The FBI released an affidavit Friday involving a complaint of child porn distribution by a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office dispatcher named Scott Matthew Yotka.
News4Jax crime and safety expert Ken Jefferson is a former sex crimes detective for the sheriff’s office… READ MORE
Being put on hold for any reason can be annoying in itself, but a whole different issue arises when that phone call is a potential life or death situation.
One restaurant worker in the Buckhead area of Atlanta got an unfortunate example of that feeling by the Atlanta Police Department when his 9-1-1 call after being shot while on a lunch break was met with a “please hold” response.
As FOX Atlanta reported last week, a waiter at Mediterranean seafood restaurant Kyma says he witnessed two men trying to enter a car while on his 7:30PM break. Once spotted, the man was shot before both men sped off in a getaway car. Thankfully, he wasn’t fatally injured in the ordeal as the bullet only struck his arm.
As he dialed 911 for help, his calls were repeatedly met with an automated recording telling him to hold, which laster for way longer than anyone should have to wait during an emergency… READ MORE
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A team of assessors from the Michigan Law Enforcement Accreditation Commission will arrive in Grand Rapids on Thursday, Sept. 30 to “examine all aspects of the Grand Rapids Police Department’s policies, procedures, management, operations and support services.”
If the agency achieves MLEAC accreditation, it will be the fourth such program for the department, according to a news release Monday.
Chief Eric Payne says he’s confident GRPD will exceed MLEAC’s “best practice” standards…
911 dispatcher. Photo by Scary Side of Earth via Flickr
Underfunding and understaffing cripple 911 call centers across the country, and increase the likelihood that incomplete or inaccurate information will trigger a fatal response from police, according to researchers.
Harold Pollack, co-director of the Transform 911 project, said the lack of resources was complicated by the fact that emergency dispatch centers often aren’t on “equal footing” with law enforcement, fire departments, and emergency medical services — a disparity that further undermines their effectiveness.
An average 911 call lasts about ten minutes — not nearly enough time to talk a caller through a mental health crisis, he said…
Boston Police dispatchers are calling for help, saying increasingly low staffing levels are making a tough job untenable as more and more employees leave.
Sean Murphy, a former BPD dispatcher, quit this year to work for the union that represents the workers, and he said he’s one of multiple dispatchers and calltakers who have had enough and left.
“A lot of long-term people like myself have decided that they’re tired of waiting for them to do the right thing,” Murphy, who now works for SEIU 888, said of the police department. “There’s been an extreme rate probably over the past year or so.”
He said it’s gotten so bad that people who’ve put in 15 or 20 years of the 25 needed for a full pension are simply deciding it’s not worth it to hang in… READ MORE
An Indiana man has been arrested for allegedly calling the 911 emergency line repeatedly, just to tell dispatchers that he was “tired.”
Police arrested Daniel Schroeder on Thursday after the 61-year-old resident of Evansville, Indiana allegedly called 911 four times.
“The male caller kept calling in stating that he was tired,” a police report detailing the man’s arrest said.
Schroeder’s arrest came one day after he pleaded guilty to a previous charge of misusing the 911 system. Police arrested Schroeder on the night of September 11 after he called 911 to express his anger that a female relative “was not following his rules.” …
