![]() “When you have someone leave their common sense and communication skills at the door to follow a checklist, that’s not always the right way,” McNamara said. Oneida County District Attorney Scott McNamara voiced concern that scripted questions might hinder dispatchers from using their own judgment to ask questions unique to situation. “You don’t want to walk into a situation when you don’t have the information that could have easily been obtained by the call-taker, and that results in the injury or death of responding personnel,” Inserra said. In the past, officers have occasionally arrived at scenes and gathered information that the dispatcher should have been able to get beforehand, Inserra said. “Our dispatchers have so many things to do, with so many things thrown at them, that if there’s anything we can do to make their jobs easier to serve the public, we want to do it.”Īuthorities such as New Hartford police Chief Michael Inserra understand that it can be easy for dispatchers to sometimes forget what questions to ask when a caller is irate or incoherent. “Nobody’s perfect, and it’s not easy for a dispatcher to remember every single relevant question regarding an incident when they have to monitor a radio and be on the phone with somebody who may not be all that clear on what’s going on,” Revere said. If the call is truly urgent, there also is a setting that kicks the call to an immediate dispatch. The following questions are similar to what 911 call-takers might ask callers regarding a potentially violent incident:Īre you or the suspect still at the scene now?Īre you or anyone else in immediate danger?Īs a former police investigator, current Oneida County Emergency Services Commissioner Kevin Revere said he has noticed that some call-takers don’t ask all the pertinent questions.īut with this software, call-takers will be prompted to ask a series of scripted logical questions that are relevant to the concerns of officer safety, public safety and solving crimes, Revere said. Staffing: Nine trained full-time call-takers handle 12 call-taking positions and must monitor between five to six computers at any one time. Includes $118,000 for dispatch software, paid for with Oneida County land-line phone surcharges, and $17,000 in Homeland Security federal funds to make software compatible with county’s CAD computer system.Ģ011 calls answered on all lines: More than 366,000.Ĭalls to 911 answered in 2011: More than 250,000.Ĭoverage includes: 50 fire departments, 14 or more police agencies, 15 ambulance services. ![]() But once this second phase of technology is installed as early as the end of this month, authorities hope to take the guesswork out of 911 dispatches without slowing down any response time. Oneida County already has utilized similar software in cases of medical emergencies. The software is being used across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. in Salt Lake City, relays as much information as possible to a local police agency to determine how the officer should respond. The ProQA Paramount software, marketed by Priority Dispatch Corp. That type of scenario is what law enforcement officials hope won’t happen once the Oneida County 911 Center begins using new software that helps dispatchers ask callers the proper sequence of questions based on what police emergency is at hand. Perhaps the last thing a police officer wants to do is walk into a situation not knowing that someone at the scene is carrying a weapon, authorities agree. ![]()
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