Minor Foot Pursuits?

Picture this: you are downtown....drunk, cop rolls by and tries to talk to some guy who takes off running. Said cop bails out of the car and chases after him, leaving car behind and unsecured.....I'm going to go ahead and say right now I would REALLY have to resist the urge to not hop in that car. I mean of all the crimes to go to jail for...that one might be worth it.

Okay, okay, truth is I'm too pretty for jail so I'll have to keep myself as a law abiding citizen but it's a good thing I wasn't there when this situation arose the other night in Gotham. Meanwhile I was in dispatch listening to the officer call "minor" foot pursuit while chasing drunken idiot. Fyi, there really is no such thing as a "minor" foot pursuit but that was this officers way of saying "Let's not create a scene now, I don't need the entire PD down here, just need somebody to make sure another drunkie doesn't steal my car." Pretty entertaining stuff. The suspect was apprehended quickly and car was retrieved.

We just had a class of rookies graduate from the academy last week and hit the streets with their FTO's [field training officers] so I am expecting some good entertainment out of that, although so far I've only seen a couple of our current guys on shift sign on with a rookie in the car, maybe once we get to the opposite shift next week there will be more of them, and hopefully fun stories to follow. I've heard good things about this class though, everyone seems to think we will get some good officers out of the bunch, congrats and hats off to them for making it through the academy. I've seen first hand the stuff they put those poor kids through and it is no picnic. Well, until next time, stay out of those cop cars! Drivers seat or behind the cage :)

Ride Along.

I've done several ride alongs now since I have started dispatching, two with tweedle dee and this last one with a female officer that works on the opposite shift from tweedle dee and tweedle dumb and is currently on days. Now there are a couple things I'd like to point out about this last ride along that might not readily occur to you: for some reason most people seem to think day shift would be better; Ladies and Gentlemen I am here to to tell you it is not. There are some officers and dispatchers that I know would disagree with me here but I really cannot fathom why I would EVER make a voluntary decision to be on day shift. First of all, it is fkn hot outside during the day in the summer. I was seriously melting out there, it was humid and nasty, I was sweating my face off and when you are getting in and out of the car every two minutes to stand outside and talk to morons about car keys, you never stay in the "air conditioning" of the patrol car long enough to cool off. And that's just me in civilian clothes, the poor officers in those horrrrrible bullet proof vests and the rest of the uniform have to be near dying. Now on top of that I feel as though the level of bullshit to be dealt with in the course of a regular day is a lot higher than a regular night. I mean you've got all sorts of brass listening to the radio, there to hear you if you slip up and say something funny or what have you, not to mention everyone in the city is awake and wants to call the police for EVERYTHING. I feel like at least some of the bullshit subsides at night when some of the citizens [aka the ones with jobs] go to bed. Then you get to deal with the hoodlums of the city who at least usually keep things interesting by doing illegal things that you actually want to arrest them for as opposed to the public service calls, the kids not listening to parents, the info calls, the general useless waste of time kinda calls. So in keeping with the theme, allow me to tell you a story:

The female officer and I roll up on scene and the tweedle dumb of her shift is already on scene, [I lovingly call this one funfetti, but he def has similarities to tweedle dumb I introduced ya'll to last post! haha but I love them both!] he's there with another officer I'll call Mom, since he's the mommy of the zone...really just the mommy for Funfetti because someone has to look after him, thank goodness Mom is there, he even carries an extra key of Funfetti's for him in case he loses his...or locks it in his car since apparently there has already been an incident with that lol. Anyway, guess what our call is about?? KEYS! Apparently these upstanding citizens we went to visit didn't have a mommy to keep a spare key for them and that led to some serious problems in their lives! Mommy and Funfetti inform us upon our arrival that the gentleman who is standing before us in oversized basketball jersey and matching nikes seems to be missing his keys...hmmmm what a terrible travesty.... and naturally since he is missing his keys he assumes the female, who is standing at a vehicle next to him, has taken them. So what do we do when we are grown adults and our keys are missing and we think our girlfriend took them? We take her keys and "dispose" of them, obviously! The answer was very clear to this man and that is exactly what he did. So here we are...3 officers and one dispatcher in a pink polo standing there watching these two winners of Gotham society whine at each other about keys with their peanut gallery sitting on the porch cheering them on. Now about this time Superwoman, which is what I'm going to call the female officer because that's what she has to be in order to deal with the other officers in her zone [haha jk lovvvve ya'll ;)] annnnd these upstanding citizens, asks Mr. Genius where the keys are. Conversation as follows:

"Where are the keys?"

"They ain't here"

"Right but where are they?"

"They ain't here"

"Okay, but where are they?"

"They ain't here"

About this point I seriously consider punching this dude in the throat just for being so fking annoying. Superwoman I suppose is more tolerant of irritating men, being as she is a female officer, and decides to just stop bothering to ask him. The story gets even better when Superwoman, in her all knowing ways, says do either of you even have a license? No, no. Of course not. You don't need one of those to drive in Gotham City do you?? C'MON people! This shit is completely absurd. Needless to say there's nothing the police can/want to do for you when you are that stupid and want to bicker like children over car keys. I spent that particular 20 minutes baking in the sun and poor little Funfetti had to stand out there too with his hair gel melting down his face for absolutely. NO. reason. This my friends is why I appreciate my bat cave aka dispatch with it's climate controlled environment.

BBQ Chicken

So last night was fun. The police platoons have rotated again so I'm back with the officers I have worked with the most and there are several favorites on that shift we are extra nice to. We had a bunch of food in dispatch last night that we all brought in so we shared with a select few. 2 of my personal favorites I'll lovingly call tweedle dee and tweedle dumb, are never separated very long, everyone jokes that if they get to far apart it stretches the embilical cord. I swear it's like they have radar on each other. Anywho, they came in to eat and visit for a hot minute last night and after a couple minutes we got a breaking and entering call in progress in their zone. Of course tweedle dee was right in the middle of pulling out a piece of chicken to eat. Now don't worry, this skilled veteran officer still got his chicken and ran down the hall to his car chowing down, and both tweedles headed out of our lot lights and sirens to make it to the call. I found out later to my glee and entertainment that once they arrived on scene our boys went in foot pursuit of the suspect, tweedle dee bailed out of the car still chewing. Of course they caught their guy and had him in custody in no time, these officers know how to multi-task ; ).

Gotham has been busy the past few nights, all sorts of craziness going on. We had a young adult commit a violent crime on a family member and no sooner had the officers arrived on scene and started looking for the suspect than I took a call from a court employee that had the suspect and his mom in her office where he had come to turn himself in and had the weapon in the car. It was surprising to say the least. Good tho because the last time we had an incident like that happen on my shift I lost all my officers but 3 to the investigation out looking for the suspect and trying to control the crowd so I was stuck running a ton of other calls city-wide with 3 officers running the city...less than fun.

"Get somebody out here I'm being A HOE'D!" [no one I've encountered yet knows what that means but apparently it's happening in Gotham]

Here is a word to the stupid: if you call the police, keep in mind calls are sorted by priority, aka if you are not in immediate danger, the cops are going to the calls where someone is first and you might have to wait a few minutes or more sometimes a few hours. There are only so many officers to go around and if what you're calling about can wait, sometimes it will have to, what will not help is if when the police don't come fast enough for you, calling back and lying and reporting shots fired or some other nonsense that isn't happening...that my friends is illegal.

First Two Days of a Long Week Rotation.....

I really love having to explain common sense to people. Sometimes I really wonder what percentage of the population still has any. For instance, "No ma'mm, the officers cannot force your 40yoa cousin to leave her house and come live with you just because you think she'd be better off with you." I mean there's probably a reason she doesn't want to come with you, I'm thinking you're probably pretty annoying since you openly admit she's not a threat to herself and perfectly capable of taking care of herself, you just want her to come live with you because her mom died and now she's alone....maybe she wants some time alone to GRIEVE! Either way it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know the police can't make a grown woman go somewhere she doesn't want to for no real reason at all. 

Also, if there are bunnies in your yard and you have a dog, 2 perfectly normal things are going to happen: the dog is going to chase the bunnies: that's called instinct. 2, if you try to catch the bunnies they are going to try and bite you. duh. DO NOT CALL 911.

And another thing while I am ranting, if you are going to be rude and trashy to the police, and then you are going to try and run from them/fight with them, then it should not come as a shock to you when you get pepper sprayed/your ass beat. This is not a valid reason to start screaming police brutality. Bet you aren't screaming about how much you hate the police when you get into one of the million situations you want them to come fix now are you? Oh no, then you want them there yesterday and you want someone arrested NOW. right. 

Let me leave you with this:

"Gotham City 911"

"Someone broke into my house and turned my heat up"

sure they did sir. we'll have the police there faster than you can say "I'm a looney!"

Opps.....

Do you know what is really awesome about my job? The fact that I am not face to face with the idiots on the phone or to the officers when they are testing my nerves. (The firefighters/medics rarely have reason to test my nerves.) This way you see, I can say all sorts of smart-ass things to/about them and they nevvvver know and no one is the wiser.....up until your transmit button sticks and you have what they call an "open mic". 

That open mic thing is soooo not my friend. I've had many of these occurrences since I started dispatching, one when I first started and was still in training that was pretty funny. I was talking to a detective on channel 2 and I listened to every word he said, wrote it down, gave him a 10-4 and then said "I have no idea what he is talking about". All kinds of on the air for everyone to hear. Luckily that was on channel 2 which is not listened to as much as channel 1. Still pretty funny tho. Now I've said allllot of smart-ass things to officers thru my computer monitor, most of the time simply in a joking manner, sometimes in a "i really wish he were standing right in front of me so I could smack him upside the head" manner. But it goes both ways, the officers do it to us too, it's a love/hate relationship. However, last week I said it right to him....all over channel one....completely accidentally.....

Now keep in mind there is a certain unit of officers, who do not take regular calls, they sort of run around on their own looking for people up to no good, doing their own thing. We'll call them Secret Squirrel unit since dispatch never has any idea what they are doing. Now these are mostly really good cops on this unit, they get stuff done...however, God love 'em, they can be extreeeeeemely annoying at times. They usually stay on a different channel doing whatever it is they are doing and then they pop up on one and create havoc when they are right in the middle of some craziness and we have no idea what's going on. It's just the nature of the beast I guess, not really their fault, but all sorts of a pain in the ass. So naturally, I was all kinds of excited last week to know they were on special assignment and had their very own channel with their very own dispatcher to bother so I would not have to worry about them.....wrong. AS SOON as I sat down at my console one of them keys up. Really?? So I answer the officer, "Go ahead" and then...release my transmit button.......guess what gets stuck and I don't realize it...that f&%*ing transmit button, that's what. So guess what I say all over the air for alllll the officers and sgts and goodness knows who all to hear? 

"Go ahead....WHY IS HE ON MY CHANNEL ISNT HE SUPPOSED TO BE YOUR PROBLEM TODAY???" 

yeaaaaaaaa big opps. I couldn't help but laugh...hysterically actually. It was pretty funny. Luckily the officer must have been capable of sharing in the hilarity of the situation because he just moved right along without saying a wordddd. HAHA! For the record, it was simply a joke because I am a smart-ass like that but yeaaa. Let's say I used my mouse to click the button for the rest of the night and NOT the button attached to my wireless that likes to stick........

Naked People and Bears.

So you know its going to be a fun day when you receive a call about a naked guy jacking off 4.5 minutes from your house. Yup, that's what happened to me today. Then 6-7ish officers proceeded to try and catch naked guy and get him to put some clothes on and get a girlfriend or something. Yea...he's still at large.....my doors are locked and I'm going over to Daddy's later to pick up the shotgun. 

New call. Neighbor gets in fight with other neighbor about neighbor b playing loud music at 4am, neighbor a and neighbor b begin to fight and fall down stairs, neighbor b is naked. So clothed and pissed neighbor rolls down stairs and fights with another naked man[clearly these were men women just do not fight other naked women unless there is a man invovled] what a great day in Gotham.

BOLO[be on lookout for] Bear in ******area....use caution and if located do not feed the bear. Yea. That really happened and yea it had the part about feeding the bear in it.

Foot Pursuits. Gotta love 'em. Love them even more when the officer keys up on his radio to say "subject in custody" and doesn't let go of the button before yelling "don't freaking move!".

Me: District 6 did you want me to leave you on this call or free you and mark you at your current location?

District 6: 10-4

...........i mean really????

Parental Discretion Is Advised.

Now, let me start this by saying, I have just 2 days ago vowed to stop cursing. I will fail at that task for this blog: [there will be lots of offensive language so either love it, don't read it, or get the hell over it :) ]

Caller: OMG OMG OMG GET THE POOLICE OVER HERE  MIKE IS BEATING THE FUCK OUT SHANAYNAY

Dispatcher: Ok ma'mm what is the address?

Caller: It's over here at *insert location* HURRY UP JUST GET THA POOLICE OUT HERE OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

Dispatcher: Ok ma'mm what apt?

Caller: I mean I dunno shiiiit. JUST GET THE POOLICE OVA HERE FUCK HURRY UP I MEAN SHIT

Dispatcher: Ma'mm I need to know the apt number, does he have any weapons?

Caller: I DONT KNOW, SHIIIIT FUCK HE IS BEATING HER ASS I TOLD YOU SHIIIIT

Dispatcher: Ma'mm can you see them?

Caller: SHIIIT FUCKKK JUST GET THEM OUT HERE

Dispatcher: Ma'mm I can do two things at once, they are coming I need to know the apt and I need to know if he has any weapons.

Caller: SHHIIIIIT I DON'T KNOW! JUST GET THEM OUT HERE FUCCCKK

[this continues for several moments, we'll fast-forward to the good part, also I am paraphrasing but this is really how this woman was talking, and this next part is a direct quote]

 

Dispatch: Ok ma'mm I need you to answer my questions, is she going to need rescue?

Caller:We'll what am I calling you for? SHIIIIT FUCKKK *best part* I THOUGHT YOU WAS A 911 LADY?? SHIIIII FUCKKKK

Sometimes you just have to remind yourself, I love my job....

I do love my job. Sometimes however, I need to be reminded of that fact. I am over worked and underpaid, story of America I know. Ya know who else is over worked and underpaid? The officers. Guess out of the two of us who gets more cranky in the run of a shift... You guessed it, the officers. I mean I don't entirely blame them, it's bad enough talking to these people on the phone, they do have to deal with them face to face, however, for the record: they get away with saying a lot of the things I'd like to say to them but can't, because I'm on a taped line. I always try to be nice, I really do, but there are times when I am pushed to my limits. 

Example #1

For some reason recently we have had a lot of "cluster" type situations. The other night we had someone call about a runaway, supposedly the girl was at a particular location with another juvi female who was driving illegally, then we have a separate call about the illegally driving female from someone else who I guess didn't know about the runaway situation. So as both these calls are holding to be sent to officers because we are all kinds of busy and there are no officers to take them, we get yet another call in the same area about a disorder with a man beating a car with some sort of pipe or something. Turns out its related too, I don't remember the exact details but I think it basically boiled down to daddy getting pissed at little miss runaway thinking she can do whatever she wants and he caught her at a local gas station. Now, this is already confusing as bejesus because we have three separate calls and on the disorder we have multiple callers, none of whom want to talk to police and one of whom, turns out to be little miss runaway herself. 

Enter Officer A. [I'd like to use other nicknames here but I won't :) ] Officer A rolls up on scene along with about 3 other officers and begins to try and sort out said mess. 

Officer A: Where is my complainant? 

[aka person who is going to tell me what happened and why they called 911, and they don't have to talk to the pd so they don't always have one]

Now I didn't take any of these calls so as he is asking me this I am asking the call takers

Me: We only had one female who wanted to talk to the police and she was supposed to approach you [she had seen pd pulling up, told the call taker she would approach them and hung up]

Officer A: What's her name

Me: We don't have it

Officer A: Can you call her back we don't see her

Me:10-4

::call taker calls number back, gets male on the phone, as a side note I believe this was the older male little miss runaway had been doing goodness knows what with and perhaps why daddy was so mad.....anyway, male says that the female is already talking to police, call taker hangs up::

Me: Officer A, We just called back and apparently you are out with the right subject.

Officer A says THE dreaded words: go to 2

::I go to channel 2 which btw, is the place the officers make you go when they are about to ruin your life::

Me: Go ahead on 2

Officer A: **who by the way is now starting with an irritated tone as tho I am an idiot there only to ruin his life**  We are not out with any female

Me: Standby, that's what the caller told us.

::call taker calls back again and male tells us again, no no she really is talking to the police::

I take large breath and attempt to remain calm

Me: Officer A, they are advising again that she is talking to an officer.

Officer A: *smartass tone* Can you find out where she is and who she is talking to because none of us are talking to her.

::Meanwhile the call taker, genius that he is, asks the male to hand the phone to the officer. Officer B advises he is indeed out at the same location as Officer A, talking to the female::

Me: Officer A, Officer B is out with the subject now.

Officer A: No, *again with the smartass tone* Officer B is standing right next to me and we are not talking to a female.

::At this point call taker has to take over speaking to the Officer because I might lose my job if I have to any longer::

Call taker: I just spoke with Officer B on the phone, he is out with the female

Officer A: No Officer B is right here with me.

FINALLY, right about at this point Officer A stops ruining my life long enough to realize that the female caller was little miss runaway and they have had her the whole time. Now I really do not blame Officer A, it was a giant mess and extremely annoying but reallllly??? These are the situations that remind me I should make more money. I felt like I was in a bad episode of Reno 911.

Example #2

[this story will also be called cluster #2]

3 separate calls, 2 at the same apt complex, diff buildings, one in the same area at a diff complex. all disorders if I remember correctly.

Officers on scene at 2 of the calls, one at each apt complex. Officer C running one call. Now let me preface this by saying Officer C's radio sucks. I have no idea what he had done to it that night but it basically sounded like he was talking to us from Baghdad.  Ok, so that information in mind, here we go:

Dispatch: Are the two calls that are in the same complex going to be related? 

Officer C: [from Baghdad] 10-4 all the calls over here are going to be related.

Dispatch: Even the one at the other complex?

Officer C: 10-4 all the calls on the North Side are going to be related.

Officer D: Officer C I think I got something over here at this other complex....are you sure it's all related?

Officer C: All the NS calls are related.

Officer E: Yea it's going to be related

Officer D: I don't think it's related, what do ya'll have?

Officer E: Its related.

Ok, so that last part is a little paraphrased because at this point in the night I was incapable of even listening anymore unless someone was foot pursuit or something important, it had seriously been a ridiculous evening, annnnnd I was hormonal so I was basically done. The point is the cluster of officers begin to totally confuse themselves and us about what was and was not related till everyone was so confused it just became comedy. Turns out calls 1 and 2 were, but 3 was separate. Commence hair pulling. So it gets figured all out and I get to go to a different board and not talk to the popo anymore. Until Officer C calls in on the phone! Haha I just have to share this part because it completely cracked me up. Officer C calls because apparently the dispatchers that have gone up to the police board do not understand radio traffic from Baghdad and have told him his radio is useless. Officer C proceeds to apologize for all the confusion and tell me the quote of the evening "Yea, I've been screaming into my radio like a little girl but I guess you guys couldn't hear me" nope Officer C, we could not. Lol. It's about this time I stop wanting to pull my hair out and just laugh at the mess for a while. I love my job. :)

Earthquake.

It's Sat night. It's been fairly busy, what with the fair in town and the citizens trying to kill each other every three seconds down there until the cavalry rolls in a pepper sprays their silly selves....and each other...but anyway, I have other things to be worrying about since I am planning on pulling an all nighter and going to a graduation right after work. At 4am, I have just gotten back from my break and am about to start trying to make myself look acceptable, break out the mirror and walk to the kitchen to wash my hands before I start messing with my face. As I am about halfway thru the room, I here a rumble, and immediately dismiss it, mainly because I am obliviously going thru a checklist of things I need to do before 0630 in my head. Another dispatcher says "what was that?", I say "nothing" and walk to the kitchen.

Theeeeen the phones ring. alot. I poke my head out of the kitchen and notice the computer screens are littered with calls....at 4:09 in the morning.....weird. Turns out "nothing" is actually a 3.0 earthquake and citizens from alllll over the area are calling FREAKING out. I mean psssh, it's just an earthquake, not the end of the world. So I spend the next 30 minutes not really knowing what was going on, along with the rest of the world, telling citizens we are trying to figure out what happened and that the police are investigating. [by investigating I mean sitting in their cars being as clueless as everyone else :) ] I get calls from one of our fire marshalls, a couple sgts, another jurisdictions dispatcher, basically everyone. It was just back to back to back calls in which I could do nothing but tell ppl we thought it was an earthquake but couldn't confirm. Then we finally get confirmation and can start telling people that's what it was. At that point my greeting became something similar to: "Gotham City 911, did you feel your house shake? Yea, ok we had an earthquake, you can go back to sleep :)", about that point the mirror came back out and I went on about my day as I told people it wasn't a bomb, or someone trying to break in, or a car hitting their house, or whatever other crazy idea they had in their minds. this lasted about an hour and was pretty darn entertaining actually. Apparently that's what happens when an earthquake hits. Glad I got that one under my belt! 

Now I come back to work 2 days later and it's back to business as usual, and one of the things the officers had gone over in lineup was a stolen vehicle that had been taken a few days previous, and one officer on our shift was bound and determined to find it. Oh don't worry, he found it....2 houses down from where it was stolen from.....and the guy who stole it was chillin in the house it was in front of....REALLY??? I mean c'mon people. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. Try and make it a liiittle harder for the officers to catch you. Let's work on putting some effort in our not getting thrown into jail tactics next time. We also had a very interesting foot pursuit, our officers had a request from a neighboring jurisdiction to check an addy for a wanted subject and they went out to the address, and seemed to be fairly certain the guy was in there so they surrounded the house and played around out there for about an hour and a half trying to get this guy to come out....Then they figure out he's not in there, he bolted somewhere in the woods and was hiding so they could not locate him. They gave up, left the scene and went on to other business. All of a sudden you hear one of our forensic guys key up on the radio.....whispering.....weird? yes. Does this usually mean some shit is about to pop off? Si senorita. Next thing you know.... FOOT PURSUIT! Yup there it goes. Home dude runs out of the woods and right into the officers sight, and it's on. He catches him, suspect gets pepper sprayed somewhere in the mix and then gets carted off to jail. Good day for the officer, Bad day for suspect. Just another weekend in the little city!

I love stupid criminals.

Phone rings at the wee hours of the morning. I feel like I'm being shot at by some sort of alien but that's a different blog, anyway, 911 line gets answered by my partner on the fire board, I'm only vaguely paying attention at this point since I have no fire calls and no reason real reason to be conscious. 

 Then I hear a question come across the police radio. "Did you say the caller is the suspect?" "10-4". Ok. Now I have a reason to be awake. Turns out this GENIUS citizen got drunk, [shocking] beat some guy unconscious, [no way], and then decided that this unconscious guy on the floor was his "best friend"......yeaaaaaaa. Clearly ya'll are tight. Then after telling my partner the "best friend" is unconscious and being all kinds of upset about it he proceeds to tell her that he looks like he might be getting up and if he does he's going to "knock him out again, I swear I will!!" 

   Sometimes I seriously wonder how these people remember to breathe in and out. 

What's this in reference to?

I am a dispatcher. That means if you call 911, I might talk to you, the officers where I'm from talk to me on the radio, firefighters and medics too. I talk to crazy people, loud people, quiet people, dumb people, smart people, annoying people and people I feel sorry for. I talk to officers I love, officers I can't stand, nice officers, bitch officers, hard working officers and lazy ones. I also have the great pleasure of talking to our fire and ems crews on the radio and phones as well and everybody knows I love those boys and girls! I can't help it, it's in my blood. But anyway the moral 0f the story here is that I have ALOT of interesting stories to tell and at the suggestion of a very smart friend of mine this blog has been created to share some of them and so I can look back and remember 'em when I forget all about it the next month when the next batch of crazy stories roll in! Now a little run down for those of you that don't know how a dispatch center works, there are 3 different sections of the room that we call "boards". There is the fire board, the police board, and the calltaking board. Usually we like to have two people on each one of those boards. Calltaking is where the actual calls come in and then the person back there at that board makes a call screen with the addy and all the pertinent info of the call and sends it to the proper board. If it is a fire or ems call it goes to those dispatchers and if it is a police call it goes to the police dispatchers. Then depending on where in the city the call is the dispatchers sent it to the proper responders, which is another word for officers or firefighters. Now if its a fire call one person tones the station it is going to, meaning we set off a bunch of bells and whistles in their station and open up their speaker systems and start rattlin off the addy and the details of the call, they for the most part ignore all that tho since about that point they are pausing the xbox game and running for their turnout gear. (haha) They get a piece of paper with all the details to tho so they generally just grab that and take off. 

Now if it's a police call the whole deal is different. The police dispatchers get a call screen and read it, decide who and how many need to go and then we send it to computers they have in their cars. Then the police read it, then they call up on the radio and ask us a million pointless questions about it and then they decide to head on over to wherever and start doing some work! :) We only say it over the radio like we do with the firefighters if it is a really high priority call like a shooting, robbing or something like that where they need to be over there like yesterday with half the force. So that gives you a very basic idea of how things roll in there. 

I guess we'll start the story telling with the officers. Now every dispatcher has officers they love.....and officers that make them want to pull their hair out. Usually more of the second type than the first lol. Well we've just gotten a batch of new rookies out on their own and let me tell you: that is a treat. You wanna talk about entertainment, let's talk about giving some poor kid a gun, some handcuffs and a badge and throwin 'em out in the real world after they think they've learned everything they need to know in the academy. HA! Hilarity ensues. Now for the most part the rookies on our shift have it somewhat together. Most of them are on par with how to get us dispatchers to help them when they need it which is , always yes ma'mming us and using their pleases and thank you's, which is more than I can say for a lot of our veteran cops, although there a few and we love them for it! But the poor things are just clueless about a lot of this stuff that gets thrown at them. One in particular is pretty clueless about everything. God love his little soul it just seems like that poor boy can't get a thing right. The other day he was trying to mark out at a location (which just means tell me where he was going to be so we could note it in case anything should go down we know where to send the cavalry) and the first two streets he gave as the intersection of where he was....don't intersect. So of course since he is a rookie and the vets like to make life hard anyway, a couple older cops key up (that's the term for when they start talking on the radio) and ask him if he means such and such streets and about that time the sgt for the area this kid works in keys up and says he'll be out with rookie in a minute and gives a better location. So once sgt and rookie have been on scene for a while rookie apparently found someone to arrest and decides to take him downtown. Now in order to arrest him, rookie asks me to create him a wanted screen. That just means instead of us getting the call and making a screen and sending him on it, he found the crime without any prompting and now needs a screen for documentation. Now all that is fine except poor child asks me to create a wanted screen for: and lists the same two damn streets we had just got done discussing that don't intersect! I mean for goodness sakes it had been 15 mins maybe! So sgt of said clueless rookie had to once again save the day and key up with the corrected streets that do intersect, which is wear they actually were. Pooooor rookie. I know they were making fun for a couple days on that one. Now he's not the only one to jack things up and get teased tho! A different brand new officer managed to wreck his cruiser in his first month. I'd say it's a record but I'm sure it's been done faster. Of course that one was a big fuss. I'm sure they are still bringing that one up every chance they get. Another one chased a suspect down, had him lay on the ground (standard procedure) cuffed him up and when he had to run after the other suspects, told him not to move and left him lying there while he finished the pursuit. Now that might not sound so silly but that's because I haven't yet shared the detail that he left the poor juvenile lying in the middle of the roadway and we he came back cars were swerving around him! That one gave me a good chuckle for months. I have rookie stories for days but I'll save some for a rainy day. So anyway this post was just to give you an idea what the blog is gonna be like and all the crazy stories you'll hear if you take the time to read. I'll keep ya posted on all the juicy ones.

-D