The Beaumont City Council has approved a three-year service agreement with Axon Enterprise for artificial intelligence-assisted dispatch software designed to help the Police Department manage increasing calls for service while improving emergency communications.
The council voted June 16 to authorize the city manager to execute the agreement for Axon’s Prepared AI dispatching software.
Some of the clearest examples of this challenge can be found in the major events that increasingly define modern public safety operations: the Super Bowl, political conventions, large-scale concerts, major marathons and international sporting events. These events bring together hundreds of agencies, thousands of responders, tens of thousands of attendees and countless moving parts that operate across jurisdictional boundaries. Call volumes surge. Overflow answering centers become part of normal operations. Mutual-aid resources flow across jurisdictions. Command structures expand. Information begins to move between agencies that might not routinely work together on a daily basis.
An upcoming session at the 2026 Vision FirstNet Users Summit titled “Bridging Broadband and LMR: FirstNet Fusion and the Rise of Hybrid Devices” will explore how public safety agencies can modernize their communications environments while maintaining the reliability of land mobile radio.
Centered on FirstNet Fusion and hybrid devices, the session will outline how integrating broadband with existing LMR systems can deliver real-time interoperability across 5G/LTE and radio networks.
If someone experiences chest pains in Waukegan and calls 911 on their cellphone, the dispatcher on the other end will know precisely where they are and the right questions to ask so the ambulance crew knows exactly what to do when it arrives on the scene.
“For several hours during the height of the storm, the Monmouth County Communication Center was unable to answer incoming 911 calls as quickly as they were being received,” O’Halloran said. “Wall Township Police Communications assumed overflow call taker responsibilities to assist the county. On multiple occasions, unanswered 911 callers were automatically transferred between Burlington County and Wall Township, before ultimately reaching a dispatcher at Monmouth County.”
