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By Stephen Martini

onths ago, I had a memorable conversation with a colleague from the other side of the radio about what relevance if any the seven-year-old initiative Below 100 would have for public safety communications professionals. After all, this effort focused on practical things law enforcement officers could do to reduce annual line-of-duty deaths by buckling their seat belts, wearing their

vests, letting off the gas pedal, focusing on the immediate and ditching complacency. All of these things seem to focus responsibility solely on the officer on the streetor do they?

CDE #44540

I spent the following weeks rolling that reality over and over in my head. I considered the notion that PSAP professionals have little if anything to do with the five tenets listed at Below100.org. I looked at the four names of officers known to me personally, or by those with whom I personally worked, rubbed in pencil on paper in my office from the walls where they are forever enshrined at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C.

I considered the continued pleas of Lexipols Gordon Graham in his daily train-ing tips, for officers to dip below the century mark for line-of-duty deathsalready down from its all-time high of 278 in 1974. I con-sidered my own 14-year career working at a console; under the headset; or training, hiring and supporting those who do; and I determined we public safety communica-tions professionals most certainly have a role in officer safety.

We buckle their belts and fasten their vests with solid basic training and con-tinuing education, fighting daily against complacency, because what is predictable is preventable. We help officers control their speed by obtaining and relaying relevant information and properly prioritizing it, helping officers determine whats important

now. Every member of the PSAP has a role in this, from the call taker to the radio dis-patcher and from the supervisor to the PSAP manager.

THE CALL TAKERS ROLEIn April 2009, three law enforcement

officers were killed after being shot while responding to a domestic incident in a Northeast U.S. suburb. A mother and son were arguing when the mother called 9-1-1 and calmly told the telecommunicator the son had weapons in the house. The telecommu-nicator did not pass that information along to officers and, when the first two officers arrived on scene, her 22-year-old son was standing behind his mother and fatally shot both officers on the front porch as well as a third officer who arrived as back-up.

According to reports, the call taker asked whether the man had weapons and the caller replied, Yes. Theyre all legal.

None of this information was passed along to officers. And the telecommunicator did not ask any additional information about what type of weapons he had, or how many.

Did the telecommunicator play a role in officer safety in this incident?

We can buckle the belt with training. Predictable is preventable, right? According to APCOs Public Safety Telecommunicator course, family disturbances are typi-cally considered the most hazardous calls to which public safety officials respond. Statistics indicate a significant percentage of family disturbances result in assaults against response units, especially law enforcement. This is primarily because people are extremely emotional during fam-ily arguments and tend to view an officers presence as an invasion of their privacy, as well as an attempt to interfere in their per-sonal problems. (APCO PST1 7th Edition, Module 11)

Basic training tells us calls like this (a mother and son arguing) already pose a higher risk to responders, so gathering rel-evant information becomes even more impor-tant. We gather the relevant four Ws where,

TELECOMMUNICATORS THE

ROLE IN OFFICER SAFETY

We buckle their belts and fasten their vests

with solid basic training and continuing education,

fighting daily against complacency, because what

is predictable is preventable.

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when, what, who and the occasional fifth, weapons. We ask the caller whether the sus-pect has long guns, short guns, what type of guns and how many. We ask what other weapons the suspect may have knives, bats, clubs, swords?

We can control their speed by gathering relevant information.

According to course text, it is important to gather information from callers about whether weapons are being used, threatened or available in any incident. Never send a response unit to any dangerous or poten-tially dangerous situation without advise-ment on weapons.

In March 2014, one telecommunicator resigned while another was terminated in the Southeast U.S. after neglecting to pass on relevant information associated with reports of a triple homicide hearing active gunshots and receiving a phone call from a neighbor reporting a barn on their property where a suspect may be hiding. Responders searched the woods for two hours, never finding a suspect or victims. Sharing relevant information could have helped responders find the victims as well as take precautions to locate an armed suspect.

What if the suspect left the scene? How would officers know who they are looking for, or if they encounter the suspect en route to the scene? Again, training tells us to gather suspect descriptions in a certain order head to toe and then relay it to responders to ensure officers can quickly identify the person they seek.

What if the suspect left in a vehicle? Yes, the same training says CYMBALS should be employed by the telecommunicator to gather relevant information for responders the color, year, make, body style, other identify-ing marks, license plate number and state, so they may identify the vehicle quickly.

If officers approach the vehicle, or the suspect on foot, with a clear description of who he is and the style of weapon he has, perhaps they employ different methods when engaging. Additionally, if officers understood where on the property the suspect might have been (his location within the location) and where his guns may be, would they have asked the caller to step outside rather than approach the door? What if, when officers approached the home in the first scenario, a premise or caution note were entered into CAD on this address, noting the resident has access to a large cache of guns?

We may never know the answer to these questions, but available training material certainly shows we can attempt to gather relevant information and relay it quickly to responding officers so they know whats important now and, as a result, make appro-priate tactical decisions.

THE RADIO DISPATCHERS ROLEThe call takers quick attention to proper

information gathering is only relevant if the radio dispatcher passes that relevant information quickly and accurately to the responding officers. While we can debate national standards on when the official clock starts (is it when the call reaches the PSAP? When the call is answered? When the call taker confirms a valid address?), all agree the goal is to dispatch nearly every type of law enforcement emergency within 60 seconds of call receipt.

Whats important now is getting the call out to responders quickly, with relevant information first!

In January 2008, two Southeast U.S. telecommunicators neglected to dispatch relevant information in the case of a woman reporting a child screaming for help, banging on the rear window of a passing vehicle. The report turned out to be the last known sight-ing of Denise Amber Lee, a 21-year-old wife and mother of two who had been abducted by a stranger from her home in a neighboring county hours earlier.

Complacency won the day and two public safety professionals neglected to prioritize what was important, preventing officers in the area from obtaining criti-cal location information that could have resulted in an arrest and successful missing person recovery.

According to training shared nation-ally by Lees husband, Nathan, the pair of telecommunicators reportedly made a conscious decision not to dispatch relevant information relayed verbally to them by a call taker in order to teach the call taker to enter narratives into CAD.

What was important? Certainly not choosing to be complacent while a woman fought for her life.

Certainly not emphasizing the impor-tance of remedial training with such irreversible consequences hanging in the balance.

The radio dispatcher has the respon-sibility to pass along information quickly and clearly, serving as a conduit for critical data between callers in need and responders rushing to help. Returning to our basic train-ing, the Public Safety Telecommunicator 1, 7th Edition course manual, Module Nine reminds us, in the course of their duties, telecommunicators may become aware of circumstances that could affect response unit safety. Any information that may be relevant to response units must be captured and relayed. Information that should be relayed includes, but is not limited to, weap-ons, violent actions, hazardous conditions, severe weather, etc.

Buckle their belts and fasten their vests by remaining diligent with your basic and continuing education, prepared to share relevant information as soon as you obtain it.

One Midwest U.S. telecommunicator learned another hard lesson in complacency in December 2010 when she neglected to send back-up for more than 15 minutes after an officer stopped answering her radio once she arrived on scene of a domestic violence call. According to reports, once the telecom-municator did start back-up, she neglected to advis