The tragic death of Darlene Dukes after she called Fulton County 911 brings to light the problems plaguing DeKalb County’s 911 system.
The problem in DeKalb is not necessarily its personnel, but its entire 911 computer system. The system is decades outdated. Past and present administrations, from the chief of police to the county commissioners have refused to spend the proper amount of money and hire experts in the field to keep up with the ever changing technology. The system consists of several different software programs that are not compatible with each other. The police department has relied on self taught police officers to try and tie them all together.
Probably more than a quarter of all 911 calls are dispatched to the wrong precincts. Instead of addressing the problem and correcting it, the communications heads, along with Chief Bolton rely on the sector sergeants to catch the wrongly dispatched calls and insure they are sent to the proper precinct. If the sergeant should miss the call, several minutes could pass before it is corrected. And guess who would be held accountable if something as tragic as a death should occur? How many medical emergency calls are improperly dispatched because of the archaic 911 system? It has become so frustrating, 2 of the more capable people trying to hold the “band aids” on have resigned.
Tied into the 911 system is the radio communications. There are areas in all precincts where the radio system simply does not work. Often an officer will try to communicate via his portable radio, only to be told to go to his car to transmit, which doesn’t always work. How safe is this? If the officer is in a fight, does he ask the bad guy to hold while he goes to the car to call for back up? If he catches someone breaking into your house, does he ask you to call 911 for him because he can’t get out on his radio? It is a sad day when officers have to rely on their personal cell phones to communicate with each other. This my friends, is going to get an officer killed one day.
Chief Bolton is aware of these problems, yet refuses to address them. Instead, he is more interested in spending money on stupid campers among other wasteful things. (By the way Terrell, where is that Range Rover anyway?)
The 911 communications system needs to be investigated by an outside entity before it is too late. Sadly, Fulton County is learning the hard way. This for them, as for us, is the tip of the iceberg. If such an investigation should occur, wrong doing and ineptness would be found and Terrell Bolton should be held personally libel.
Friday, August 15, 2008
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7 comments:
I hope someone looks at this post and hopefully understands its the leadership in place that lets its continue.
Time to just disband these big gov't failed operations. Break it down, get some private companies involved. Fulton 911 is too broken to even bother with a fix. Better to start over with a company that fires TOTALLY INCOMPETENT WORKERS. This is not about civil service. It's about essential service. So DeKalb County is nearing the same predicament. I'd rather dismantle the system and build one that works and let private industry run it. When they have an outdated system, they replace it. In fact, they keep updating as they go. And when they have an incompetent employee, she is fired.
FYI......the radio system that we're using WAS state of the art and first of its kind when it was first installed.
Years later, we're the LAST to be still using it.
In the county's defense, they are finally in the process of upgrading it and they've made a lot of promises.
Maybe they'll also fix the computer system that sends NCIC/GCIC information out to the patrol cars. It would be nice to have a reliable system that can return information on tags or suspects when officers run them.
I can see a scenario in the future where the departments that patrol incorporated areas of Dekalb (Doraville, Stone Mtn, Avondale,etc...... and in the near future Dunwoody) are gonna get sick of calls from Dekalb officers to run those things for them because the Dekalb system is down. We'll really be in pickle if that comes to pass.
recenly, since our 98 (NCIC/GCIC) system has not operated correctly for one full day in the last month, I have relied on some friends that work for Gwinnett Co PD. and GA State Patrol.. I have called them while they were on duty and asked them if their system was down. Neither had any idea what I was talking about. I replied "you know, are you able to run tags? is your GCIC down" their response was "What do you mean can we run tags? of course we can" they both told me that usually for about 1 hour a month and its usually between 3am and 4am their system goes off line for maintenance.. how many times have we been behind stolen cars, or let subjects who were wanted for serious crimes, just because we cant run them.
Cant we trade in just ONE MAGIC BUS! Just ONE BUS can pay for tasers and some equipment upgrades!! TEBO I promise we can babysit the other four busses that are collecting dust!
Ask a East Precinct officer how great our radio system works.. He was trying to stop a subject who was involved in a residential burglary. The subject tried to run him over, and the officer had to shoot at the vehicle. The officer gets in a foot chase and cant get out on his portable radio. He ends up in a woodline and still cant get out on his portable radio, even his recruit that was riding with him couldnt get out on his portable radio!! Good thing we have helicopters that could help us find him. Unfortunately I think it will take a tragic event to unfold before we get some real answers
What really scares the hell out of me is that for years we have been asking if it's gonna take one of us getting killed before this radio gets fixed. The truly scary questions is "Did it already happen?" Does anyone know if Eric or Ricky tried getting out on their radios on that horrific night in January?
The communications staff (not the commanders) have worked diligently for years to replace all of the old outdated equipment. The CAD and 911 systems were replaced and went on line 1 1/2 years ago, and the radio system upgrade is scheduled to go on line in December. Any time the staff and previous management of the Communications Division tried to upgrade and replace, it was the first thing that was cut out because it was big ticket items.
So it's not like the staff is ignoring the facts, they are recommending everything that needs to be done, it's the command of the center and higher that is not pushing it enough because it is not a priority for them. They are not career communications folks, so they don't know nor understand what they are doing.
Meanwhile, things are not working properly.
One comment was made about doing this private. There are a number of reasons why you can't do that legally, the best solution would be to put PROFESSIONAL communications persons in charge of the center who know what we need and can get the things done that we need done. We have not had that for a few years.
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