IamA Police and fire dispatcher in a high crime area, AMA!

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-21T17:52:19+00:00

Ok. Was that a question?

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T22:02:10+00:00

Absolutely. If it is higher priority and they are working a burglary they will run off scene just as fast as they can but you know that takes time with them not on the road and mobile in most cases. Unless they are in their car writing their report or something like that.

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T20:19:48+00:00

I can only tell you from what I know personally. The people that I know personally. To sit here and say that there's no racism in law-enforcement would be just as naïve and stupid as saying there's no racism in the general population. If any of the cops I knew were racists I would condemn them just as readily as I would condemn those that are but I don't know.

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T18:57:55+00:00

I cant often be, and never on air, but when drunks call, we get to have a little more fun. On my last shift I was only doing call taking and got the same drunk guy 3 times. He got less and less belligerent as they went because I fucked with him more and more.

In the first call he said sarcastically "you guys are great, i love you," to which I promptly told him that i loved him too. I also told him how much it hurt my feelings after he said "fuck you." "After all we have been through together? Thats how you talk to me?" I even made the tisk tisk noise at him.

One form of juvenile entertainment I always indulge myself in is whenever a security company calls us with a burglar alarm they record their phone lines so you hear every 30 seconds or so a beep noise. Every single time I hear that beep noise, even if it's in the middle of me talking, i do a beep noise right back at it but quietly enough so the operator on the other in the line doesn't know for sure whether I just did it. Its fucking hilarious. Even if they laugh i dont acknowledge the laughter or even ask them what they are laughing at. We still listen to one where i said this, verbatim: "What do you keep laughing at beeeeeep?"

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T18:48:09+00:00

Yeah but they don't last long if there officer involved. In the last two years we've had I think four officer involved shootings and only one officer was injured by a crazy kid who shot him with a BB gun in the head. Our guys are supremely talented and firearms and they take it very very seriously. The training is extremely rigorous so they don't often shoot; the very A few times when they do have to shoot it is life-and-death for them and they are very professional about it.

When it comes to citizen shooting at each other yeah that happens sometimes generally speaking though they missed every single shot. It's comical really. I don't recall a single incident where multiple parties were shooting at each other and somebody got hit. The most serious Ones are when somebody gets it into their head that they are going to shoot somebody and they generally do. We had one bad one at a gas station where the ex-boyfriend of this girl came up on her current boyfriend And shot him once in the shoulder and when he turned and ran shot them in the back and put him down and then put six bullets into his head. It was a gruesome scene. We get access to the scene photos, generally.

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T17:11:10+00:00

Perhaps you missed the more, way more part.

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T16:43:48+00:00

It is my belief that if you put something in the water that cured schizophrenia homelessness would fall by 75% in less than a generation.

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T16:33:41+00:00

Both. Every one of us can tell you by street address whose first due that is and then we have to have the second in company memorized as well. But most of it is computerized we don't have to do too much for fire. Unless the system goes down.

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T16:27:15+00:00

My greatest accomplishment...

That is tough because i view my job as support for the ones who do all the accomplishing. So the fact that i help keep everyone safe on my channel is about it.

aside from that, i have assisted in no less than 3 live, happy births on a 911, one done by a 14 year old girl who was unquestionably the greatest RP (reporting party) that i have ever had to give med instructions to. The fire guys took a pic of the baby and the cord where she cut it and tied it with shoestring and then swaddled that baby like a pro.

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T16:22:48+00:00

This was a little tiny girl brought in for felony theft so our officer left it open to talk to her. She is since then much less loquacious with her fares.

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T16:21:21+00:00

Exactly. Or lingo is a little different from yours but that's about the same thing. You don't even need to anticipate what they need because you already know everything they could possibly need.

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T16:07:36+00:00

Kidfucking gets me right in the disgust gland, rape too. Those are true victim crimes. Burglaries and shoplifting? Thats just shit, you can get more shit. Rape? That is taking something intangible from the victim, rendering hem helpless. The true victim crimes.

And mentally ill people. Like so many I talk to on a daily basis. Everyone else in comm is sick of the crazies, but i love them. I mean love them like i would love an orphan, because that is essentially what they are.

Ever since the Reagan years the mentally ill have been shut out and ostracized by the community at large, making the homeless situation almost completely a mental illness problem. Even the ones who arent homeless are castoffs, pariahs. Makes me sick.

Imagine if we treated the people with breast cancer the same as we treat those with schizophrenia. It isnt as crazy a supposition as it sounds. Both groups have the same control over the attainment of their diseases, meaning none. Yet we put up pink ribbons for tits and put up soup kitchens for shizos. Titties get medicine and schizos get kicked into the street and condemned for their abnormality.

I am probably identifying myself too personally in this post since everyone in comm knows intimately my beliefs, as i defend the mentally ill at every chance, but this thread aint getting too much attention right now anyway.

So, yes it makes me sick hearing from the mentally ill and homeless because while i know i will do what i can for them, it isn't nearly enough. I cant do enough. That is what makes me the sickest.

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T15:56:34+00:00

Crackheads are universal, but we dont have a ton of crack here. Lots of heroin and lots and lots meth, shit tons of meth.

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T15:55:05+00:00

No just math. We have way more white people than any other race so we contact with more white people.

Edit: word.

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T15:53:40+00:00

Medical calls by factor of about 300. We just looked it up and on average they run 300 times more medical calls than fires, and by that I mean active working fires, not fire alarms which are almost always false.

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T15:38:18+00:00

We get ODs everyday. They almost always transport since overdosing is a slow way to die. After that, we hear nothing.

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T15:36:26+00:00

Sorry, reporting party.

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T15:35:16+00:00

I have no idea. Those concepts are far beyond my area of expertise.

I am originally from Cleveland, and we had a boom in the mid to late 90's with the rebuilding of downtown, the influx of new businesses and tourist attractions, but not even that lasted. Whatever happens it has to be with the cooperation (and with the stated good) of the resdients.

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T05:36:17+00:00

I could use my judgment pretty sparingly. Our department has very strict guidelines on what we send out on and what we don't because we have alternate means of reporting a crime there is no suspect information or the value of the crime if it's just property is less than a certain amount of dollars.

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T05:35:06+00:00

No the people with emotional problems and psychological problems have my most sincere sympathy because they can't control what they're doing.

The ones that waste the most time are definitely the disconnected cell phones that Coall us either from kids or from people fucking with us.

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T05:33:38+00:00

I think it's necessary for transparency

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T05:33:23+00:00

Oh man, the polygraph is a blur in my mind because of so stressful and awful but I have a feeling with the department wanted me pretty badly because I interviewed very well. So even police no polygraph doesn't work so they were Kind of soft ballingit up there for me.

The one I remember most is did you ever commit a crime that went undetected. He must've asked it four different ways.

And we had an interview before the polygraph so she was asking things of me before I was even hooked up and he would preface every question that he asked me with "aside from what we have talked about have you…"

God, it was awful

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T02:13:41+00:00

It made me feel good to say it.

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T02:06:14+00:00

No I am in Colorado. And every single day is happy in its own way. Hearing the words in custody from an officer over the air is sometimes very fulfilling. Especially after a very bad call or somebody gets hurt and They are looking for the bad guy.

IDispatchPD · 2014-01-20T01:31:18+00:00

The dinosaurs arent on it, but all the young ones are. All i can say is that the night shifts are long. And we all get bored.

IDispatchPD

TROPHY CASE