Virginia Beach deputy city manager of public safety to retire at end of the year (VA)

WAVY’s Jason Marks reports that Deputy City Manager of Public Safety Steve Cover will retire at the end of 2020.

Cover, a Virginia Beach native, was appointed to the position in October 2016 by then-City Manager Dave Hansen. He had served as the city fire chief since 2007 after starting his career as a volunteer firefighter at age 16.

In the role, Cover oversaw the Virginia Beach Police Department, Fire Department, Emergency Medical Services, Emergency Communications and Citizen Services (911/311) and the Office of Emergency Management…

LA County moves forward on re-imagining 9-1-1 call-in system (CA)

Los Angeles County continued its push Tuesday to re-think the 9-1-1 system, propelled by a care-first, jails-last approach to emergency calls for service across the region.

The Board of Supervisors unanimously directed the Department of Mental Health to begin identifying ways to shift mental-health crisis calls away from law enforcement and toward mental health services personnel… READ MORE

Chase for Champions 2020 (IL)

Cumulus Radio Bloomington has teamed up with Carle BroMenn Medical Center, to bring you a live, virtual Chase for Champions event on Thursday, October 29th.

Chase for Champions is a community event centered around the service of Public Safety Responders in the McLean County and El Paso areas. Firefighters, police officers, emergency medical service providers and 911 telecommunicators will be recognized and honored for the work and support they provide in our communities… READ MORE

No one is claiming responsibility for widespread 911 outage

Emergency call systems in more than a dozen states went out for as long as an hour Monday night, with only rumors circulating as to which company is to blame.

Twitter accounts of police departments in 14 states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington — began notifying their followers of the outages Monday evening, along with 10-digit phone numbers that could be used instead of 911. Phone and SMS-based emergency calling were affected… READ MORE