"Call 911"

So while I was bored at work one night last week... I saw a commercial for this show called "Call 911" on the Investigation Discovery channel.

I had this past Wednesday night off, so I finally had a chance to watch it.... it's not bad! Too bad some of the useful stuff that's on the show I'd never be able to do in my town. I work by myself... I can't stay on the phone with someone and dispatch police, fire, EMS, and medics all at the same time. Plus, by the time I'm done with all of that, the police would be there anyway. It only takes 5 minutes to get across town WITHOUT going lights and sirens...

Anyway, check it out... Call 911 on Investigation Discovery

Just Another Ducky Day In Dispatch

Finally a day off! Got some stuff done today for the other organization I belong to. Damn paperwork! It all looks the same after a while.

As for the dispatch world, it's been the same old stuff. My crazy friend that calls about non-existent stuff hasn't called. Maybe about a month ago, a mental health screener went to her house to talk to her and she was shipped off to the happy hut in a local hospital. I'm sure she's home by now... probably heavily medicated, too. Other than that, it's basically been the same as always... drunk illegals, a domestic or two, traffic stops, barking dog complaints. Blah. It has given me some time to get some other work done.

Speaking of other work, I did order that laptop I mentioned a few posts back. It was just under $500 after shipping. It's working out well with the exception of battery life (or lack thereof). I was going to order a new battery, but at $165, I think I'll just deal with it for now. Damn laptop batteries aren't cheap, WTF?!

Still haven't figured out what domain name to use. I don't even know what to put on it. We don't even have Internet access at work, so I don't know how much good that'll do. Any suggestions?

As for the DUCKY image and the title of this post... check out www.911cares.com, their store has some great 9-1-1 dispatch items... such as the DUCKY! I'd get one to toss around Dispatch, but I guarantee it'll disappear.

That's it for now...

Dispatcher 6

3 to Headquarters. Hello? Helloooooooo?

I'm still around. Sorry I've barely been posting. It's just been the same old stuff, as I'm sure you know. I'm getting really frustrated with my job and once again I'm thinking about going back into the computer field... and being more serious about it this time.

There's been a lot of stuff bugging the hell out of me in just the last week and I don't think I can accomplish any of it while still being a low-paid dispatcher. I wouldn't make much more in the computer industry, but it would certainly help. The problem I'm running into, though, is have I been out of the field for too long already? A perfect example of that is Windows Vista. I only used it a few times since I was last a tech, back in early September 2007. I haven't really touched it since. Sure, maybe on my girlfriends laptop, but that's hardly administering a computer from the business perspective. I'd be lost if I walked into a company that just upgraded to Vista computers.

Dispatching is an "easy" job. WAIT! Before you shoot at me for saying that... I meant I don't have to drive all over the place fixing computers and listening to stupid people who don't have a clue what they're doing. Instead, I sit in my cell, staring at the same 4 walls, answering phones where there's usually a stupid person on the other end of the line. When there's no calls, I sit there with my feet up on the desk and watch TV, play sudoku on my phone, or talk to myself.

It's fun sometimes. Especially since I'm on midnights and the only people around are about 3 patrol officers and a patrol sergeant. Unless they come in for reports, arrests, or to randomly read the paper, I'm on my own.

We'll see how it turns out. I'll keep you updated. I'll also try to post more. There's been some stuff I wanted to bring up, but I have my hands in too many different things right now and I'm being stretched thin.

Dispatcher 6

Just when you thought I was gone...

OK, OK! I'm sorry. I know... I haven't been around in FOREVER, but I've been really busy and haven't had much to say.

The last few weeks have been quiet with our resident nut... at least while I've been working.

It's been the usual BS stuff that goes on working midnight shift.

We had the fireworks on Wednesday night. It sucked. Lasted 14 minutes, as timed by the Deputy Chief. Then my girlfriend and I went to the firehouse to hang out and shoot the shit with everybody.

Last night was annoying. A few noise complaints and fireworks complaints. Handful of traffic stops. 1 arrest of a drunk Mexican. 4 EMS calls. 1 fire call. Again, the usual BS.

On another note... our dispatch room sucks. The chairs are standard office chairs. We have a pretty bad CAD system (although it's new and was a LOT of money). The radio system kinda sucks. We have NO Internet access besides the 1 state system. I found a copy of 9-1-1 Magazine from a few months ago and I'm just looking at all of the ads for dispatch furniture and electronics...drooling. They keep complaining the town doesn't have enough money. We'll never get anything good. Dispatchers are one of the least recognized people anywhere. How many times has something BIG happened and they never think of the dispatchers? Not that I'm looking for any recognition or anything... I actually hate being in the spotlight. But it's just annoying when everybody on scene of some event takes all of the credit. Hey buddy, don't forget who took the call and sent you there! Where would this world be without dispatchers?

Anyway... without getting too far off topic. I decided to try to get some dispatch resources together to make my life somewhat easier at work. 3 of the 5 dispatchers (myself included there) have found a little trick to get the Internet... and the higher-ups don't know about it...yet. It's our little work-around for when we need weather or tide information or to look up the coordinates for a 911 call from a cell phone.

My new idea was to create a website that includes all of the information we need either right there or by links that go directly there without clicking around too much. I already have a web hosting service with 2 domain names included... I'm only using 1 domain name at the moment... and I've had it for about 6 months. Sucks that I've been paying for 2, I guess. I'll let you all know how that one turns out.

It would be SO much easier if I had a laptop that I could actually bring to work with me so I can work on this stuff. My current laptop has basically turned into a desktop. I broke the screen on it a few months ago, so it's sitting on my desk, closed, with an LCD monitor, keyboard, and mouse connected to it. TigerDirect has a decent 0ff-lease IBM for about $499.

I've been doing one other thing to make my life at work a bit easier. I created a bunch of templates in Word for stuff I use often... fax cover sheets, memo templates, prisoner confinement records. I even made a new phone list, organized it nicely, and saved it to my folder on our network so I can update it when something changes. That's going over really well. I've told some of the cops who work the desk and it's making their lives easier, too.

That's about it for now. I'll be back when I have more. I'm going to go register a domain name... once I think of one.

Dispatcher 6

There's a beating in the tunnel...

Yup, she called again last night. Twice, actually. Then she must have fallen asleep or the beatings finally stopped. Somebody needs to beat her. I wonder what's with her and the tunnel anyway? WHAT DAMN TUNNEL?!?!?!?!

I just conveniently ignored her - I was too busy to deal with her. There were real emergency calls going on at the time. Well, not necessarily emergencies, but there were calls that actually had some sort of a purpose.

It was definitely the calm before the storm - last night was NUTS. Two accidents - one of which had somebody complaining of back pain so they went to the hospital.

OH - how could I forget the crazy call I got maybe 20 minutes into the shift?! Another PD from NOT NEARBY called us saying they got a call from someone in their department about a man armed with two knives threatening to harm himself and possibly others in the residence. Just what I wanted to hear 20 minutes in on the last day of my rotation. Turns out he didn't want to harm others, only himself... because he got pissed off about something stupid. The guys on scene had me call out the squad for a mental health transport. About an hour later the hospital called bitching that we brought a homicidal person to them.

SAY WHAT?! Um, no. He wasn't threatening the life of anybody but himself. Stop your baby whining and evaluate the moron. Better yet, just throw him in the happy hut with padded walls, he'll be fine after a few hours (or years).

Other than that, the same old noise complaints, abandoned 911 calls, beatings in the tunnel... you know, the normal.

That's about all I really have right now... more to come soon.

Clear and Unavailable,

Dispatcher 6

Calm before the storm

With an almost full moon and the weather being so nice, it really wasn't that crazy.

The usual few traffic stops, bars weren't busy, a noise complaint or two...oh, and the crazy bitch called again.

She called about something at the start of the shift, but I conveniently forgot about it. Then she called again at around 3 AM complaining that there's somebody teaching somebody how to kill an animal near her house. Of course, when the cops got there, it was dead silent and nobody was outside.

Maybe that's just the calm before the storm. It's still pretty nice out now. Also being a Saturday night, I can only imagine what's in store. Hopefully it's not too nuts, I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow.

Until next time,

I'll be out teaching somebody how to kill animals

Dispatcher 6

The Freeholder is out of jail...

Yes, the crazy old woman is at it again.

She called last night to tell me the Freeholder (that she apparently doesn't like) must have gotten out of jail... and she's asking me why we let him out.

Same caller as the post called There's a fire in the tunnel. It was the freeholder trying to sell her house in that one, too.

Anyway, she said he's out there with a group of people and she heard him say there's going to be a killing tonight. Then she advises me that if there's a murder, we should really look at him as a suspect. As I try to get more information (or keep her going solely for amusement) she just hangs up on me. Damn. That could have been a good one.

I told the Sgt. who happened to be right there entering his tickets. He kinda laughed, got a bit pissed off that she called twice already, and pretty much forgot all about it.

Thankfully we got through the night with no murders. The old bitch finally went back to sleep. Bars were quiet. Roads were empty. Other than a first aid call and a few parking problems, maybe a traffic stop or two, I just sat back, put my feet up on the desk, watched TV for a few hours, and dealt with the chest pain until I could go home and sleep.

Now I just get to look forward to tonight. I think it's great that it's Friday night and it looks like a pretty full moon. Tonight should go SO well. (With extra sarcasm!)

Speaking of, I need to go get uniformed and get my ass out the door.

Until next time,

Clear and unavailable

Dispatcher 6

Not Much Happenin'

Ok, sorry, I know I haven't been around in a month, but I'm still here. Hasn't been much to blog about.

The same nutty old woman calling, though she usually doesn't say anything, just hangs up. It annoys me, but I get over it. She goes to sleep eventually.

We had a nice wind storm a few weeks ago. Swept through a bunch of the towns here. There's an old abandoned building that's been there an abandoned for as long as I can remember. The wind storm knocked the front of it clean off. They had the road closed for damn near the whole day and the rest of the building was torn down.

Had a 9-1-1... actually, about 30 9-1-1 calls the other day that pissed me off. Kid playing with an old deactivated cell phone. They come up with 911 area codes and we can't call them back. I swear this kid, who was VERY young, called at LEAST 30 times. It pissed me off to no end and I couldn't even call another town to get a GPS location on it because 9-1-1 kept ringing!

Other than that, I've been with a volunteer organization I belong to. I've been a bit busy with that these past few weeks and then this past Saturday was my nieces first birthday party so I was out most of the day for that. This weekend I'm going to Connecticut with my girlfriend. Supposed to be for the other organization I belong to, but it's going to turn out just being a vacation for the two of us.

Oh... part of the reason I haven't been around is because I broke my computer about a week after my last post. I finally rebuilt another one I had sitting in my basement but it's on its way out, too. I'm about to be without a computer for a little while, but I'll be back.

On the subject of computers, my girlfriend got a new one. Nice MacBook. I WANT ONE!!!!!!! The thing is freakin' awesome so that's what I'm going to look into. Can't do anything soon, though, need to pay for the vacation. It'll be a while, I'm a dispatcher, they don't pay me much.

Until next time,

Clear and Unavailable

Dispatcher 6

"911 Where's your static?"

This one is rather strange.

The other night I got an abandoned 911 from a residence not too far from Police Headquarters. I answered the phone and all I heard was static. Couldn't tell if anybody was there talking or not. I hung up 911 and picked up the 7-digit line and dialed the number back. It rang once then I started hearing the static again so I just hung up. I dispatched a cop to that residence as an abandoned 911, busy on the callback. While he was en-route, I tried calling it again and got a normal busy signal. Three cops arrive, and after a few minutes, they asked me to try calling the number again. All that was running through my mind was that they had multiple phone lines and they weren't sure which one they might have mistakenly dialed 911 from. Well, when I called it back, I got a fast busy signal and stated that over the radio. A few minutes of silence go by and one of them says they've spoken to a neighbor and the owner of that house died just over a year ago, there's nobody in the house, and the family has been trying to sell it. They were also not aware of any phones that were connected... as far as they knew, the house was completely empty.

Isn't that just STRANGE? Kinda freaked me out a bit.

To top all of that off... the whole night it's sounded like somebody was walking up and down the hallway, up and down stairs, or walking around the front lobby at random times throughout the shift. I've checked the cameras and physically looked in those areas I could get to without walking out of Dispatch and there was absolutely NOTHING there and all of the cops were out on the road. I thought maybe one of them might have sneaked in and is messing around... but what explains it when everybody I had on the road is out on a call?

Hiding in the corner,

Dispatcher 6

"There's a fire in the tunnel"

I love these calls.

We have this elderly resident who calls multiple times daily at alllllllll different times of the day to report stuff that really doesn't exist - to normal people.

First call - phone rings, her name comes up on Caller ID so I'm ready for a good bullshit call. There's nobody there. I can here her walking around, though. She does this quite often. I hang up and ignore it.

Second call - later in the night. All 4 guys on the road out at a disturbance call. Around midnight, maybe. Somebody told her to call the police because there's a fire in the tunnel at (insert address here). Then she hangs up. I told the Sgt and he got one of the guys from the disturbance call to break free. I didn't dispatch fire - I figured it's a small town. If there really was a fire, I'd have more calls on it... and besides, the cop would be there in a minute anyway. There was no fire. The resident at the address the caller gave has no idea of any tunnels. Fine. Clear - unfounded.

Third and final call - about 1:45 AM. Caller states there's a group of people on the street near her house trying to sell her house. She's got this whole story about how her house is listed for sale (which it's not) and continues to ramble the whole thing. She also stated, at some point in this mess of complete BS, that they should just lock him up, he's crazy. I'm just thinking to myself "haha, you say HE'S crazy?!" So I send one of the guys out on that one to talk to the caller and her family members that she lives with. Two of the other ones call out on the radio as if they were responding to a structure fire... "RECEIVED, SELLING HOUSE, ENROUTE!" They were just joking, of course, but I almost fell on the floor from laughing so hard... and I was still laughing at the fact that she said this person who's in the middle of the street is crazy.

So the one cop arrives with the Sgt (who's not happy about a THIRD call in one shift) and they said there's nobody in the streets. They go to talk to the caller (and her family) to figure out the situation. Her family members probably yelled at her a bit and must have unplugged her phone or something. Maybe they handed her one of those Barbie phones that talks to the person playing with it. Either way, she didn't call back the rest of the shift.

It's just rather entertaining sometimes. I guess it's better than the guy who calls to complain about STUPID shit like the ashes falling on his property.

Until next time,

I'll be putting out the fire in the tunnel...

Dispatcher 6

"Headquarters, I'll have a 39..."

"... Scratch that, in foot pursuit! Get a rig and medics!"

So this unlicensed Mexican, who I'm betting is illegal, was speeding down a road in town, one of the cops turns his lights on and apparently freaks this guy out or something. He hits a nice new Lexus, a telephone pole, and the front of a restaurant. Then jumps out and starts running. Turns out he was drunk, too.

This was at about 1:30 in the morning. As of the time I left at 6 in the morning, they were STILL working on the pole that was hanging by the wires. It finally got cleaned up around 2 in the afternoon.

Apparently the hospital also wanted to keep him for x-rays and stuff, too. Not sure when we're getting him back and I highly doubt he'll show up for court. The driver and the owner of the vehicle were written a NICE number of tickets though! I hope he does come in for court, he's in for a world of shit.

Apparently this restaurant has a nice recessed brick front end now. Haven't seen it yet... last time I went by, the road was still closed. Sucked for morning traffic, I assume. That's a busy area.

I'm also surprised it didn't knock the power out in town. That would have been kind of funny to have a borough-wide power outage for a third day in a row.

Clear and Unavailable

Dispatcher 6

"911 Can I fix your computer?"

I know, it's a stupid title, but I couldn't think of anything better. I've been awake too many hours already.

Anyway. I was a computer tech for 6 years. I'm slowly starting to wonder why in hell I chose quit my job with a public school system 40 miles away with damn good benefits and nobody watching over my shoulder constantly to be a dispatcher for a small town all of 2 miles away where they seem to look at their dispatchers as cheap shit only there to answer the phone when it rings. I like the majority of the people on my shift... not that there's many on my shift. 3 or 4 people usually, including myself. Sometimes 5 when we're lucky, but that's not often. The only thing that REALLY sucks about dispatching more than anything else. The fact that, hmm, how can I put this... I smoke like a fucking chimney. It's not that easy to get out when I really want that cigarette. I guess it's a good thing that most of the guys on the road are qualified on the desk. I should also probably mention that I dispatch by myself.

Time to start the job hunt, I think. I'm not going to go crazy looking for something, but I'll at least keep an eye out if something interesting comes across. I'm having fun with what I'm doing now. The best part about it right now is that I'm on third shift and none of the brass is around. While I do have a Sgt. around, he's still cool so I don't have a problem there.

Once again,

Clear and Unavailable

Dispatcher 6

Headquarters, I'll be out with a fight...

... involving 5 Mexicans on Prospect.

That was JUST what I wanted to hear an hour and a half after my shift started. NOT. What sucked even more is that I only had 3 cars on the road - 2 of which were on a traffic stop across town. Good thing the town is rather small. Interesting part of the whole event - the one guy who got the shit kicked out of him is the one that ran! They never did find him, but they did arrest the other four... and one of them smelled like a nasty combination of dog, elephant, and maybe even horse and goat shit combined... maybe some rotten eggs, too, for good measure. As soon has he walked in the door, I could smell him across the building. Then one of the guys starts spraying Glade French Vanilla. Great. Picture a 3 year old hard boiled egg with french vanilla cool whip on top. Yeah, pretty similar. Turns out not one of them were legal. Odd part is... they were just released with a court date. Now, who thinks they'll show up for court?

Until next time,

Clear and Unavailable

Dispatcher 6

Send an officer, please

I just randomly thought of this one...

A while back I got a call from a resident requesting an officer because there were ashes or something falling on his property. At least this wasn't on 911, he would have gotten the non-emergency button. He wasn't sure if they were ashes or not, but he wanted an officer there. Now what exactly do you expect us to do about this particular situation? I can't just let it go and not send anybody, he WILL come in and complain that we're not doing our job. And... if it takes to long to get an officer there, he'll call and complain. Just out of shits and giggles, I turned up the volume on the county fire band and heard that there was a decent sized brush fire in another town not too far away. I guess I should mention that it was pretty windy that day. The wind was blowing the ashes and he happened to be in the path. If it starts a fire on your property, fine, I'll send the fire department. As far as "stuff" falling from the sky, there's not a damn thing we can do. I'm sure as hell not putting a tarp over your property.

Now that I've gotten that random call across, I thought of something quick and stupid.

Around the same time, probably within the same week, I got a call - over the 911 line - with an elderly female stating there's a squirrel up on the power lines. Um. Non-emergency. She listens to the non-emergency message AND CALLS BACK OVER 911!!! Needless to say, she got the non-emergency button again, and didn't call back that time.

FYI for those who don't know - as far as I know, all of New Jersey has a button on their 911 console called "Non-Emergency" which, when pressed, dials a voicemail-like message that basically says the call is not an emergency, 911 is for emergencies only, and to contact your local police department at their regular number. Of course, it doesn't give the regular number of the local police department.

Until next time,

Clear and Unavailable

Dispatcher 6

9-1-1 WHERE is your emergency?

OK... so I'm Matt, and I'm a 9-1-1 Police / Fire / EMS Dispatcher for a police department in New Jersey. I've been on the job for about 5 months. Before that, I was a computer technician for a number of years. Why I left the IT field... I have no idea. That's enough for the intro.


There's something that BUGS me at work. When the 911 phone rings, it's supposed to come up with a name, address, blah blah blah on the Automated Location Identification (ALI) screen. That's all fine and dandy, but what about when it's a cell phone? There are different "phases" of wireless phones. All of the newer phones are wireless phase 2 so it tries its best to show the location of the caller... well, actually, the phone. MOST of the time, the ALI screen will show phase 2 for a cell phone... giving me GPS coordinates. Let's get this straight now... if it gives me phase 1, I'm pretty much screwed for finding them unless they tell me. I can try to refresh the ALI information, but that doesn't always work. Anyway, so when it gives me GPS coordinates, I CAN'T DO ANYTHING WITH THEM! My computer aided dispatch (CAD) console doesn't have Internet access. How am I supposed to find out where these people are? I've been saying almost since I started we should get access to either Google Maps or Google Earth, but nothing has happened, and, as far as I know, nothing is in the works either. That's really not good, especially if it's from one of those deactivated phones that doesn't have service, but the caller can still dial 911. I can't call that number back. The only thing I can do is call a local town that actually has the ability to look up coordinates. That's not always accurate though. At one point I had 3 officers knocking on doors on an entire street. At least it wasn't a long street. I thought I heard something about a grant for agencies in the county to purchase equipment needed to get the location of wireless callers.

Anyway, that's enough complaining for the first post.

Clear and Unavailable

Dispatcher 6