Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Issues With DeKalb 911

Director Miller says: "I don't know if there is a flaw in the system" Our follow up question would have been: Are you serious?

Even though it seems this was human error, our Computer Assisted Dispatch system is junk. It has been junk for years. And for years the ever changing folks in charge have been made aware of the problems.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

miller is out of his league. why dont we hire a professional 911 manager, so they can fix these messes. its always, someone just shrugging their arms. I;m so sick of other agencies publicly blaming us, but they are always right, and we keep having public mistake after mistake in the news. Hey public, its not us officers who are dropping the ball, its the executives with the fancy suits, and zero knowledge that make decisions and get driven around get paid the big money who are. why the hell hasn't Ellis called mIller out for all of the mistakes that keep happening under his leadership? Wasnt that the point of hiring him? to fix things? please, let the fixing begin. any day now would be great.

Anonymous said...

REAL TALK and i know any officer whos ever worked southside can attest. when ever youve worked the 20's 70's and especially the 60's how many times can u remember APD telling you "this [call] isnt on us, its on dekalb. look where the feet are laying or look what parking space he's shot near. this shits been going on for years on moreland ave. here's something to think about what if youre riding down moreland and you have a head on 41i in the middle of the street, not intersection, street. who handles it you ask?? well when it happened to me atlanta fire, atlanta police hell and even a-tow came out, but all told me the accident was on dekalb so while they stood clear of getting hands on I worked the wreck.

Anonymous said...

I thought edgewood was Atlanta...we need an updated boundary map

Anonymous said...

argh! it is the crap cad system!!!!!!!!!! we have asked since they started to train us on it..yes even back when we were training we knew it was not going to work...even told the ceo that the cad sytem was going to cause horrible errors...no one seems to care..

Anonymous said...

HAS MILLER AND UPPER MANAGEMENT EVER TAKEN THE TIME TO EVEN GLANCE AT THIS SO CALLED 'CAD' SYSTEM THAT OPERATORS AND UNITS HAVE TO DEAL WITH DAY IN AND DAY OUT??? I dare any of them to come take 1 call, or do a ride along in which they have to navigate thru this sub-standard computer system we have, which is up and down, up/down, up/down..log off/re-log, log off/re-log, I mean COME ON! It was only a matter of time before Dekalb would be on the news....and Anon. #1 I agree...Miller is way out of his league, and I also agree with the statement to the public. You darn right it's the fancy pants 'executives' that go around here making all these decisions based on what? The fact that he has a law degree and the title? Give the mic to and put the camera on someone who has first hand experience, who has had to encounter the same struggles we've had in dealing with this system, or talking to a citizen calling in for help.. He had NO right to publicly speak about the operations of the 911 center, let alone the functionality of our 'CAD'. I am dusted and DISGUSTED.....

Anonymous said...

I cut the Dekalb dispatcher some slack on this one... the APD dispatcher should have said "This is Atlanta 911" not "This is Atlanta... Caroline Street".

It's easy to interpret that the caller was saying it occurred in Atlanta & it's reasonable to transfer the call quickly to them.

The real story is that the Dekalb CAD system doesn't parcel this stuff out like it should.. and like the old system did!

Taxpayers... where is your outrage??

Anonymous said...

This is all about the CAD system. It takes too long to verify streets and for instance we all know that wesley chapel and flakes mill intersect,and if it is typed like that,it will not verify,you have to enter Flat Shoals Pkwy and Flakes Mill, same for Memorial and Candler,NDH and Lavista..that is too name a few. Now this particular call (you know how they edit on the news) but it is poss that Dekalb already had Fire Rescue respond,however medics are not going to go into a shooting unless the scene is safe.Bottom line,Director is right u can call frm your cell but if You don't kno where u r that is a delay because when u call 911 it is the assumption that you know your location

Anonymous said...

The CAD system MUST GO!!! VisionAir, the predecessor to InterAct (Local Touch, Global Reach...lol), was quite nearly as perfect a CAD system that I have ever had experience with. I quite nearly could operate autonomously without assistance with its command functions. And I could read NCIC/GCIC responses without being interupted in the process by other incoming responses. Much faster too. This InterAct system is pure CRAP! And AGGRAVATING me to insanity. The tones it makes relentlessly until you pan through screens...why? "Did-da-la dink, did-da-la-dink, did-da-la-dink, did-da-la-dink, did-da-la-dink." "SHUT THE HELL UP!!! YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE ME WRECK THIS DIRTY PATROL CAR!!!", I scream at it.

Please, PLEASE, let's replace this SH*T!!! Bring back VisionAir, or whatever is the proven latest and greatest. Geez, I had more capability with the old KDT system than this junk. It is really, REALLY, not user friendly.

Now that I have vented my disgust and aggravation with it, I want to point out a big problem that many of us ALWAYS point out EVERY day. Why are locations not correctly updated to their correct precincts or jurisdictions when officers in the field so advise? "Radio, that location will be on..." How long have we had this junk system now? Will it not allow radio operators or a communications supervisor make necessary corrections? Or are they lazy to make the corrections? Or are they so over-burdened with it too because it is so not user-friendly that the time to do it is excessive? I hear North Precinct officers still getting dispatched to calls on 285 that are now Dunwoody. And Dunwoody getting dispatched to calls that are on DeKalb. Why is this when they came on board in 2009?

DeKalb County taxpayers, this is what's going on now, has been going on for a long time, and will continue to go on until those in leadership DO THEIR JOBS! All I can say is this: you have the power with your voices and your votes."

Anonymous said...

Oh God help me. It seems that everyday there is yet something else negative to report about DeKalb County. I just remain sick to my stomach so much now. This is really disgusting me.

Salvation, PLEASE, where art thee???

Anonymous said...

Anon#8-We are not lazy,we don't have access to change anything in the Cad system except the signal!! This is not about Radio,this is about a system that doesn't work,it's too slow for this county and half the shit they promised us Interact we can't even re-open a call w/o calling one of 4-5 supervisors out the office off the internet to come open at position one console. Do you kno how hard it is to enter anything on the expressway,God forbid it's up at the junction and it's a 41IT. Decatur GIS dept entered the streets in the CAD and it's a HOT JUNKY MESS! Im surprised we hadn't made breaking news out of Dekalb since we got this system.

Anonymous said...

You need to take a real good look at who is training the 911 operators....what a mess!!

Anonymous said...

Anon#11-Senior-Certified operators train new trainees,there is nothing about our training process that needs a change! A person can either do thie job or they can't, bottom line.FYI the opr who transferred the call back to Atlanta was a supervisor!!!! We do the very best we can with what we have (Interact)The boundaries/territories are not correct and there is nothing tht we can do about but "deal" with it everyday.911/Communications/Radio is not a whipping post so stop trying to blame us for every problem,screw-up that you see/hear about on the news!!!!!! Please

Anonymous said...

To anon #2.....adults that wish to command any type of respect do not use the phrase "real talk" in their sentences. The only thing that would be worse is if you said "real talk shawty."

Anonymous said...

Do any of you remember when we used to police with a map and reports were written on carbon paper that were turned in at the end of the shift to a sergeant who checked your reports? Whats going to happen when the whole system crashes? Will the police department be able to function with a map and a radio (hopefully)? When I was a cop there, it seems we had less technology and we spent more time policing. What the county should do is dump the whole system and go back to the old KDT mdt's and written reports. If the KDT dont work you take your call over the air and write it down then go. If there was a dispute over venue then a Sergeant would make the decision and advise the dispatcher. Of course that would mean giving actual human beings authority and responsibility, not some damned machine.
Sgt Friendly

Anonymous said...

We are looking to purchase InterAct CAD and reading all these comments has been worried. What exactly is wrong with this CAD from a user standpoint?

Anonymous said...

The report writing software is fine. It could use some tweaking to make it more user friendly, but it's a good piece of software. The paperless system allows officers to instantly read every report ever written at a particular address, or with a certain suspect's name. How long would it take you to find every paper written report with the name "Bob Smith" in it?