By Lori Stone, Senior Public Safety Advisor, First Responder Network Authority
When Walter “Pete” Landon was growing up in Montreal, Canada, he idolized the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. But he was an American citizen whose father had moved the family north for work, and therefore couldn’t fulfill his dream of becoming a Mountie. Now, after more than three decades spent in law enforcement with local and state departments in Maryland, he can look back on a career in law enforcement with pride and the insights of how policing has evolved in that time. In particular, he has seen how technology has improved the way officers communicate and share information, starting with the age-old phenomenon known as “skip.”
Craig Enderle has been helping people out of emergency situations for more than two decades.
A emergency dispatcher and a firefighter, Enderle plans on retiring from the emergency dispatch office after 21 years on the job. His last day will be Jan. 28.
Enderle was working as a county training coordinator at a fire training course when he worked with a previous emergency services director…
RIO GRANDE COUNTY, Colo. (CBS4) – A 911 dispatcher with the Colorado State Patrol’s Alamosa office was arrested Wednesday mid-afternoon after authorities were alerted to a possible sexual assault that occurred the night before.
Tony Jackson Hill, 36, was taken into custody on two sexual assault felony charges.
The Rio Grande County Sheriff’s Office said it was alerted to the possible sexual assault at 10 p.m. Tuesday. The agency has not provided information about where it responded to or who it was alerted by… READ MORE
The Haines 911 dispatch office is located in the Public Safety building at 315 Haines Highway (photo by Jillian Rogers/KHNS)
All three of Haines’ emergency dispatchers have tested positive for COVID-19, but officials say they’ve elected to stay on the job anyway to field 911 calls from the public safety building.
Haines borough manager Annette Kreitzer says the dispatch office’s three-person staff tested positive for COVID-19 last week. She was alerted last Tuesday, Jan. 11 of the situation…
A baby not breathing, a drowning and a person suffering from a gunshot wound.
Those are all examples of emergencies where callers waited on hold for longer than two minutes before a Toronto 911 operator said they were able to answer the call.
“Everything that we do at our job as call-takers is about seconds,” the operator said. “People are being hurt, and they don’t know they’re not getting the help that they need.”
CBC News is not identifying the 911 operator because they’re not authorized to talk about their work at the Toronto Police Service’s 911 communication centre, which answers all emergency calls for the city… READ MORE
Hundreds of dispatch center leaders from across the nation are meeting in San Diego for the annual conference of The National Emergency Number Association, or NENA. And the pandemic is at the forefront.
“There’s never been anything like this in our lifetime,” said April Heinze, the 9-1-1 Operations Director with NENA. She says during this pandemic, being there is becoming more and more difficult for our first, first responders. “Overwhelmingly the average 911 center, staffing-wise, is down about 30 percent … all the way to very large 911 centers in urban areas that were [in a] more than 50 percent staffing crisis…
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.
