal with it? |
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I working LE with no dispatch you know the people who answer your radio calls and tell you where to go to do your job? There isn't any dispatch on the other end of the radio Just a buncha officers with radios who have to keep in contact so they arent found 3 weeks later dead and bloated in some bushes the perosn who killed them dragged them into |
| I knew of one small town where calls to the police went directly to the on duty officer via cellphone. It was funny because you could hear the caller on a scanner while they yelled, screamed, and cursed at the officer. Not a good system because there was no one to check on the status of the officer unless officers of the neighboring town were notified, or just happened to catch the scanner traffic. Around here the largest city dispatches for all towns in the county, with the county also chipping in to run plates, license status, and warrant checks. |
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So what happens when you go our on traffic and drop an officer assist and I am just comming back in from traffic and didnt hear your location? Whos gonna tell me where you are? Even though everyone never really cares about their dispatchers (for the most part) as a former dispatcher turned police officer, i recognize that dispatchers are one of the most critical assests to a police officer. |
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That's a situation that I wouldn't want to be in ..... but came close a few times to being in. Hopefully, you might find something useful in what I relate. From my military police days (I know, I say that a lot, but I want to make sure where I am coming from is understood): Dispatchers were almost always pregnant service members. Almost but not always. There was a constant push for a long time to assign my department a minimal for an 16-18 hour coverage with the rest of the time being covered by either the dispatcher of the higher command across the river or the base duty section on a walkie-talkie. We convinced manpower that eithe option was unacceptable. The former was unacceptable because across the river would be committed to their problems, their officers first and we would be secondary. The latter was unacceptable because a daily changing duty section would mean changing expertise, hardly any expertise of whoever was handling the radio, on police communications, handling traffic stops, and so forth. Moreso, the Command Duty Officer, while responsible for the base during off hours, would not be experienced in police matters, how I ran my department. Having dispatch handled by the duty section left it open to the possiblity of a conflict of operation. Two things rather solved our dispatcher problems. First, the station was moved internal to the base to right next to the main gate. This allowed us to run permits and passes from the station house in a more formal matter with the dispatcher doing that duty; before, the gate sentry did it in a less formal matter. As that permits and ID's was a 24 hour duty, the dispatcher was a 24/7 duty. Secondly, we extensively cross trained at various levels. The road to police officer qualification was first being qualified as a gate sentry, then dispatcher, then as an officer. Gate sentries were cross trained as dispatchers, useful incase comms had to be shifted to the gate house. Auxilery Security Force was also crossed trained as dispatchers, sentries. To a degree. A qualified and very experienced dispatcher, then, for my department, could handle radio comms, calls to the State police for traffic stops (this was the late 80's, no internet then), permits and passes, phone calls for bomb threats, HQ updating, and so forth. An untrained or unexperienced one, on the other hand, might get flustered, disorganized, when things get hectic such as during bomb threats. Of course, these days, dispatchers have computers, 911, and such ALTHOUGH your situation sounds similar to mine back then. Just the radio. What can be done? While it is theoretically possible to run a link between a whole bunch of walkie-talkies, that's an emergency situation, it shouldn't be standard operation. Essentially, in my humble, if dated, opinion, find someway to convince the powers that be, the accountants, that a permanent dispatcher is needed. If it is a joint center as I understand many are now, okay. If you need to find another duty that the dispatcher can do and combine those duties, such as I did with 24/7 permits and passes, then perhaps that is a way to go. Maybe the push can come from mission angles. One of things we did, back then, was that since the station house was away from most buildings on base, the dispatcher could use her radio, had the phones, to keep us informed when we couldn't use our radios. Ie, if there was a bomb threat internal to the base, we couldn't transmit out but she could tell us if the bomb dogs were coming, ETA, when they were on the base, and so forth. She was outside the environment while on the other hand, a command duty officer, the watch shift leader, perhaps myself, we would be down at the site. Having the leader with the radio to coordinate others over their radios would be unworkable in such a situation. Finally, I remember this situation from a public safety diver's workshop when I was out of the Navy. They were on a shoestring, they went back to their accountants asking for more money to do the job right, safely, and were told no, no more money. Since they didn't have the funds for it, the dive leader said that the region couldn't have a dive team ..... and afew weeks later, when a dive mission came up but no team, they got the funds. Hope what I've said here helps, if only to a degree. -------------------------------------------------------- ([reading a list of complaints from the network censor] "I have noted three 'damns,' four 'hells,' sixteen cases of sexual innuendo, a reference to self-abuse, two veiled remarks about network presidents, and a joke about the Son of God." Doesn't say which god."--Theora Jones, Edison's "dispatcher" "I'm sure it's the current one. It's probably the guy who's running the censor computer."--Edison Carter, (w,stte), "Max Headroom") |
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Well I primarily work on islands off the coast in the atlantic, the local PDs dont have boats so if I need officer assistance it comes from one of my 5 coworkers, and almost always atleast an hour out, therefor Im almost always on my own. Primary patrol is on an ATV, but sometimes foot, pickup, or boat. The county dispatch is also dispatch for 7 or 8 surrounding community PDs They are almost always busy and we get set on the backburner. We have to call them on a cell for info, and if they are busy they wont run them for us. It is a mess and I wish I had known before hand before jumping over. We're hoping to get on with another dispatch that runs the fisheries dept, but only time will tell if that works out. |