Dedicated professionals prepared to serve Kentuckians and support law enforcement in times of need
FRANKFORT, Ky. (March 21, 2025) — Today, Gov. Andy Beshear and the Kentucky State Police (KSP) announced the graduation of 17 telecommunicators from the KSP Telecommunications Academy. These individuals have been assigned to 10 posts across the state, where they will answer the call of service by providing critical communication support to Kentuckians and law enforcement agencies.
“Today, you embark on a commendable journey of public service, one that will provide light in the darkness to so many Kentuckians in their times of greatest need,” Gov. Beshear said. “Thank you for being committed to creating a new Kentucky home with safer communities and helping ensure our officers have the information they need to respond to emergencies.”
KSP telecommunicators are responsible for dispatching state troopers, commercial vehicle enforcement officers, conservation officers and other emergency service agencies. Last year alone, they answered over 1.2 million calls, leading to more than 406,000 requests for assistance.
“Public safety will be strengthened thanks to the crucial function each of these graduates will provide as telecommunicators,” said KSP Commissioner Phillip Burnett Jr. “It is an honor to welcome them to our agency, where they will serve as the vital link between the public and emergency responders.”
The graduates of Class 25 completed 160 hours of instruction over four weeks, covering essential topics such as legal liability, telecommunicator authority limits, their role in public safety, interpersonal communications, customer service, stress management and PTSD, ethics and confidentiality, responder safety, basic fire dispatch, emergency operation plans, criminal justice information systems, first aid and emergency medical dispatch.
Throughout their training, the graduates were required to successfully process scripted emergency calls, demonstrate their ability to gather and relay critical information, dispatch first responders efficiently, and provide emergency medical dispatch instructions when necessary. The academy concluded with a simulation designed to replicate real-life dispatch scenarios.
Class 25 graduates and their assigned posts are:
Seth Cummins, Post 1, Mayfield
Kelsey Davidson, Post 1, Mayfield
Ethan Crick, Post 2, Madisonville
John Kierman, Post 3, Bowling Green
Malak Salman, Post 3, Bowling Green
Breanna Sexton, Post 3, Bowling Green
Ethan Duke, Post 4, Elizabethtown
Ryleigh Stewart, Post 6, Dry Ridge
James Matthews, Post 7, Richmond
Connor Motley, Post 8, Morehead
Farrah Combs, Post 13, Hazard
Weston Hollon, Post 13, Hazard
Tristen Turner, Post 13, Hazard
Steve Waddell, Post 13, Hazard
Kendall Benningfield, Post 15, Columbia
Ryan Engle, Post 15, Columbia
Makenzie Guthrie, Post 16, Henderson
The Charlotte Tanner Valedictorian Award is presented to the graduate who earned the highest GPA and demonstrated extraordinary effort during the KSP Telecommunications Academy. The award is named in honor of the founder of the KSP telecommunications program, Charlotte Tanner, who served the commonwealth for more than 50 years as a telecommunicator, radio room supervisor and instructor.
This year’s Charlotte Tanner Valedictorian Award has been awarded to Seth Cummins from Post 1 with a grade point average of 100%.
The mission of KSP is to promote public safety through service, integrity and professionalism using partnerships to prevent, reduce and deter crime and the fear of crime, enhance highway safety through education and enforcement, safeguard property and protect individual rights.
The agency is continuing to recruit interested individuals to join Team Kentucky and provide critical assistance and assurance to their neighbors and loved ones. To apply for a telecommunicator position with KSP, click here or contact the KSP post nearest you for more information.
Editor’s note: identification (left to right, front row to back row) Kelsey Davidson, Malak Salman, Breanna Sexton, Ryleigh Stewart, James Matthews, Kendall Benningfield, Farrah Combs, Makenzie Guthrie, Seth Cummins, Ryan Engle, Tristen Turner, John Kierman, Weston Hollon, Steve Waddel, Ethan Duke, Connor Motley and Ethan Crick
CHARLESTON COUNTY, S.C. (WCIV) — Charleston County 911 has strengthened their emergency response this week by upgrading their call handling capabilities.
The Charleston County Consolidated Emergency Communications Center adopted new, more advanced call handling software that aims to improve emergency response for both the public and first responders.
The upgrades include several key features that will increase efficiency and situational awareness, including:
Voice to Text – Call takers will receive a real-time text transcription of the caller’s spoken words, improving accuracy and efficiency.
Translation – This feature allows for seamless communication with non-English-speaking callers by automatically translating conversations in real time.
Triage – The system prioritizes emergency calls, ensuring that simultaneous incidents, such as multiple calls about the same crash, do not delay responses to other emergencies.
Location Services – If a caller’s location is not automatically transmitted, call takers can send a link to obtain precise handset coordinates. If the caller accepts the link, the call taker will temporarily have access to the caller’s exact location.
Images and Video – Callers can share live images and video with the ECC, offering critical visual information to support response efforts.
Responder Link – Call takers can transmit received images and videos directly to first responders in the field, enhancing situational awareness.
In addition, Charleston County has partnered with Carbyne to integrate the new system, alongside RapidDeploy Radius Mapping, which provides additional benefits, including:
Access to caller-provided emergency data, such as preferred language and medical information.
Outbound text messaging capabilities for two-way communication with 9-1-1 callers.
Instant messaging between 9-1-1 centers for seamless information sharing.
Crash data from OnStar, Bosch, and other vehicle safety services.
Enhanced alarm data from security companies.
“This new system represents a major advancement in how we handle emergency calls,” said Charleston County ECC Director Jim Lake. “By improving accuracy, communication, and situational awareness, it helps ensure that people in crisis get the help they need as quickly as possible. Our telecommunicators and first responders rely on clear and timely information, and these tools will make a real difference in their ability to respond effectively.”
York County 911: Hear EMS summoned to attack at UPMC Memorial Hospital
A hostage crisis at the UPMC Memorial Hospital ICU on Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025, left a West York Borough Police officer and the gunman dead, while five others were injured. Listen to real-time York County 911 transmissions between EMS providers. The Dispatch has requested the police 911 recordings.
The York Dispatch’s efforts to obtain audio recordings and transcripts of 911 calls made during the hostage crisis inside UPMC Memorial Hospital that left a police officer and the suspect dead have been blocked.
Many questions remain in the weeks following the Feb. 22 incident that left West York Police Officer Andrew Duarte and the suspect dead. Authorities haven’t released the names of other officers who were injured, the extent of their injuries and who fired the shots that fatally wounded Duarte. The fact that a sheriff’s deputy was also wounded wasn’t initially disclosed.
Previously, authorities had said that two other responding officers and three hospital workers were injured. A fourth UPMC staffer was injured in a fall, they said.
However, the Dispatch reported Monday that an unnamed York County Sheriff’s deputy also was among the injured. The two other wounded officers are from the Northern York County Regional and Springettsbury Township departments.
York County 911 holds the recordings of communications during the incident but is under no legal obligation to release it, based on Pennsylvania’s Right to Know Law that dictates and defines what constitutes a public record.
But neither is the agency barred from releasing it.
The Dispatch has been covering the incident and its fallout as a matter of immense public interest and believes a recording of the call would give the public a greater understanding of the full scope of what officers faced in that moment. It already obtained fire and EMS calls from the incident.
UPMC Memorial Hospital attack: Listen to the real-time 911 transmissions
A hostage crisis at the UPMC Memorial Hospital ICU on Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025, left a West York Borough Police officer and the gunman dead, while five others were injured. Listen to real-time York County 911 transmissions between EMS providers. The Dispatch has requested the police 911 recordings.
Publicizing the communication can also help promote public safety and the critical importance of mutual aide in emergency responses.
In the county’s denial, county Solicitor Jonelle Eshbach cited the section of the law that states: “Records or parts of records, except time response logs, pertaining to audio recordings, telephone or radio transmissions received by emergency dispatch personnel, including 911 recordings” are exempt from access under the law.
Since time-response log information held by the 911 department have an exception, Eshbach wrote in her response that the county searched for and received the information and it was attached through a link. It was not.
The county’s paralegal, Aggie Puleo, responded to the Dispatch’s inquiry about the alleged attachment, writing that there should not have been a link to any record in the response. And since the Dispatch had not asked for the time-response logs, they were not provided, Puleo said.
The Dispatch submitted a new request for the logs and was notified that the county invoked its right to an additional 30 days to respond to it, “as the extent or nature of your request precludes a response within the required five-day time period.”
While agency records can be daunting to get from any level of government in Pennsylvania, agencies in other states release records like 911 call audio and police dash or body camera footage that appears on YouTube.
The county told the Dispatch in its initial response that further documents or information regarding the Feb. 22 incident at UPMC “may be available from the municipality where the incident occurred, and/or the responding police department.”
An official with West York Police Department, where fallen officer Andrew Duarte worked, advised the Dispatch to check with the county.
A similar effort was made with the Pennsylvania State Police through a separate process designated for law enforcement agencies’ audio and video recordings. Rather than a standard records request, the Dispatch went to the state police headquarters outside of Harrisburg and hand-delivered a request.
West Manchester Township, where the deadly incident at UPMC occurred, responded to the Dispatch by invoking the 30-day extension “to permit the police department to seek a legal review to determine whether the information sought is records subject to access under the Right to Know Law.”
Emergency response recordings, while readily available in other states, are seldom made public in Pennsylvania.
And while agencies may release them, it would likely require a court order to compel them to do so since the state’s Office of Open Records, which typically hears appeals for records requests, does not have that discretion, according to Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association.
To be thorough, the Dispatch submitted an appeal of the county’s decision to the state.
An effort by a news outlet, The Intercept, to get the 911 call recordings from the July 13 shooting of President Donald Trump in Butler County was a rare case from a Pennsylvania county that yielded records.
After the county denied the request and the open records office denied the appeal, the national outlet elevated it to Butler County Court of Common Pleas.
There, a Butler County judge ruled in October that due to the “unique, historical circumstances … which relate to the attempted assassination of a former president,” the court determined that the public interest in disclosure outweighed the interest in nondisclosure, citing a section of the RTKL seldom considered outside a courtroom when a 911 recording or its transcript is being sought.
— Reach Mark Walters at mwalters@yorkdispatch.com.
Maj. Jessica Pruett’s life has experienced a phenomenal transformation over the past four years. The Taylorsville resident, who is the director of the Bartow County Sheriff’s Office E911, went from not being able to walk or talk to currently being at the top of her profession.
On March 12, she was named the 2024 Communications Director of the Year at the 15th annual Georgia Emergency Communications Conference’s Awards Banquet in Columbus. The GECC is a joint offering of the Georgia chapters of the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials and the National Emergency Number Association.
Everbridge, Inc., a provider of critical event management (CEM) and national public warning solutions, today announced that the City of Baltimore has deployed the Everbridge Public Safety platform, reinforcing its commitment to protecting residents and enhancing community resilience in the face of emergencies and large-scale events.
As a vibrant and diverse city,Baltimore serves as a major hub on the East Coast, home to nearly 600,000 residents and millions of annual visitors. The BMORE Alert Mass Notification System,powered by Everbridge, strengthens the city’s ability to communicate rapidly and effectively during critical situations, ensuring that individuals receive timely, life-saving information when it matters most.
“Baltimore recognizes the importance of using the latest technology to keep our community safe,” said Joey Henderson, Director of the Baltimore City Office of Emergency Management. “Everbridge equips us with a powerful platform to deliver timely and critical information to our residents, enhancing our overall emergency preparedness.”
The Everbridge Mass Notification solution enables Baltimore to reach its population through a multi-modal approach, including text, email, mobile app notifications, voice calls, TTY/TDD, and social media. This flexibility ensures that emergency messages can be disseminated quickly across multiple channels, reaching the right people at the right time—whether citywide or targeted to specific areas affected by an event.
To further strengthen its emergency communication capabilities, Baltimore has also implemented EverbridgeResident Connection, which enables city officials to draw geo-fenced shapes on a map, allowing them to accurately reach the largest number of people in those zones. This granular approach is essential for reaching vulnerable populations, including individuals with special needs, those dependent on medical devices, and residents with limited internet access.
“Everbridge is proud to support the City of Baltimore in its mission to safeguard residents and visitors,” said Dave Wagner, CEO of Everbridge. “By deploying our public safety technology, Baltimore is enhancing its ability to mitigate risk, improve situational awareness, and build a more resilient community.”
Baltimore joins a growing list of Maryland-based Everbridge customers, including hospitals, schools, public transportation systems, and local governments across Anne Arundel, Carroll, Queen Anne’s, and Prince George’s counties. Other major U.S. cities leveraging Everbridge technology include New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas, Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington, D.C.
Learn about current efforts to continue to protect the 4.9 GHz Band for public safety as well as recent filings, key decisions impacting these efforts, and how you can support PSSA’s initiative to protect the 4.9 GHz band for public safety.
