METUCHEN – For Police Chief Arthur Flaherty, a single seat police dispatch was essentially “a bad situation” waiting to happen.
“We have evolved from a town of 12,800 to a town of 17,000 right now,” he said. “We are putting in 240 more condos and a 30-acre park. We are going to be near [a population of] 20,000 in two and a half square miles. It’s dense and with Edison growing exponentially … we’ve gotten very busy.”
Desert Hot Springs Police Department is gearing up to open a brand new dispatch center – the first addition to its expanded public safety campus.
DHSPD Communications Manager June Casey gave News Channel 3 an exclusive first look inside the center, calling it a critical communication hub that will streamline the community’s public safety.
From McHenry Police Chief John Birk:
In Austin, Texas, when someone calls 911, they hear, “Austin 911, do you need police, fire, EMS or mental health services?” Since February 2021, Austin’s 911 Mental Health Diversion Program now transfers over 600 911 calls per month to mental health clinicians, connecting those in need to the mental health treatment system as opposed to the criminal justice system and freeing up critical emergency resources – implementing this important fourth option to the 911 call triage process.
The Columbia-Montour County 911 Center, operating as the East Central Emergency Network (ECEN), recently transitioned to the Pennsylvania Statewide Radio Network (PA-STARNet), the commonwealth’s state-of-the-art Project 25 (P25) radio network for public safety and emergency response communications.
