Police Behaving Badly

911 centers here are having horrible staffing issues. Last summer there was a Saturday night when the Durham 911 center was completely shut down with all calls getting handled by Raleigh and Fayetteville 911 centers.

It was like at 60% of staffed at some point. Critics were claiming that there were plenty of qualified(?) applicants being excluded because they didn't have some kind of local law enforcement experience.. i.e. only inside applicants and there aren't hardly any with the police force and other first responder branches also grossly understaffed. They had applicants on the news with BS or BA in Public Safety and Public Administration who apparently got excluded from any consideration at all because of whatever ... who knows..

Yelling at the person trying to do the job of 5 isn't going to get help there any faster.. bad form for sure..

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Originally Posted by Danno

First off, mad respect and props to you for doing the work that you do. Second, anyone who gives 911 operators shit for an incident like this (at least as it is reported in that article) sucks. Fuck them. I didn't see anything in the article that directed any sense of wrongdoing at the 911 operators.

But beyond that, I am confused about your post. You write that "The bottom line is this just makes an already thankless job more so, and that much more difficult to hire/retain competent personnel to take your call, when every other caller is reaching out just to tell you what a piece of shit you are for wanting to help people." And like I said above, that sucks. But it sounds as if you're complaining about the effect this story has on you and your job, like the reporting somehow is to blame for that effect, and that's the part I am struggling with. Should there not be reporting on this story? Should the reporting somehow be delayed because there's an "investigation"? Over the years, we've all seen how some very heinous acts made in the name of "policing" get swept under the rug (this one is different because the guy is white). So I don't want to wait for the results of the investigation to hear about the event.

The fact that reporting of "911 calls gone wrong because of possible officer malfeasance" may make hiring 911 operators more difficult is not a reason to stop that reporting, IMO. And it seems as if that is what you are asking for, but maybe I am misunderstanding, maybe your post is just venting about how this sucks all around. In which case I definitely agree.

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My problem isn’t with the reporting, it’s with the conclusions people jump to based on thin details, and filling in the blanks to fit their narrative. We’re hearing now that people are blaming dispatch for giving the cops who responded bad intel, which is simply not the case.


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I didn't see anyone here blame dispatch. Dispatch didn't make an officer shoot through the windows of a locked car to kill a trapped person for disobeying them.

Also, we have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get hired on, and that’s just for Dispatch. Patrol is harder.

It took me 6 months to go through the process 14 years ago, and while I’ve tried to accelerate the process, it’s still a lot.

I was just expressing some frustration over the lack of interest in our posted openings yesterday, and I’m extremely reluctant to lower my standards. Hiring and training a dispatcher involves a ton of hard work on the part of the new hire and their trainer(s). I want to hire people who demonstrate they have a fair chance to succeed, and want to give my trainers good material to work with, or risk burning them out and passing people through rather than doing the heavy lifting of documenting performance issues, and working through them so they can perform at an acceptable level.

At the end of the day, I want the people in my community to have a competent dispatcher on the other end of the phone on their worst days, and it’s getting harder and harder to accomplish.


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^^^Thanks for more insights on the hiring and training challenges facing you and others trying to staff the 911 call centers and dispatch operations.

https://www.govtech.com/gov-experien...taff-shortages

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Here’s how AI could help APD: Austin community members can make requests through an app, a website or voice calls. The AI component would come into play for the voice requests, streamlining the process with a “virtual officer” to record some of the basic information a caller provides. For example, if a vehicle was stolen, the AI can ask the caller about the make, model and license plate number of the vehicle.

This type of call would still require a quality assurance check but would otherwise reduce the time staff spend recording primary details about a report.

In addition, AI could allow for automatic transcription and translation of languages other than English. With a large population of Vietnamese, Chinese and Hindi speakers in the city, Murphy said equal language access is a key reason for APD’s consideration of AI.

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Me (last June): there's a flipped sailboat and the sailor can't get it upright. He looks to be getting tired and he's not wearing a wet suit.
Dispatcher: what color is the boat?
Me: I don't know. The boat is upside down. But the bottom is white. Also, it's the only boat in the lake. No one else is stupid enough to sail today.

(The PD and FD responded promptly. The guy eventually got the boat up after I yelled at him to uncleat his main sheet. He then lowered the sail and let the wind push him on bare poles 2 miles to the east end of the lake. So not entirely stupid.)

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Originally Posted by bendtheski

My problem isn’t with the reporting, it’s with the conclusions people jump to based on thin details, and filling in the blanks to fit their narrative. We’re hearing now that people are blaming dispatch for giving the cops who responded bad intel, which is simply not the case.

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That sucks, man, sorry. And again, lots of respect for what you do, and keep up the good work. Hope things improve.

I’d somehow missed this one. What a colossal piece of shit. Throw him in gen pop and let it ride:
https://www.kcur.org/news/2022-09-15...n-into-custody

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Originally Posted by SumJongGuy

^^^Thanks for more insights on the hiring and training challenges facing you and others trying to staff the 911 call centers and dispatch operations.

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The labor shortage is real, and I’m sure public safety isn’t the only profession struggling to recruit/retain good people. A lot of service industry jobs are paying close to or the same as we do, without half the hoops to jump through, and we ask a lot of our people. Not to mention neither hourly rate will cover the monthly rental on a 1 br apartment in CO.


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Originally Posted by Danno

That sucks, man, sorry. And again, lots of respect for what you do, and keep up the good work. Hope things improve.

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Thanks, and me too. This shit isn’t sustainable.


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Originally Posted by bendtheski

My problem isn’t with the reporting, it’s with the conclusions people jump to based on thin details, and filling in the blanks to fit their narrative. We’re hearing now that people are blaming dispatch for giving the cops who responded bad intel, which is simply not the case.


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Yeah well the police force does a great job to find ways to influence the media to blame anyone else.

I'll never be able to get that image of the cop on the hood of that poor kid's car out of my mind. It is beyond fucked up how these pigs want to be warriors.

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Originally Posted by simple

Yeah well the police force does a great job to find ways to influence the media to blame anyone else.

I'll never be able to get that image of the cop on the hood of that poor kid's car out of my mind. It is beyond fucked up how these pigs want to be warriors.

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I’ll reserve comment except to say that I won’t pretend to know or understand what’s happening in that video, but the optics are terrible, and now the entire agency is getting crucified for it. I can fully appreciate the outrage, but Dispatch is pretty close to the bottom of the food chain around here, so really not going to be in the loop as far as the why, tactics or follow-up. We’re getting blown up with calls from all over the country, asking unanswerable questions, and calling us all kinds of names, and of course we still need to make emergency calls/response our top priority, which these callers don’t seem to understand.


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Well the sheriff should take accountability and say direct all the calls to me. If they haven't done that already. They are likely too busy giving one of their own that was killed a parade down in Denver. It's ironic

This whole call center sidebar is weird. Of course people are pissed. Maybe direct contempt for the response to the cause instead.

Police make it impossible too

We’ve been instructed to forward all calls to the Undersheriff. What he does with them is outside of my job description and span of control.

I’m having to put 9-1-1 calls on hold for this, which is less than ideal.


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Sounds like murdering people has bad baggage. Maybe police shouldn’t murder people

^^^^
This

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Originally Posted by Mazderati

This whole call center sidebar is weird. Of course people are pissed. Maybe direct contempt for the response to the cause instead.

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People are outraged and rightfully so, but people are also stupid.

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Originally Posted by dunfree

Sounds like murdering people has bad baggage. Maybe police shouldn’t murder people

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I bet you scream at the desk agent when the airline cancels your flight.
People who need to take out their anger and frustration on people who did not cause the problem and can do nothing to fix it need to take anger management courses and then need to figure out what to do to solve the problem. Because screaming and threatening never does.

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Originally Posted by old goat

I bet you scream at the desk agent when the airline cancels your flight.
People who need to take out their anger and frustration on people who did not cause the problem and can do nothing to fix it need to take anger management courses and then need to figure out what to do to solve the problem. Because screaming and threatening never does.

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you are wrong - and I’ve done more cs work more recently than you - but the tone policing so no one is ever able to express their dissatisfaction anywhere is why police murder people without consequence

and it’s funny in a police behaving badly thread to act like screaming and threatening does nothing. It sure does with a badge.

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Originally Posted by old goat

I bet you scream at the desk agent when the airline cancels your flight.
People who need to take out their anger and frustration on people who did not cause the problem and can do nothing to fix it need to take anger management courses and then need to figure out what to do to solve the problem. Because screaming and threatening never does.

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I appreciate this, and I’m still having to place 9-1-1 callers on hold to get chewed out by people not even in my state, who immediately call back if placed on hold or transferred.

I get the outrage, but this helps nothing.


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Dealing with the public can surely suck. It probably sucks more for LEO apologists.

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Originally Posted by Mazderati

Dealing with the public can surely suck. It probably sucks more for LEO apologists.

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I give at the office, literally every day. Not going to apologize for that. Horrible day, and probably just going to get worse for all involved, but a lot of mis-directed outrage today, which I understand. I never felt like picking up that phone was a liability like I have today, and it had nothing to do with sense of duty or serving the community so that’s kind of messed up.

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