Obsession with local control. Towns in New England are implacably opposed to “regionalization” and when forced by the state to regionalize some services will put in layers to insulate themselves.
I’m not going to say it wouldn’t be better in a lot of ways not to have that extra person. But I think you’ve added something to what I said - I didn’t mean there was one person working in the call center. There could be 20 ( or 40 or 60) but unless you find a way to route all of the calls from East Podunk to Operator 1 and North Cupcake to Operator 2 and so on , you are going to have every operator potentially dispatching every police department and needing to know if that one officer in East Podunk who normally works this shift is on vacation and the call has to be sent to another department. And if you are somehow going to find a way to route them ( which is going to involve extra time as the call will need to be transferred to the correct operator) you might as well go back to each department having it’s own call center because you have eliminated the benefits of a regional one. One of which is that 20 separate call centers would require having at least 40 operators on each shift - you can’t let calls go unanswered because the one operator on duty isn’t available.
I mean, really the way to get rid of this sort of problem is to eliminate tiny police departments that are too small to justify their own 911 center in favor of regional/county/state police- but the reason why that won’t happen has been explained.
I’m the “interesting” case I was referring to above was when a detached shed at a residence exploded and caused a large fire. It was the home of the retired and recently deceased police chief whose ne’er do well son was doing some chemical activity there.
The police dispatcher was more interested in the officers not giving the exact address than anything else. In the end the State Police and then ATF showed up and took over the scene. Turned out it wasn’t an ATF issue but a DEA one.
So yeah, local control, AKA the good old boys club running things.
Forgot to link to this earlier. Hopefully this won’t be applied here, but I can see why many people involved may want to invoke it.
For years, KXAN investigators have explored Texas law enforcement’s widespread use of an open records measure known as the “Dead Suspect Loophole.” Lawmakers have repeatedly sought to close the loophole, which allows police to withhold information in closed criminal cases that don’t go through the court process — even when a suspect dies in police custody.
After the Uvalde school shooting and the gunman’s death, some transparency advocates — even Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan — worry police may try to use the loophole to keep important details about what really happened from the public and even victims’ families.
No doubt they will try, but this is such a high profile issue now that I don’t think any cover-up will succeed. There is so much anger about gun violence and so little that we can get done to solve the more fundamental problems, a lot of outraged energy is going to continue to be focused on them. This is not going to be forgotten by the national press by next week.
With the DoJ involved, that trick may simply not work.
This seems to reference a loophole in a public records law (ie, what you, me, and the Press can request, and that generally must be provided upon that request).
My non-legal guess is that DoJ will get a good laugh at that if it’s raised in the course of their (Justice’s) investigation.
The skills of an emergency operator are not the skills of a police dispatcher. The operator is dealing with normal citizens under stress, trying to get complete information out of them. They collate the information and send it to the correct dispatcher. That’s police, fire (city or county - fire or EMT), and other dispatchers. Calls can also be forwarded to animal control (city or county, depending on location), wildlife control, city or county maintenance departments, state highway patrol, and/or the state department of transportation. They can also call ambulances.
Sometimes they get to tell people that not getting cheese on their cheeseburger at the drive-thru is not an emergency.
The dispatcher is keeping track of their department, including possibly dealing with emergency calls from officers or firefighters in the field. They don’t have time to sort through caller information. In fact usually if you call the police non-emergency line you will not be speaking to the dispatcher, but to a call operator, who will gather enough information to determine where to transfer your call. Sometimes your call will be forwarded to the dispatcher and sometimes only your information will.
The whole purpose of emergency operators is to save citizens from having to research which agency to call before making their call. The caller doesn’t need to know whether the emergency is inside city limits or outside or technically on a state highway. Whether it’s something that needs police or fire or ambulance or all three. In the case of Uvalde, how many people would know to call the school district police department?
This New York Times article (gift link) has a fairly extensive timeline and description of the many failures, such as the previously mentioned failure of the school district police to have their own keys, and that the school district police chief didn’t have his radio with him.
And Irma Garcia, the teacher in room 112, tried to lock the door but couldn’t find the right key (presumably panic didn’t help). Wouldn’t it be better to allow the door to be locked with just a deadbolt?
Thanks. A lot of my ignorance and prejudice was fought (or temporary knocked over) by your post.
The article is very helpful. A very cool and levelheaded 10 year old is khloie.
There are probably that many different police departments operating in the city of Cleveland alone. The Cleveland police themselves, the transit police, the park rangers, forces for at least two different universities and two different hospital systems, the county sheriffs…
Certainly that would be better, but there’s a heck of a lot of variety in what sort of locks are on classroom doors, especially older ones. At one school my mom taught at, the only way to lock a classroom door was from the outside, with a key. If there had ever been an actual lockdown situation at her school (thank Heavens there wasn’t), her plan was to tell her third-graders to hide behind the bookshelves and not open the door for anyone, then leave the room, lock the door, and run like Hell. Which is of course a terrible plan, but also probably the best plan possible, given the situation.
If there is a window close to the door lock, a keyed lock would be more secure. Turning a key in a high pressure situation is difficult.
Was the Uvalde school police even monitoring the same radio frequency as the Uvalde P.D., the Border Patrol, Texas Rangers, county Sheriff and whoever else was relaying messages at the same time? That was a problem at Columbine.
The decision by Jefferson County law enforcement officials to send in police from numerous jurisdictions, however necessary, introduced one of the day’s most critical challenges – the lack of a common radio channel police could use to talk to one another.
The article from the New York Times said that at one point there were about 140 officers from various local, state and federal agencies. All looking to Pete Arredondo for direction and leadership.
Thanks. I’m old enough to remember when you could get a sticker for your (strictly landline) phone and fill in the numbers for police, fire, ambulance, etcetera, so that you didn’t have to waste time looking them up during an emergency. In later years, a field was added for the poison hotline.
True. I get the sense that Khloie Torres handled things better than the chief of the school district police, who had decades of experience.
It’s worse than I thought. Apparently Chief Screwup didn’t even have a radio to communicate with everyone.
I just now read that and was dumbfounded. Why have a key at all? If you have a crash bar on the inside the door can be locked at all times.
I don’t even know what to say about Chief Pete now. He’s in charge of a six man force that covers eight schools. Not only can’t he be bothered to carry a radio when he’s out in the field, but it apparently never occurred to him to have a dedicated officer to stick by his side to get updates. Someone had to be receiving the updates thru the 911 operator.
This is pretty hard to watch, but: the rescue mom, in her own words—
https://mobile.twitter.com/SxarletRed/status/1532853860737372161
Then the police threatened to hit her with a probation violation if she didn’t stop talking to the media—
Most of my response to this is not appropriate for the constraints of this thread, so I will simply say that “attacking the parents of victims for refusing to participate in your attempted cover-up” should not be part of any police department’s “response to an active shooter” playbook.
Most teachers don’t really like to keep the lock engaged at all times because it makes it so easy to get accidently locked out of the classroom when you go to the restroom or whatever, and then it’s a huge hassle. It’s also frustrating to have to walk across the room and open the door if someone wants to come in, which happens constantly. Fire codes prohibit those kick-down door stoppers, at least in TX. So you can’t easily prop it open during the day.
My room has a rubber slider thing at eye level that, when engaged, lets the door close but not latch. these are really excellent, but I never saw one before this year and I don’t think they are common.