they have this guy's ID in his hand and then he decides he's going to flee then he goes various speeds Northbound on 49th Street all the way into Pasco County throughout that time he almost hit a Sunstar ambulance almost hit multiple Vehicles ran red lights left and right um the beginning of it once it's like heating up I think once he got on the Bayside and it was kind of like okay this is real um I was ready I was like okay this is great like you know we C Center's pretty cold I like whip off my jacket I throw it down the supervisor tells the story stand up yeah it was like I can't imagine how it is for deputies cuzz I'm I'm ready to go and I'm just in here this is 56 a penel County Sheriff's Office podcast I'm Ricky Butler with Laura Sullivan and Ashley I I think I can speak for everybody when I say I really enjoy highlighting the people that work behind the scenes at the Sheriff's Office like not just on the podcast but just in general because there are literally hundreds and hundreds of people that come to work every day to help us move our mission forward and obviously the public is most familiar with the Hees they see on the street and those green and whites uh the tahos uh but there are people that make sure those tahos are running there are people that make sure that the deputies have the equipment that they need and uh manage all that and there are people that make sure the deputies are safe and going to the places they need to go uh and those are our dispatchers so uh we have had a lot of requests to get somebody uh from the Comm Center on uh 56 and we are excited to have uh assistant supervisor April bonman with us uh on this episode of 56 you looking did I mess something up already Public Safety telec Communicator public I'm not actually you're not I'm an assistant communication supervisor okay all right that's a 911 that works that works no dispatcher Public Safety telecommunic if I could drop this mic I would that's fine I just want to make sure that we're not saying the wrong the wrong term and people are going you mean me cuz I'm Yeah well yeah up until 15 months ago I was a public safety telecommunicator but now I still do that and I think I think we should leave that in too but and we're going to break all that down because we obviously people have a tremendous amount of respect for what you all do but we don't know much about it so this is I I am going to learn more on this episode than I think I have any any episode we've done so far so I'm looking forward to that but before that happens Ashley has a question I do you're a ghost okay I'm a ghost you're a ghost what place are you going to haunt it can be where you would want to haunt or where you think that you would haunt I'm a ghost that can mess with people yes you're haunting or is a question where do I think I'm going to die no my question is you that's definitely a back alley somewhere stuck right like wherever they well you can choose where you're going to be saying you can choose where you're going to be or where you think you're going to be whatever context you want for that I always threaten my son that I'm going to haunt him but now that I think about it that would probably be weird to be following him around as he gets older so um not that okay all right can I move around like it's a topic like it's a one place but it might move forever oh I mean sure it's pretty open wherever Taylor Swift is performing that day oh you're hunting a person see the AR tour forever the do you want to haunt her personally like follow her just yeah I don't want to bother her I just want to see the show over and over again okay all right Ashley you already told it I know I I this was one I didn't actually prepare my answer for so I'm kind of in the same boat as you guys this time but I'll probably be wherever plants are plants yeah I'll be in a garden somewhere okay not really bothering anybody just Ashley the garden ghost yeah like your Spade running around painting and taking care plants I like that or trying to I don't know the handy asley the handy ghost um I would probably want to go to like actual haunted houses that do like Public tours because there's always somebody that's like oh this is BS just to be there to screw with them that's me yeah usually no I think I think that would be awesome like to go to haunted houses that's a really good answer yeah because those there's always the Skeptics that are in there uh and it that would just be a lot of fun so I think haunted house would be so pretty much anywhere in Savannah yeah or St Augustine yeah both of those places yeah good answer yeah that was a good question that was good yeah that was that was a fun one I feel like was some of the other ones are a little deep they and they can take dark turns when Laura throws out some weird weird answer yeah I don't know I'm never weird Ricky no not no to be fair though any of our conversations can turn dark pretty quick they tend to so yeah we're PR professionals we're pretty pretty Twisted especially in our line of work correct yeah yeah everybody is pretty messed up all right uh April um where'd you grow up what's your hero origin story uh my origin story I was born at St Anthony's Hospital in St Pete for getting but I'll skip ahead after that I don't know um there's a chance my husband's mom wrote my birth certificate though really because she worked there at the time okay so but we don't know for sure Destin from birth look at that look at that yeah there was twist and turns but we we made our way back kind of like here how I got here um so then mostly in West lman I think I say lman some people say lman I'm not really sure what the correct pronunciation is but we call squad one yeah yeah true so exactly I grew up in squad one um for the most part and then I did spend two and a half years in foster care and that was in denan another city that we cover great little town I love it up there I still go visit there all the time and then um went back to to lman and yeah I don't know how specific like how do we want to just set it up where'd you go to where'd you go to school um Elementary School was 74 Street Elementary and then denan elementary school did you go said before I sure did oh my God remember I was telling you that was where yeah she might be Ashley coie that I went to elementary school with I was there I was there what year did you graduate from elementary school high school oh wait okay so maybe yeah I was 07 so okay it's possible um and then weirdly all the way from lman and then I was zoned for madir Beach Middle School so uh madira for middle school and then that's kind of where my criminal justice origin started okay um I went to uh STS and law school was doing kind of a mock trial thing and they Middle School yeah and they needed like actors for the jury and I did that and I was like oh that's cool I want to I think I want to be a lawyer so then I applied to Criminal Justice Academy at penel Park High School and went to there for high school yeah yeah that that it's always interesting to like everybody we've talked to has kind of a different hook of of what kind of got them on this path and they've always ended up going different ways yeah so penel Park High School you want to be a lawyer uh yes at first yeah and then I I met a friend um one of my best friends to this day and she badgered me for about three months to come to Police Explorers at penel Park Police Department so we go way back yeah yeah um and I was like no that's weird like I talked about I was in I was in foster care so I was in foster care so I'm like I don't really have great view of law enforcement really growing up and everything I had just negative memories for most part um so when she kept I was like I don't I don't know about that I'm not going to go to the police department who goes there willingly that's kind of weird right um so but I did took her a couple months I did and then um the first night we were there the adviser actually was um he's Sergeant with us now Sergeant Horton he was my adviser that night they were doing highrish traffic stops and the lights and everything in the dark and I just thought that was so cool my nerd is going to show now but I thought it was really cool and I was hooked hooked at that point so then there was a long period time where I was like I'm going to be a law enforcement officer I'm going to be a police officer then that changed so explorers they're now Cadets um talk a little bit about what the cadets do so you basic your main responsibility is a meeting once a week at least that's how it was when I went there um I think it's still pretty much the same now you go to a meeting once a week and then there's optional things you can do on top of that one of the things we did was shooting practice every other week um so then every other week you've got two days where you're going there after school kind of in the evening time and we also do a lot of volunteer events um we would help the city with like traffic control at the Bandshell um we would cook food there I remember there was a time where I'm on the grill learning how to grill I'm like 15 years old and they're like yeah just go Grill some burgers you wouldn't believe how bad you smell after working the girl for a few hours um so directing traffic we did uh Street cleanups after one of my best memories was after Hurricane Charlie hit in pagora it was supposed to hit us directly made that the last we went down there and help some First Responders clean up their properties down there and that was really cool to experience proba the most fun thing is ride alongs right going ride alongs my you did a lot of ride alongs right I did I think it was close to 80 or something like that might as well I think John Shay is a lieutenant with pel's park I think he might be the only one that beat me at the time with More's a big nerd so that that makes sense absolutely we were talking about ride alongs and a specific officer's name came up and I was like yeah that was my first rideal ever was with him um first along first call I'm 14 years old we go to this call and there's a guy that's passed out drunk in a van and um we end up arresting him I think he got arrested for DUI or disorderly and talks at minimum he ended up fighting the officers right in front of me and you can't really intervene so you're just a spectator right this was pre- tasers so there's not much they could do except for just get on top of him and control him so they ended up having to hobble him and then they pick him up put him back in the cruiser and we went to the we took him to the jail where he had you know urinated all over the back of the thing I don't know why this all this stuff kept me interested it should have been like if you're 14 years old and you're seeing all this stuff happen you probably want to like run away from that at what point uh during that time like did your interest shift away from law enforcement it was actually after Police Explorers I had gone to USF for college um I split kind of split my time between St Pete and Tampa and I did two different internships during college um one was here it was kind of an abbreviated one actually shout out to the sheriff he got us in um and did a couple ride alongs here but also uh did a pretty a lengthy one at penel Park and one of my ride alongs then an officer said okay April uh you're old enough now I feel like I can tell this to you um you have to accept if you want to be a law enforcement officer that your life is worth a $10 piece of crack you could die for a $10 piece of crack and that shook me um not in a way where I would say like my life is worth more than someone else's but because I'd been on so many ridealong been in this culture for quite a few years at this point I would not want to be a law enforcement officer and my backup be scared that'd be the worst thing ever so I wouldn't want to be that person so I kind of like shifted at that point went back to the lawyer thing for a little bit um and then a lawyer also told me oh this is a miserable job there's no rewards in this don't do it like okay well what do I do now um and then I had a friend who still works here and he was like you know the sheriff's office is hiring for all kinds of stuff you should take a look and at the time I applied for dispatch and CPI when we still did CPI basically dispatch called me to do testing first and um it was a little bit of a transition cuz at first they actually offered me our our tell type position um because I think they were like oh I don't she's a little wishy-washy we want someone that's going to stay in the com Center for a few years we're going to invest all this training in them um maybe she still wants to be a deputy or whatever so we're not really confident in that so we're going to offer this other position well one of the people that got the dispatch position didn't make it through background check so then I was next on the eligibility list so there it is same thing got here fell in love I'm like this is so cool and then nobody scared you off yet nope so what does that look like as far as um well first of all what's the difference between teletype and dispatcher there's three main steps um in dispatch so if you call the non-emergency line the 582 6200 you'll get um we call them they're Communications teletype technicians is their full title and they will answer that non-emergency line if you need to go somewhere else get transferred somewhere else they'll transfer you um then they also if you're a deputy or you're calling to um enter something into the system like NCC they they're in charge of all of that for entries and removals basically so they've got a very busy job this is the part where you ask what ncic is true what is ncic yes no I'm just kidding National Crime information center and then there's a Florida version of that as well so if your car getss stolen um if you entered into the Flor one people in Florida see it but then if you enter it into the national one which we do if it's you know somewhere in another state and someone runs the tag and they're like oh this is a stolen vehicle out of penel County Sheriff's office they'll see it what kind of stuff are they entering the teletype technici bigest the biggest thing is people um if you're a missing person whether you're a runaway um we have the purple alert process now Silver Alert process now um FDLE is in charge of actually making the silver alerts happen but as far as entering the person is in is missing they that's okay so then a deputy calls in and that's where they're transferred to in order to give the information so that okay yeah they don't actually even need to be transferred because that's just the main number that's okay yeah they're the first step so but sorry but like teletype is like when you when you run a name or something in NCC or fcic it's going to show up there yeah we we have we have a a system a record check system in the Comm Center and all the things that teletype operators around the country enter we will see in dispatch so it's really important for them to to like get it right is that also for warrants in there um no warrants actually has their own teletype process our teletype operators will confirm warrants from other agencies but um our warrants department has their own complete separate teletype system for pel's County warrants or okay yep so uh back to all right so back getting started what does that process look like like there's an evaluation process to see like if like what you get tested first before you get offered the position obviously you get tested first before you even get an interview okay um we have something called critical which is a program that um centers are using all over the country that basically it's a Main Street USA type of area and map and everything and you listen to phone calls also making decisions at the same time we want to be able to see that you can multitask and think on your feet um you part of it's like okay does this incident that this person's describing need fire medical or police and then you can click one or three or whatever it is so so like you're just listening to that's step one it oh step one of like crit crit call or critic call is step one of the hiring process yeah once is there like a adrenaline factor in in that involved in that or is it just seeing if you can multitask I think it's mostly just seeing that if you can multitask I mean if we could if we could determine how your adrenaline's going to function and how you're going to do long-term multitasking that'd be great if you can create a test that does that that would yeah I was wondering if it was like someone calls in you know and it's it's a fake thing but it's like oh my God there's blood you know if there was some typ simulation yeah I don't know I don't it's been like nine years now since I've taken it so I don't remember um if the people were like super elevated or anything on the phone but it's it's basically to see like multitasking decision-making if you can hear type and like read at the same time that type of thing it basically replaces just a normal typing test because we need to know more than if you can just type pretty fast right and then after that you go through the interview process if they select you from the interview process C then you go into the background check which includes working with the detective here in HR um ours also I don't know if every position does this but we also test your hearing and your vision before you come work in the the com Center if they test hearing I wouldn't have made it so it's important yeah yeah definitely need to be able to hear yeah so then um you get through that kind of stuff then you're hired Sheriff signs off then what uh first week that you're here is in call taking classroom is what we call it so we our training split split up into two main phases the call taking phase and the dispatch phase so you have a week classroom in each in each one so your first week here is you talk to HR a little bit that first day and then you come visit with us at the end of that day and then you're in the classroom kind of learning our systems learning the agency that type of thing and then you work with a trainer side by side on the job training your OJT okay um for up to six it's six weeks but it's six weeks of actually being on the phone so it could be longer depending on how our staffing levels are do you have a lot of people like drop out at that point um not usually during call taking dispatch is usually where um if someone's going to not be able to make it it's going to be during dispatch call taking is kind of one task at a time you could have someone yelling or it could be emotional or could be difficult but dispatch is a whole another ball game so when we we find that people can't make it through it's usually during dispatch which that would be you're on your own doing it no you're still with a you're still with a trainer but it's actually being on the radio with the deputies on a channel okay and and those roles we'll say call taking and dispatching those roles are interchangeable based on like a dispatcher or a public safety telecommunicator kind of Public Safety telecommunicator you got it so our agencies um kind of different and and unique in that way so we actually contract panel's County 911 to take our most of our calls okay so if basically if our staffing level permits it we'll be on the non-emergency line answering calls so once you talk to that switch board operator say you need a deputy but it's not an emergency and you didn't call 911 called a non-emergency line then you could get one of us on the phone but our 911 calls are actually handled by penel County 911 from start to finish you don't have to get transferred out to another police agency they just handle the whole thing right and then once they put the call into the system they send it over electronically through an interface where our computer systems talk to each other our cads talk to each other we pick up that call we read it we make sure it's our jurisdiction then we choose what deputies we put on it okay so so somebody calls 911 you never actually talk to the person who's called 9911 nope okay that's all the different agency Yep they're in the same room up there with us right next to us my husband actually does that so I'm sure that'll come up at some point that was my question what the difference was between uh telecommunicators that work for us versus the county so telecommunicators that work for the county they will answer some of most they'll answer non-emergency calls too when they get them um but their primary function is 911 and then their dispatchers when you make it through from their call taking phase to their radio phase they actually dispatched the fire department and EMS on the radios gotcha the the call takers do no they have it's a similar process it just goes to different people okay MH all right yeah cuz that's all it's just there's a lot I mean of course before we moved into the building we're in now we were kind of all over the place but now everybody's kind of in one Regional Center but it's still multiple entities that are in there together the good thing is now I mean we just started dispatching for penel Park a couple months ago so now if you're if you're calling for any police jurisdiction in the county except for Clear if you're calling 911 I should say for any police jurisdiction in the county except for Clear waterer Tarpon Springs um St Pete and lgo you're going to stay on the phone with us the whole time and by us I mean a 911 operator but we work hand in hand and for those then if they need police after they call 911 they it the call caller actually gets chain switched over to the other agency to to Largo or St Pete or it's pretty seamless though yeah I mean and sometimes they stay on the phone if like the fire department or EMS are going is going as well with them and they need to go through medical stuff with you they'll stay on the phone the whole time until one of the two agencies whether it's police or FD depending on what kind of call it is get there first but sometimes FD stages so I may have missed this with our telecommunicators you said they are not directly talking to the person on 911 no they're not so what are they doing at that point at that point you're when you come in for our our shifts you're either assigned to one of the four channels Patrol one two three or four or radio relief that's our primary five functions and then if we have extra people you might spend some time answering the non-emergency line you might be in switchboard helping them if they're short-handed um radio relief is where if you know one of the other dispatchers on patrol one through four need a break or do they do the lunch breaks and everything so they're actually mostly talking to the deputies on the radio interesting yeah that so that sounds like you're listening to what's happening and um in on that particular Channel and seeing if there's any assist assistance that you need to provide or getting more information on what's Happening that kind to in order to put it into the notes of the incident yeah the notes of the incident so that call ticket that comes through from County 911 they're actually able to update this the call at the same time we're able to read it and we can update it they can read it so our cads talk to each other like in real time yeah so if we have a question for them and you know say we need information a little quicker than they're getting it just because the deput is almost there or something like that um they're very good at getting those questions answered for us um ahead of time usually but if you know deput is just he happens to be right down the street and we need a no description a little faster than you're getting it we might ask them in a message and then they can just put it right into the call notes and we can relay that over the radio to the deputies I did not realize that at all there's a loten type a message to 911 then they type back you never actually talk to the 911 person I mean most of them if it's something urgent like that they'll just put it right into the call notes um and then maybe after they'll say like hey it's in the notes um because that's the most efficient way not tell me what it is and then put it in the notes if you put it in the notes I can see it right away and the deputy can see it right away too man my head is just like yeah spinning right now we just started and so let me stop for a second CAD what does that stand for computer aided dispatch okay as a dispatcher like you're assigned to a channel you mentioned we have four channels like you come in on your shift are you always assigned to the same channel okay our goal I mean so I'm an assistant supervisor um I currently don't write anyone's schedule because I am not assigned to a shift um but when I was assigned to a shift our goal is to get you through all five positions cuz we work eight 58s so the goal would be you're working 1 2 3 four radio relief or some combination of that throughout the week so but no you don't usually know until you come in that day we do a read off um our read off consists of about 20 minutes where we'll either just give you your give you your position if we don't have anything to tell you for the day and then you go um you get a few minutes to yourself before you go in the Comm Center okay are the channels are they lined up with squads in any kind of way mhm oh yeah the channels are geographically split up um so Patrol one is just recently was realigned when we started dispatching for penel Park so uh channel one is squad one or lman or Lilman um and then penel Park police and Kenneth City Police Department okay channel two is everything from Park Boulevard to G de Bay Boulevard uh that's our jurisdiction so that includes seminal um unincorporated Largo over by the jail the jails included the airport all the way over to Gandy Gandy Boulevard um that's on channel two and then channel three is the we call it the beaches basically it's how we summarize it so it's everywhere from tier Verde up into belir Beach or belir Shore including um Belair police department now Gulfport Police Department's on there and um Treasure Island police and Indian Shores police wow so that channel we actually dispatch for five different agencies on it plus our stuff on the beach yeah we would be the the one the fifth agency yeah okay but those are City there's like cities that break down too cuz there's right there's like 26 different cities in county that people don't I think it's 26 24 okay yeah so and then Channel 4 is everything North County so everything north of Gulf de Bay to the Pasco or Hillsboro County Line that's ours okay um and technically on that screen it's where it gets really confusing um you still also see Tarpon Springs calls because they have their own police department they have their own dispatchers but they use the same cat system as us so call communication so we see their calls yeah so if they need to you know tell us hey we have this hot call can you take a look and bolo it out on the lookout there you you didn't know that um we can just say okay I see I see your call or if they need backup or if we need backup we're really good about working with each other sometimes their officers will just come up on our Channel and let us know that they're in route pretty great so when you guys are coming on shift obviously things don't stop I like all right everybody stop everybody park for a couple minutes we're going to change out the sh so when you come in sit down at your console what does that look like what are you what are you doing it's a physical plug so if you're a dispatcher it's a physical plug that's connected from your headset that you wear um into we call it a jack that plugs into the the radio system so the first thing you do as long as you know you're not 103 meaning the Channel's not restricted for a specific person or incident at that time you can switch the channel over to another dispatcher if it is 103 you're going to finish that out um so you take that plug you physically plug in then you're hearing the radio but you're still under that other person's computer system so you try to do it as quickly as possible it's like a Race Against Time um some of you know some people bring out a notebook and Pen um some of us are just you know we're glutton for punishment or just braver we think we're better or something I'm I'm not sure and we don't take out the pen and paper and if you don't it usually Burns you there you go Deputy needs to do a traffic stop when you're down so then you're scrambling to get the pen and paper out real quick but yeah so once you're once you're plugged in and you know you're lucky enough that something is not in the middle of happening you're you're probably looking at like figure out where deputies are what's happening what um you know what are some of the you guys have five monitors right it's an amazing set something like that Ricky maybe like three monitors I can't even I can hardly keep up with what I have on two I don't want anymore but the desks go up and there all kinds of cool stuff but like what what information is there what what is there all the time for you um that's there all the time is on our right side we have a radio console the Motorola system um you have to make sure that you're selected into the right channel so sometimes you know we're wiping down the desk with sanitary napkins or whatever at shift change to disinfect and you'll maybe bump the mouse and you got to so you have to be sure radio over there like analog tuning something you're clicking into where you need to be nope actually Captain Danzig has one of those in his office do he we saw the other day it's like this big an old timey one yeah it's like massive um so you the radio is up all the time and then you have CAD but CAD has multiple different parts You' got your pending incidents so calls you haven't dispatched yet you've got your assigned incidents those are calls that have a deputy on it we have power lines which are what we use to input information into the system to be able to put someone on something um we can use it to dispatch someone we can use it to run something meaning check if it's stolen or missing um you can use those to send messages to people so power lines and then we've got the unit status screen which you select specifically to that Channel at least at supervisors we select everyone but dispatchers select specific to that channel so you make all the units that would be assigned to that channel okay yeah so that includes a ton of units that are are really where we're all seeing them so like the squad you know the the area that the sheriff would be in everyone selected on that um everyone selected on where detectives would be your prisoner transporter CSI and then we select down to the specifics of that channel and then um so that's the unit status screen and then we also have a map and then a messaging system and then in addition to that if you can believe it we keep 911 active calls up um the main purpose of that the thing we use it the most for is if you know we get a crash or something or Deputy like hey I'm out with the crash's FD already going we can glance over real quick and see and you can see it's already there um we get a lot of good information from that too because sometimes we'll be in another jurisdiction our our cars say County they don't say a specific little area so right we're kind of everywhere MH and then on the other side we keep a couple different resources up we've got a resource for mapping called rapid SOS that we use if you call 911 and you hang up really fast sometimes if your phone is strong enough it'll keep mapping even after you've hung up so yeah how close how close can you get how close can you pinpoint somebody I just saw one the other day we were do we were testing a new system and and um I think it said like 32 yards or something it's pretty accurate but I think that's I think that's even like being conservative it's it's pretty it's pretty accurate so it's a lck I I just can't like you have to sit in there for a couple hours only dis that's only just the one piece of it um not to say only because that's a lot a lot deal with yeah I mean so what is like the most common like task I guess a traffic stop okay so and and that's a good one because as a point of clarity also like when a deputy's doing a traffic stop we know they have the computers and everything technology they can run the tag themselves they can do all this stuff but you guys are involved because officer safety okay so if you first of all depending on like what's going on with them they might not be able to use their computer they could see a car doing something that's really blatant that they need to stop right away um so they need to get on the radio and call it out to us instead plus that tells everyone that else that's working in that area hey there's a unit on a traffic stop as we know you say routine traffic stop there's nothing routine about anything we do but definitely not traffic stop they can go from zero to 100 real quick right um so yeah traffic stop is the most common task we have so when they go on a traffic stop they'll call out their their call sign 1050 which is the 10 go for traffic stop and then they'll usually do the tag right um no location is first this might be my my like I'm going to draw this right now um and it's for a specific reason so that power line I was talking about that we complete our tasks on um it's in a specific order it's 1050 the unit identifier so 13 Alpha and then it's location and then it's tag and then description so we want it we call LTD location tag description okay that's why we want it so and and then there so then you are you do run the tag M so this our once you put it on there um our system runs the tag automatically but not the RO so we'll go ahead and good job good job sorry almost like you used to be a c um yeah so our system doesn't run the registered owner automatically what's a cool fact is the Deputy system does so once they run a tag um it runs the RO for them automatically and then it voices it back to them okay you know from what I remember yeah and um ours we actually have to like go through and make that decision if the person's you know we call it 1054 1029 negative for wants or warrants and then um we also look to see like is their license valid do they have any hot files that's the biggest thing for us is being able to relay to a deputy or an officer you know this person has a hot fil that says they're they might fight you or they have a history of happening weapons and they don't like law enforcement stuff like that talk about hot files how do they get in the system um there's various different ways there's tons of them in there we're actually trying to um kind of get them a little more under control with the new CAD project that's going on um so most the primary way is for a deputy that's had Direct contact with the person to say we need to put a hot file on this person that says XYZ and then and um the dispatcher or the deputy will send it up to the supervisor the Comm Center supervisor and we enter it into the system and that's that's also in fcic and cic yes not no that's a local hot files are local to our CAD there is something that's called a hot record hit which is like if a car was stolen or if a person was wanted those would come up as hot record hits but the actual hot files we're talking about are specific tar cat gotcha so traffic stop you they initiate the traffic stop you give them what information they need and and to our listeners I mean this is all happening while you're going oh pull it over you know like this is what's happening they're they're getting out they're walking up to the vehicle you guys are still potentially giving them information or they usually would wait to approach the vehicle until they hear from you guys um no we actually don't tell them we only tell them if there's a problem okay so if they just call out a traffic stop and the car is not stolen the person's not wanted there's no weapons or anything like that that pop up any hot files um we kind of leave them alone so until three to five minutes is our sop and for traffic stop specifically we're pretty hard and fast about that rule so after 3 minutes we check on you we just send you I'm going to use 13 Alpha again because I used it before we just say 13 alery 104 and they say 104 and we move on good and then what did you just say 13 alery 13 Alpha oh 13or 13 Alpha okay so then unless they need something else you're done with that for the most part I mean if it's been you know quite a while like you're still on this normal tra you haven't asked for a backup you haven't asked for anything else it's been like you know 15 minutes or something we're going to check in again but like you're you're still monitoring I don't know what word to use you're still kind of monitoring that Deputy on that stop until they clear it yeah okay because anything that's on our assigned incident screen we're still we're still really looking at making sure everything's up to date what happens if they don't answer right that's a whole process so um we'll call we'll say radio 13 Alpha and then they don't answer we'll call them again and then we'll start to use um their full name basic not their first name but we'll say like Deputy Smith so radio to 13 Alpha Deputy Smith is that your mom calling your your first middle last name you're in trouble B your government name over the radio um and then we also use the alert tone which really gets people's attention so that b Bo beb noise um I hate when we have to get to that point but it's I've had a couple where it was legitimate so and then if they still don't answer after all of that a couple of other things happen by that point multiple deputies are already on the way but we're going to make sure we're going to specifically tell deputies to go to them if there aren't already and then we're also going to 103 the channel until someone gets there and makes contact with them 103 so um stop transmitting the traffic is now restricted to only that Deputy in that incident okay yeah the other thing that's just insane on that like I'm like I said I could go in a million directions asking you questions right now but the thing that's insane is is you're telling me that every single Deputy or any agencies we dispatch for are on channel one at the same time you're listening to all of them at the same time they're all doing traffic stops and things at the same time and you're trying to just stay on top of it like at what point because you have the radio relief like it is that a a point like if there's just a lot happening when they would jump in if no no it's us I mean that technically no but the the longer answer to that is if you're really drowning and you need someone to hey can you call this agency because they asked me to give them a bolo and I physically can't give them the bolo right now we'll just turn around and ask our co-workers sometimes we'll also be listening to each other um and we'll know like hey I'm going to do this for you like we'll poke into each other's channels is what we call it and we call it poke because the icon to select the squads is literally an eyeball so we poke the eye and we'll go into their Channel and some people want that help some people don't so you just kind of have to like know who you're working with yeah um some people are like no I'm good I'm got I got it and they do like you wouldn't be doing this you wouldn't be on your own if we didn't have confidence and you to be able to do it sure sure how many deputies might you be wrangling at one time on on like that's in the busiest Channel or deputies and officers so we have like a a core group that we'd actually be physically dispatching meaning if we get a call for service those are our options um it can be anywhere from I would say 15 to 25 maybe maybe 30 so it just depends on what Channel you're on like Channel 4 has a little bit more because every city up there has a traffic initiative basically a traffic detail so you've got on top of your your three squads that you dispatch for um and a couple of contract cities up there as well you've got got people that are doing traffic details so you could theoretically have 30 people doing 30 separate things at any time and have to how do you keep track of it how does your um how does your brain do that I mean I mean it's organizational so I we have a thing on there called sticky notes and each little call thing has a literal icon that looks like a Post-It note and that means there's something in that call you haven't read yet so I keep track of my stuff by those sticky notes and also even when they're all done I'm like okay they're all cleared but like I I feel like I have to do something I'll just keep reopening them it's a lot of like triple double checking just keeping and opening them so question you know all um let's say I'm a deputy I did the traffic stop and somebody knocked me out so I haven't said anything to you and like you said there's that whole process you have deputies coming but they have those body worn cameras do you guys have any access to that you do that's a great question so as a supervisor com Center supervisor I have access to it so that would be another kind of an extra step I would be doing if a depu is not answering the radio and all of we'll go on there and we can plug into their live stream that's awesome yeah we can use it in emergency situations or if we ask them to um to do a test like Laura saw a sergeant I was like hey can we do a little test with you real quick and she was just like hi and we were just sitting watching her in her car but yeah that's another thing we'll do too um it's kind of a newer thing and and sometimes the shift Commander or the sergeant will get on the radio and say like have CS check this cuz they're also flying to see if the deput is okay um that's definitely a newer thing but that is something we can do too that's fantastic yeah I've relayed I mean I've it's not always a good thing because most of the time probably nine out of 10 times we have to tend through the channel for someone and backup's going they're just not paying attention they've turned their radio down or something they're having a conversation with someone and they're like oh this person's fine let me just turn this down so I can hear them because my Channel's busy so I've I've had to go in there and check and there's two deputies on a call and um one of them their BWC was off so I couldn't look at that one and the other one I'm like they're they're just talking but both of them had turned down their radio right so A good rule you know if you're if you're Deputy listening is that there's two of you have one of you keep your radio make sure you're looking at each other like you're you're keeping your radio on okay yeah yeah it's my responsibility so um and that's the thing too that I just balancing all of it because then you've got calls coming in and then you know we'll say those are reactive obviously and then you've got deputies out there doing their proactive thing somewhere um so when a call comes in because I I've heard I've been on rideal alongs or what I've I've heard you know you'll hear people being assigned and then canceling or then sometimes you'll hear perhaps a sergeant or a shift Commander a sergeant or Lieutenant come on and say actually why does on this unit go there like whatever like what is that like what is your process like that is it literally like who is closest to not busy if it's a high priority in progress call um we're going to send the closest available unit I almost said 10 eight but that just means available um we're going to send the closest available units at least two um if there's more but what if it's a real legitimate in progress call or like a an armed person everyone's going to go and they're hearing it too yeah exactly everyone's going to go and they're pretty good about deputies are pretty good about just hopping on the call and going instead of getting on the radio and telling us they're going because we're trying to read the call notes and that's an extra task we would be doing putting physically putting them deputies can on their end they can self assign to any call then you guys see that as well well don't say any call well once the call has been dispatched they can self assign to it okay so like until the call so like they can't see calls holding they can they just they're just not supposed to grab it without they can but they're not supposed to yeah yeah the the technology is there the ability is there that's good okay um they can just message you and say put me on that call or I'm close I'll take that call I'm just thinking about Sergeant Viano and how he was in Squad to and with Matt so he self assigned because he saw him I actually wasn't I think he might have been the shift Commander that night wasn't he I could be wrong oh he wasn't because it was um Schmid andorf okay apologize okay but yeah Sergeant I mean they can kind of go anywhere sergeants have a little bit more leeway I would say than deputies do um but if it's a a rout like a I say routine but not an in progress call if it's just like a late reported burgler or something we try to do it by sector okay they're pretty territorial about like you know this is my sector these are my calls I'm going to I'm going to take them for the most part but if you know someone's not available and someone else we have float cars too so float cars might take those other those other calls as well so the sectors that's even further breaking down the little areas of our County right I've seen a book of our County with the little I guess that's how it used to be done is you'd have to find exactly where it was probably looked at the grid book yeah yes yes and I was I was just blown away I think I was putting in um directed Patrol and so I had to put in what the little sector was and I'm like holy moly like have to do it that way I'm guessing now it's like okay we know exactly because it just it's a little automated we we have dispatchers have been doing this for a very very long time and they'll tell us about back in the day when they had the actual book out and they'd be like okay the deputies in this area this is grid so and so or whatever number it is and they dispatch them to a call by their by the grid number and now we're lucky cuz our cat system in a call ticket um breaks it down there's different steps so the first one would be so basically the next is Squad and then sector it tells us what sector it's in you almost wonder though if it was still easier back in the day because there wasn't as much information and capability right like the expectation was not that gr book is thick though I I know I'm just saying like you know now they've got oh and some other system you know to watch um I'm trying to get just all this stuff out of the way then we can just tell stories but um there's just so much to know about it that so the um okay I got a question goe so only one t Communicator per channel is how each shift goes okay I thought so um what are some kind of just general you know rules of thumb like you guys are obviously brief we we use codes and Signal codes like what are what are some of the things like and I want to talk about the dynamic with deputies because there's there's definitely something there and we could kind of talk about that relationship with deputies and dispatchers but um if if somebody uh a member of the general public that doesn't know anything about dispatch or whatever we're listening to the radio like What observations would they make everything's quick everything's fastpac like that kind of stuff yeah we we basically try to give out the the most important information if it's just I mean call not can be anywhere from you know just a few lines to really detailed like oh they're it's a domestic they're fighting about him not taking the trash out the night before you're not going to hear that it's not relevant to the situation we're going to tell the deputy if it's verbal or physical if it's still and if it's physical we're going to tell them if it's still physical now we're going to tell them if there's weapons involved what kind of weapons or if there if there's weapons there um I think one of the things that um and maybe even deputies might not know this we are trying to keep it short and sweet concise accurate um and save seconds on the radio to be able to have cuz we're not trying to be on the radio just to talk to hear our own voice we're trying to give the deputies the most important information and then get back off the radio so that if someone needs to if a deputy needs to be on the radio they can be on the radio something else so we we do shorthand a lot we talked about signals and ten codes one of the other things we do specifically in dispatch is we don't say please and thank you it's very rare there's only maybe a couple dispatchers that because they've been doing it for a long time they might say please and thank you you're not going to hear please and thank you very often from dispatch on the radio however if you're looking at my messages I overuse please and thank you and my messages all day long CU I'm like this is weird like this feels uncomfortable and strange um because deputies will say please they'll say thank you a lot they'll say thank you ma'am or whatever and I'm just like that's so nice I can't say it back to you I'm so sorry or I'll say you're welcome out loud like I can't say it on the radio I can't H the foot pedal yeah know we talk with a foot pedal no yeah we can talk with a mouse click too but we have an actual foot that way we can use both of our hands for the ual computer you're like a drummer basically yeah that be fun with all the stuff you guys are doing it sounds like five screens isn't enough it's not um sometimes and we have to keep things minimized like if you notice I didn't say anything about email because email stays minimized dispatchers only use email for certain things as a supervisor we use I use email all day um but dispatchers only use email for specific tasks so it's open they'll get the notifications if they have something in there but they don't keep it up all the time h going going back to the how you talk on the radio um so it's important to keep the channel clear so the deputies can jump on and and that's because they they can't talk over each other right like dispatch has priority so you can jump on top of anybody who's talking on the radio but they can't talk over each other yeah they actually get a like a bonk like a it'll be blocking them so only one of them can be on the radio at a time um and if one of them you know is if I have something emergency to say technically we have dispatch priori so me getting on the radio will they'll only hear me they won't hear anyone else so it doesn't happen we don't have to do that often I mean I the only time I've ever done that is when I was already talking and then a deputy doesn't realize I was already talking and they'll start they'll say something and I'll finish my thought on the radio and then or my statement or whatever it is and then I'll tell that unit again to go ahead after I'm done I'm like so and so go ahead with your traffic afterwards are there words you're not supposed to say on the radio oh absolutely like what um I mean for description a big one is wife beater people write that in call notes they'll say that on the radio I mean even I've heard a deputy recently say it and the lieutenant immediately messaged us and said like don't worry I'll take care of that he's new or something like that so yeah you're not supposed to use that there's certain vehicle descriptions for motorcycles that aren't necessarily appropriate to say on the radio it's called a sport bike people or a road bike if it's like a Harley type of bike so I don't know a lot but I know that right yeah about descriptions I mean actually that seeing of motorcycles it kind of I know it's a little early for the stories but I kind of have there's a good one when it comes to that so we also don't just make mistakes on the radio like we do say funny things on the radio on accident but we could also make typing mistakes because we're human and once you save it into the call notes it's in the we can mark it confidential so if if the public goes and asks for that call ticket later it'll be redacted but it's going to be in there forever so I had a trainee one time that um the deputy was doing a traffic stop on a red scooter and she forgot the S and I just I just watched her do it and I'm like I'm not going to say a word this is hilarious that's awesome cuz I mean we have a we have a a dark job sometimes so if you find those little glimmers of of humor and comedy you're going to do it happens oh yeah it does happen and I'm thinking about all the times I'm looking at calls going yeah who can we spell that happens too my favorite was that panelo Park call with the KFC that was on fire where the person wrote they said they're only going to have burnt chickin tonight only it was like only oh no it was I think yeah it was like only crispy chicken tonight or something like that it hilarious was that supposed to be like a DM to somebody or I have no I had I think somebody wanted to get fired we weren't dispatching them then so no no and and then somebody like jumped in afterwards and that that was one of the few times that I've gotten screenshots of call notes sent to me like oh my God they only Ser only Chrissy and it was it wasn't even spell was chickin yeah oh jeez and they like start like that wasn't necessary but we all still oh yeah cuz you could make mistakes it just be intending to send a message to one other person auty right and they go in the call notes accient I've personally the only couple times I've accident because it's a different code you could be in the power line you can update call notes from the power line you can also send a message from the power line and it's UC or am so like if you're just busy like you might just get those power line commands mixed up so it just happens like you said it happens we say that a lot in the it happens um there are worst things that can happen to um so you mentioned how when you come on shift you're always on a different Channel or getting moved around obviously deputies on the law enforement side like they work a sector they work an area they get familiar with the community they working with where it's just inherent that you guys are always like moving around like do you build any kind of familiarity with squads and kind of get to know what to expect I would imagine you would despite rotating around all the time um no absolutely so you I mean I work uh I work every shift but even when I wasn't I would work evening shift most of the time and that's kind of cool because you get half day shift half night shift and because rotate you're working with every group of them so if you want to know like what group of deputies or whatever when we hang up here you know when we're done no I'm just kidding no you're not we'll but we all have our little favorites we have our little areas we like to dispatch for because you know you could be because that's where you were from like when I first started squad one that was my favorite thing I was familiar with it it's easy it's streets and avenues there's a lot I would imagine it's pretty it's the same thing for deputies like that's a nice area to learn how to be a cop in if you've never done this before and you're not especially if you're not from here um when I first started I had been north of Gul de Bay like a handful of times besides my time in foster care like so I actually got you know a little bit of feedback from my trainer she's like you should go up there you should go driving around up there and know those busier streets and now if you ask me what I want to be on Channel 4 all day on to be North County because it's the busiest Channel what it is yeah really yeah I mean most of it a lot of it's traffic stops but um even when I after I was right after I was released from training I was on midnight shift for a year and I there was a 45 minutes period where there's three stolen vehicles that we came across and had to do what we do to get them to stop and that doesn't happen everywhere so yeah I would have never guessed north of Gul de Bay being the busiest Channel listen I until I started working here I too rarely ventured like north of almeron even MH um and I'm like Oh my people are nuts in North County like I think my first week here we had a DUI on a golf cart with somebody in D Eden and the only reason that it kind of happened is because because they just armorall their seat and turned left and just flew out of their golf cart right in front of a deputy that's so embarrassing and it's like oh you're drunk too you're drunk and you're a but anyway that I'm like wow but yeah it's wild up there and it's different lot of crashes a lot of you know yeah there's definitely a lot of traffic incidents but there's there's other stuff that happens too MH so and I think it's because I'm not as familiar with it I I like a challenge I wouldn't I don't think I'd be a dispatcher if I didn't want to be challenged so that's another part of it too just and challenge coming from just the volume and juggling is there a particular type of call that you enjoy um or a way that you can I mean purss like if you get a Pursuit CU there's so few few and far between with us um for good reason obviously but if you get a Pursuit that's you're like yeah I got a Pursuit and how do and how does that um because obvious so in a Pursuit uh you have kind of a lead car and then you have this the second car is really the one that's calling out the position so what are you doing at that point in that situation like or or even a lot of times it's Eagle if Eagle's they're calling out the whole thing um we're updating every single update that they send us they say to us we're putting that in the call notes at the same time um you're also moving your map as you go to try to make sure if there's other jurisdictions you need to notify um cuz something could start I know there was there's a girl that was in um I don't even think it was a stolen vehicle I think she just didn't have a license it started in um Pasco County and it ended up at distant Plaza in St Pete she went all the way down 49th Street so then you're notifying um clear water for part of that you're notifying um panel's Park Largo St Pete eventually so you're kind of like you're making sure that there's nobody else I need to notify um and then sometimes you're like looking at your co-workers say hey can you can you do this for me because I'm I'm a little busy right now right because in that kind of situation I mean and and that I guess that's kind of what I was kind of asking earlier about when when something's going on how do you juggle all of it because if you're if if you have a Pursuit on your channel and you're doing all that what about the person that's doing a traffic stop somewhere else they usually go to a different Channel okay so yeah deputies and officers are pretty good about just like flipping over so if it's on channel two they'll just flip to one or three a lot of people do three three ends up getting like if you have a traffic stop and another Channel's busy it's usually channel three you're going to go on and they just go with it yeah yeah you just say you know 1050 on Channel 3 Channel fors 106 which just means you know traffic stop on this channel because they're busy right yeah okay so that that really kind of kind of puts the onus on deputies to kind of read the read the room or listen to the room yeah because the weird thing about Pursuits is you might not necessarily be 10 three for them because they're not if you're actually in Pursuit so you have a forcible felony and you're in a legitimate Pursuit and you tell us that you're in a legitimate Pursuit you're going to get the channel the Channel's going to be 10 three for you but if you don't if it doesn't actually kind of like unold that way yeah you're like oh I'm following at a distance or whatever we're not going to give you the channel you're not actually doing anything that's where we need to give you the channel so you you'll every once in a while you'll have some guy and I'll just come up on there and be like 1050 I'm like are you kidding me right now yeah and usually but we don't you know I say are you kidding in the background without keying up on the radio um but right after that there'll be a sergeant or whoever on the radio like can you go to this channel instead of this like come on we're we're a little busy here a little self- policing yeah so any good uh Pursuit stories that come to mind oh there is one there's definitely a good one um this was a couple years ago I think it was 2021 actually so three years ago now which is mind-blowing um a a guy supposedly met a girl online and she was getting released from jail soon I don't know how you meet someone in line online that's in jail or how that happened but is their website for that we oh there sure is yeah what is it a life after lock up that's a TV show all about that stuff no I remember anyway there was some there was some website that we were legitimately passing around and laughing about because yeah yeah interesting and but they were prisons they were yeah I'm like the show I'm talking about was prison but I would imagine in jail you can anyway sorry no that's okay that gave me a little break thanks um so he decides he's going to pick up this girl after she gets released from jail and he does it in a yellow car hauler meaning a yellow sem an 18wheeler semi it doesn't have any cars on it so it's just the the actual the truck part and then this big trailer that's yellow I keep saying yellow because it came up M multiple times um because everyone's like what kind of car is this it's a yellow car hauler it's a yellow semi so he goes to the jail he decides um he's going to pick her up so he's at the checkpoint he gives his ID to the perimeter unit the perimeter unit's like and by perimeter unit I mean that's the deputy that's assigned to the jail specifically he um he's like this is a little fishy so he asked for a backup unit so this time of night the closest backup is going to be um in this specific incident was a DIY unit one of our Echo units was at CBT so she goes out of CBT goes to the primer units they have this guy's ID in his hand and then he decides he's going to flee even though we already vied him so he backs the car hauler out of the jail goes north found on 49 Street also the Eagle's pretty close to that so it doesn't take the eagle long to to launch for this and then he goes um various speeds Northbound on 49th Street all the way into Pasco County throughout that time he almost hit a Sunstar ambulance almost hit multiple Vehicles ran red lights left and right um the beginning of it once it's like heating up I think once he got on the Bayside and it was kind of like okay this is real um I was ready I was like okay this is great like you know we C Center's pretty cold I like whip off my jacket I throw it down supervisor tell the story yeah one of my supervisors tells the story in training she's like yeah the dispatcher was all about it she got her blood pressure went up so she took her jacket off cuz it was like I can't imagine how it is for deputies cuz I'm I'm ready to go and I'm just in here um whole thing lasted about 45 minutes but he um got stop sticked most multiple times along the way I had no idea that you could stop stick a semi um if you didn't know now you do and there's Eagle footage of it you can see that the tires are basically on fire because they're just the the rims grinding on the the concrete I remember this yeah yeah um so Eagle calling it out there's multiple deputies following and the deputies are like what kind of car are we looking for what kind of cuz no one's getting it you can't miss it yeah it's a yellow car hauler we're not exaggerating here it's on fire at this point yeah and then it's on fire and Eagle like radio get get Pasco FD on standby and I'm like sir they're always on standby that's what the FD does they're just there waiting for a call exactly they're not they're not a Publix I mean could be I think they're like at of service or something at that point but I'm like yeah we'll get them as soon as you need them so but turns out we did need them because the whole bottom of this thing was was basically on fire by the time he stopped and um I don't the thing weird thing about dispatch is you don't always follow up later to see like oh what happened with that or whatever um car hauler was stolen was not reported stolen yet because it was housed at a like a parking situation and the owner didn't know it was stolen until we reach out to her later and you know tell her about what happened and she's like oh that was stolen so it was a stolen car hauler he was um DUI and the deputy afterwards she you know they asked him like Hey why you didn't see all of our lights why didn't you stop and he's like oh I I thought I was in a parade what he's like that was fun I thought I was in a parade and we're like what are you talking about so yeah 45 minutes that was a good one wow good one and meanwhile the poor girl in jail never had anyone pick her up yeah she's probably waiting for an Uber still yeah I just I'm thinking him showing up with the semi like hey Bab I got a job I all cars like if you're going to steal a car there are so many other cars you should steal he wanted her to know he had a job he wanted the whole world to know that he went through he could probably get her like 12 cars cuz he could pick them all up yeah we just pick all your this is Gone in 60 Seconds no kidding wow um anything any other kind of like what other kind of call stories do you have out there I know there's a bunch of them oh no we're going to save you know solving the relationship between dispatch and deputies to the very end so we'll fix that later I mean so we we talked about like you know making mistakes and we're all human and stuff so some of the funnest stories that I um kind of tell and people love to tell about me shout out to Sherry uh it's her favorite story ever we were I had a car fleeing in Squad 3 it was going Southbound on I think 113th Street like 54th Avenue on midnight shift um and Deputy Lang at the time I think he's a detective now he gets on the radio and he says um just she just blew my doors off I had no idea what that meant I had zero clue what that meant and my supervisor at the time who I wouldn't say was like necessarily known for being humorous right away um she stood up and she she's laughing but I'm not I don't pick up that she's laughing and she's like does he need a recorder and I was like oh hold on let me ask and I get back on the radio and I'm like 35 Charlie did he say did you say he hit the door on your Cruiser and I like have this clarifying question with him and I got like 20 messages like never seen Dukes of Hazard have you and I'm like actually I have but I guess I didn't remember that part that piece yeah didn't remember that part um we also one of the calls that I I think they're fun to dispatch I think a lot of people would maybe disagree with me are water rescues because they're kind of hard to hear them and stuff and there's a lot going on and you're kind of learning as you go because there's a lot of water terms if you've never been on the water or you've never heard these things you just have no idea what they're talking about I'm sure you guys went through a little bit of that with um Deputy constant that was in here and everything so um I but however I was dispatching a water rescue one time they asked for the the boat description and it was a 24 foot uh Grady White and I said Grady jut on the radio easy mistake so yeah there's a 25 foot Grady jet out there holy crap I think it was right around the time he was doing the bobbleheads that's their newest promo they're probably going to hear parade yeah it's like an inflatable for your front yard it's 25 foot GR that's awesome Santa Jud on it yeah yeah ridiculous um so calls you had some good uh Wild Life calls too right oh there's all kind that happens all the time yeah um so we love alligator stories around here so anything from like hey there's an alligator in the parking garage which happened you didn't know um dispatcher saw under her car and she's like what um I've had them so we I talked briefly that my husband works for um 911 he had a call where um a alligator was actually under someone bed in their bedroom and the the husband calls he's like hey there's an alligator under under our bedroom um under the bed in the bedroom and and he asked the call taker who's my husband and he's like should I should I wake my wife up my husband's like I'm sorry your wife's asleep in the bed and he's like yeah I didn't I didn't wake her up I just I got up and then I saw it and he's like no don't wake her up cuz like she's going to get out of the bed she could nip the toes whatever we don't know how big this thing is or whatever he's like no just tell her to stay in bed for now hold on we'll get deputies out there um and S E I believe is who it was he he gets out there they get the he's like little teenager is what we call them like I call them little teenagers when they're only a couple feet long I think they're cute I'm probably weird but um so they get them or what right okay thank you glad my feelings are being validated so yeah so he he gets them and they bring him somewhere else turns out it was a really nice night and they left their slider open so little guy just wandered in there I think they lived on a golf course so there's tons of water and everything always alligators on golf courses so so that was that one and then um oh uh Lieutenant poor Lieutenant Buckley I did ask permission I do have permission so even if you didn't I don't care we'll mess with him okay so he uh his Squad well he was a lieutenant so Squad 2 got a call about an alligator near Wells Fargo it was the one on Brian AR and starky there's a little bit of a ditch there I would say um there's an alligator there so the sergeant was like uh we're not dealing with this call FWC like we're not doing this that's their job right so I'm like okay we'll call FWC fwc's been notified they're on their way or whatever Lieutenant Buckley here he comes he's like oh I don't care about FWC like I'm going to go out there myself so he goes to to get this alligator and he was a little bigger than a teenager I would say um and he got bit by it but ran across the street from the hospital so had to go over there and Lessons Learned yeah he found another home and there's a good snake one we talked about too oh this was good so this was back when I um was just a call taker one day I think I had just gotten done with call taking training and I hadn't started radio training yet so just on the phones and part of our tasks if we're on the phone is to do um requests so if a deputy needs a cab or something we'll call the cab company or in this case um Deputy was out at an apartment complex in East Lake and he's like yeah there's a snake um I've got it like kind of contained under these stairs or whatever so can you call a snake Trapper out here um and we have a thing on in CAD and also it's on Sonet if you didn't know it's called the card file um you can search all kinds of stuff in there you can search the word snake it'll tell you snake trappers we might have that you can call um not you as in the public you as in deputies were dispatch so oh I'm calling all these numbers and I want to say it was like a Saturday night nobody wanted to come get this thing so but eventually I think it took an hour I finally got someone that would come out um it was Vernon Yates I think we're all most of us are familiar with him so he's on his way out there or whatever and he gets there and um the deputy it was a fake snake the whole time he kept it contained Under the Staircase that probably was pretty easy yeah for for a while I don't think it gave you know gave him too much of a fight um it was a fake snake Veron got out there and he had a good laugh about it I think he called back in I talked to him he's like ail you'll never believe it and I was like oh yeah I did hear that and the deputy kept it um on his dashboard until he retired for well smart he retired he never going to let it down so he might as well own it right for sure dang so um there on the operational side with with deputies there's always kind of this light-hearted like you know deputies versus dish patch because really in any job where you're working in in tandem with somebody a partner working it's like you know there's always things that you could do better there's always things that they can do better they don't understand what you're dealing with and vice versa you know what are what are some of the the things would even say conflicts but what are just some of the things that you run into uh working with deputies I mean the biggest thing is like not actually waiting that for the channel to be clear so like you'll just click on real quick and need to do something and I'm in the middle of talking or someone else is talking we're you know going back and forth that's the biggest thing is like just just wait that couple seconds to make sure you can actually it's your turn basically um us kind of telling you that it's your turn it's kind of a big thing but we say go ahead when it's they say so and so I'm I have this in we say go ahead um we really like to be able to do that because we could be doing we've talked about we could be doing a million different things we want to be able to be prepared and do it efficiently um and be ready to go with whatever they're going to tell us so sometimes if we're finishing up the last task we just need that one second to to get our attention that's probably the biggest thing so they say who they are 13 Alpha and then pause and then in a perfect world if I'm going to you know if we're going to go right back to basics I mean if you know what kind of call you're going to go out on say you're not on anything and you're about to call out on a call obviously we say traffic stop a lot we say 1050 but a lot of people don't do that with other calls you could do that with any kind of call if you're going to be out on a disabled vehicle you could say 13 Alpha signal 51 because that's a disabled vehicle or an assist motorist you can do that with anything so um ideally at least just you know your identifier is really helpful just to give us that second now I know there are some deputies that have a really hard time understanding talking to them face to face uh I cannot imagine that gets better on the radio we call it marble mouth or um you might hear us say things like um Kenny 109 which means repeat and we have to give her our goal is to give a reason we don't just 10 nine people just to do that um and usually it's like you're you're garbled or you're unreadable but we're basically just saying like get the rocks out of your mouth and talk clear try again yeah yeah CU you know between and I'm sure you can also kind of get a sense of how they're like if they're under stress or whatever like you kind of get familiar and know how that sounds too yeah there's definitely there's one specific person that always comes to mind when I when that topic comes up and it's um Corporal Bren because he has a completely different voice in person than he does on the radio and then if he's really in it something bad's going on on the radio he has another voice and like I've known him since high school so I'm like there's definitely something going on with him let me just take a second and and you know Zoom him which he pretty needy yeah we've got a quick little power line command where we can zoom right to a unit on the map um so we can see where they are and then you know look and see who's closest and stuff like that to try to figure out what they need that's we miss him out there he you know we had some good times well you can have him back anytime you have back oh no we want to keep him I know we like he's he's fun um all right um what are you know I think that and I would imagine if I were a deputy and you were saying those things to me You' be like well you know you're you're not you're not in the middle of what we're in the middle of you know and those sorts of things and that's just kind of one of the Nuance things that you have to kind of work through with it yeah um I mean you've kind of really touched on a lot of it but you know are there things specifically like that that you also kind of did the location thing already too but is there anything else that it's really important that the deputies need to understand or officers yeah I mean they have a couple different ways if they cannot get on the radio or they can't actually talk they can press their emergency button on their radio um most of the time it's been accidental really recently I had a sergeant that got into a pretty significant crash and that was all he could do at first and he pressed it and his your payr their payroll comes up so we can figure out who you are and then I can map you and as long as your GPS is working so make sure your GPS is working um we do have the the BWC backup because those are ma too but if they're not on or your location's not up to date it's not none of it's perfect it's all Technology based but um it's I mean deputies might not know be able to tell you who that was that just went into emergency mode or just did that key bre so I can tell you who the key bre is I can tell you where they're mapping to because I know who they are and everything and that Deputy that Sergeant specifically he couldn't really get on the radio right away so by the time he was able to get on the radio he said something about being he said rear ended but we could barely understand him because the crash was pretty bad um but luckily we had mapped him um we had gotten deputies going got him on a call got deputies going to them um f 911 was getting calls at the same time from people involved Witnesses so he had help on the way but um you might think that you can do everything without us but there are specific circumstances where we're we're there to help you and we your Lifeline in some ways were there are there any like generational differences you see like with more seasoned deputies and younger deputies oh yeah yeah the season deputies definitely have an inherent respect with dispatch um they they understand that because back you know a long time ago they didn't have all this technology and everything so like we're you know they've been around for long enough water their horses and everything yeah they to they're only getting the information that we would give them before so there's definitely a little bit of a disconnect so we encourage anyone you know any the new guys I know there's a couple fto that like to bring their their deputies into the com Center um I would love it one day if we could have that built into like the fto program or something they can come and sit with us and see would be fantastic you were surprised yeah yeah there's there's a lot that goes on it and we're not telling you to do certain things just because we want to just cuz that you're not being controlled there's a reason yeah our system set up a certain way to do things a certain way and we want to be able to do them as efficiently as possible for their safety MH exactly something else that we were talking about uh or I've heard mentioned before is um dispatch priming uh and that was I know something that I think Laura mentioned to me as well where you really have to be careful and I would imagine this would kind of go to everyone really I mean you guys are obviously entering the information but being very mindful of what's said and how it's said because it can kind of change the outcome of a absolutely there's there's articles about that and studies about that that if a law enforcement officer is told there's a weapon involved that they're more likely to get into a shooting whether there's a weapon there or not based on if they were told there was so you it starts with the caller because sometimes call notes are only as good as the caller is um we have a lot of there's live 911 now where deputies can actually listen to 911 calls I think at first everyone was like yeah I want to use this or whatever and it's kind of tapered off a little bit but sometimes you know they'll plug in and they'll listen and that kind of gives them the true tone of the call because you could have a call that looks like it's way up here at the very top of the dangerous level and then it's really not it's you know a person that's having a mental health crisis and they're seeing things you know seeing something that's not actually there or whatever or someone's just kind of exaggerating or whatever the situation is um but yeah dispatch priming is is really it's a real thing um it can be kind of a something that changes the outcome of things so we as dispatchers really keep that in mind if a call note say that there's a weapon I want to know what do you mean a weapon I need more specifics I want to know is it in their hand are they threatening with it or did they use a gun last week at the shooting range like I need to know details what kind of weapon is it so if you put you know same thing with the the line that says no weapons if you put no weapons on a domestic did you ask if there's weapons in the house or did you ask you know is there weapons right now because there's a difference because those things can change and we get a lot of like i' all the time you see armed person calls pop up because some jackass brandishes a gun driving down the road or whatever and like a road rage kind of thing so yeah we we try to go with for the most part we try to go with the highest priority because there's a little bit of a we want you to act and but this also goes on the deputies too like you need to be prepared for it to be a real situation a real weapon um whether the call says signal 12 which is just reckless driver or signal zero you need to be prepared either way so some of that's on the deputy but some of that I can definitely see you know changing your reaction and everything because an armed person comes in on our side is red so that gets my adrenaline going right away it comes in blue I'm like okay that's not that big of a deal so just yeah just is your voice the same no matter what h no I would say no we try not to convey tone too much we try to speak in and not in modern tone but we try to speak in a a clear um I don't want to say Pleasant because you could be dispatching something that's not a pleasant situation you don't want to sound happy about it but you definitely don't want to sound disgruntled or like you're inconvenienced by this call or whatever because you never know it could come across like could you could think it's real and it could be someone that's just having a mental health crisis or it could be a mental health crisis that you know turns into something bigger so you just never want to sound um again disgruntled disinterested so with the just to clarify because I know we're talking about so many different things um but with dispatch priming because you guys are looking at the notes and fall and dispatching deputies and preparing for anything extra they may need the call the dispatcher is talking to the caller and you're asking you're communicating with them to ask further questions of the call taker so yeah we can we can send messages to 911 under very intense circumstances we might you know holler if we need to um doesn't happen often but we can you know kind of shout across the room to get them hopefully they're closer if they're really far away we're not going to do that but if they're like one pot over I might you know I might just say it out loud to them when you're saying things like they said there it was a domestic and there was weapons and you're sitting here thinking okay is there weapons in the house who are you asking that to we're asking the call taker to ask an additional question of them that happened so I did get that that actually happened two times in one day um last week uh two different calls one I want to say was a demestic and um we asked you know does is he ever had any his the deputy want you know does he have any history of weapons col has already said No weapons but we still take that second you tell the deputy well the call no say no weapons let me clarify and then you clarify it turns out the guy's known to have a knife on them regularly so that's a little different than no weapons in my opinion right um I forget what the other one was but it was the same thing I think they there was a oh it was another domestic um or maybe a juvenile trouble it might have been a juvenile son fighting with the dad or something and the mom was a wasn't there she was kind of a third party caller and the again the deputy wanted to know if there was weapons in the house so we said No weapons in the call notes but we just asked to clarify they keep a shotgun in the house but the mom who wasn't there was the only person that knew where it was supposedly you just you never know right well every house has a kitchen there's weapons in there so exactly so we we try to say like I mean when I'm taking I'll be like no weapons other than kitchen knives because that's it's accurate you just never know right and with these uh calls that come in and it may be somebody who is having a mental health crisis but they're obviously they're not going to tell you that you guys are just taking the information as it's given to you and there's no inferring or anything that can happen you guys just have to relay it as it was given through the call taker for the most part you can kind of pick up on some of the things people say if they're talking about you know there's colorful balloons in the sky coming after me or whatever like you're going to pick up that it's a mental health thing or we have Asus we do a lot of research that's my favorite thing to do as a dispatcher is to be able to be not favorite thing but something I try to try to do consistently is if I'm dispatching a call and I there's people information meaning there's names dat of births phone numbers you can take a very little amount of information put in an Asis and get information on someone and all the time you you might get a little Caution note you might just get history tons of bay crack history or whatever it is and those are important things to relay gotcha so the um so Prim can positive or negative so even though you know they said you know there's tigers in the sky or whatever still with the call taking notes you you can say that's what they said but you can't say like this person's I wouldn't personally say things like that on the radio because they're not really relevant except like if you're if it's something where it's in progress and they're saying like they're being attacked or something and then it's starting to get a little fishy I might give them a little more detail if they're not in their car or something okay gotcha the information thing and I feel like we talked about this with somebody else on a different episode I don't remember but as far as just deputies only being as good as the information they have you know there's a lot of instances I think where the public May perceive our response to be excessive or um just different in some way or not what they would expect but it's like well this is all we have is the information to go by I mean how many calls do we get of somebody walking with a potentially a gun or something when it turns out to be something totally different like we are not in a position to gamble on that yeah um and you know that's an important that's an important piece of it so that's all that's all really good stuff yeah we we had a call on the Denine Causeway um that I dispatched and it came out as an armed person it said the person had a a a rifle and they were shooting into the water um depies got out there and it was a potato gun he was shooting fish with a potato gun doesn't mean that it's not a gun technically or we're not going to act one way until they get there so you you mentioned that you know sometimes you forget to follow up but I mean this is kind of the the elephant in the room really is you all get to see one side of the call some of the things you hear about are very interesting some might be really difficult to process um what does that look like for you guys because and I guess um now knowing what I know some I guess you're not always burdened with hearing the caller potentially hearing the victims in of a call uh which that would be I'm not saying it makes your job any easier but that would make it a lot worse obviously if you and I'm assume you could later or whatever but just to kind of let's go assume the worse and somebody's having a something really bad is happening to somebody and you guys are just trying to go through the motions like what how do you all deal with that how do you all you know work with that are you able to you know if you get a a bad call you're able to like step away for a minute um that's what radio relief perhaps is for I mean how how does that play out yeah I mean we've we've been there we've experienced it so when um when the you know death and deping magley happened um I was working I was on channel one Kurt on Channel 4 sitting right next to me um Megan buy was on the channel and um our supervisors at the time did a great job getting radio relief on that channel as quickly as they could so to get her off of that channel and it's not always um that bad so yes I I don't hear 911 callers you know blood curdling screams into the phone because that does happen um I've heard those calls later because as a supervisor one of the things we have to do is pull pull tape reports pull tapes um and we all have our our things that might trigger us sure per se so I've lost a family member to Suicide so suicides are particularly difficult for me so there's sometimes where I have to just turn around take a second recompose myself and and turn back around um I don't want to say luck luckily because nothing about this is is lucky but when we get one of those hot calls it comes in as a certain priority usually and I talked about adrenaline and I think adrenaline gets me through to be able to do the job well enough and then I can step back and take a moment when I can yeah yeah so when it comes in as a low priority call is when it really gets to me at least personally but yeah we're we're good about helping each other and if we look over at someone and we see they have a difficult call and supervisors too since we're monitoring all the calls we're seeing all the calls come in you know and I can go down there and say like hey how you doing you want a second and we'll get someone to take their channel so and and yeah so as a supervisor too so you're monitoring all that stuff all the time we kind of even didn't go down that path cuz that's why I was think what do you do as a supervisor exactly um three hours later yeah but so as a supervisor though you have access to all the same stuff because you mentioned you can pull up all the units and all that stuff you can monitor we keep all the we actually keep all the units and all the calls monitored at the same time we don't we don't filter it down to a specific squat super you could dispatch if you needed to yes yeah I can plug in really quickly okay yeah if you're having a technology issue or I can grab my headset and just go down and plug in if someone needed to to you know take a second or something MH good stuff yeah what else you guys got you want to talk about what you do as a supervisor as assistant supervisor um so part of you know most of what we do on a daily basis Is We I talked about our email a lot and teletype so those two things are pretty connected teletype messages will come in then they for them to my email um and there's different things we have to take action on um it could be anything from a abuse hotline notification where we need to put a call in for a deputy to go investigate something to another we talked about another agency asking us to to go deliver terrible news to someone's loved one that their loved one passed away so we monitor that stuff um we also call if there a recer of tow truck called for any Deputy any call or whatever Comm Center supervisor is the one making that call um so we have to log those we make those phone calls we have our supervisor line um if you didn't know after 5:00 pm if you're having an IT issue you actually call the Comm Center supervisor and we try to try to help you out a little bit and then if we can't help you out and it needs to be an emergency on call thing um to it we we'll make that notification to them and then a lot of the other so we talked about those five screens in addition to those five screens we have a I think it's like a 48 inch monitor that has seven other programs into it it's got agency cameras agency alarms we work um the gates that are at the Sab we can control so you can see the cameras that are all over the agency yeah you you I got a little paranoid after uh after I saw all the places you can see yeah you you were watching watching um Jana when I was over there filming her for that video and she she threw her papers and fell down as a part of the video and then you were like are you okay I literally messed her yeah cuz I saw her I was like oh my God does she have a really difficult person there and they're like fighting her do I need to get her out I think I called her too on the phone right yeah yeah she like oh no PR I'm like oh my gosh I was like I had no idea that you guys watch those makes sense it's for when they do have a difficult person and yeah now as an assistant supervisor like you like is there a supervisor on every shift or you're just like how does that I can do everything as supervisor but you're like not both there at the same time or you are no the goal is that we're both there at the same time there's only a couple couple eight hour blocks throughout the week that there's only one supervisor scheduled um for the most part two supervisors are scheduled but that means you can take a day off so we can work on our own um we can do everything a com Center supervisor can do they just have a little bit more responsibility than we do um by a little probably mean a lot but um they have more responsibility than us but we can do as far as the day-to-day monitoring everything they can do we can do the same things all of it yeah and then there's tons of school cameras on there too like every public school we have access to that what wow yeah there's a there's a lot of Technology that's know why yeah which is terrible just to get ahead of what's what's happening there yeah we've done I think the agency's done a great job preparing for hopefully when that never happens but yeah we you never want to use any of it but we're ready to go exactly yeah that's what it's all about and then you can see the flight camera too right what I wanted to ask I was like can you watch that live yeah we have the we have a log in all the supervisors have a log to the down link so we can put it up there I've seen some good stuff I've seen some bad stuff and but yeah it's it's a good one actually I told I think I told you about it the other day um car fled from us and then it kind of crashed on 275 and three people got out of the car and fled on foot and Eagle was up already for it so Eagle sees the three people he leads deputies one of them and um we watched the person as the trash can kind of fell over and the person fell out that's how the deputies found them that's funny yeah that's what I'm going to say about that is there anything like other than I mean obviously that's really cool to watch but is there anything that you're doing while that's happening because I know the Tactical flight Deputy is calling out where they are and everything but is there anything addition that you're doing that's that's up there for us to just be prepared comped if something happened like that type of thing um I also think it's a little bit up there for entertainment purposes cuz it's pretty entertaining um but we're our main job is still if my phone rings I'm going to answer the phone if a dispatcher needs me I'm going to help the dispatcher that's definitely not something that we're monitoring for anything operationally it's just an additional like feature that we have gotcha yeah yeah or if something like crazy happens you saw it in real time like you don't have to wait for them to relay it yeah I mean if if it got really bad and I saw like a crash happening or something I could tell the dispatcher like hey they're going to need there's a little bit of a delay with the down link anyway so the deput is probably going to be on the radio asking for FD anyway faster um but the possibilities are definitely there unbelievable but is just I mean it's probably I mean we do Citizens Academy we walk them through there kind of the first night and just for a little teen tiny I'm like that is little teen just walk through actually and Lorie Collins with count i1 she does the walk through cuz she's the guru um but it's just there's just so much to unpack up there there's just so much going on and um people just don't don't get it and hopefully they do now because they listen to this episode it's fascinating never do it but f f i I think not hearing the the caller would be helpful for me because I'm such an impath that I would just take on what they're saying whereas if I'm focused on okay I'm dispatching this and doing all this but I I think I got ad ADHD and I would just forg there's no way I could do I mean I have the utmost respect for people that work for 911 because I could not be on I've listened to those calls after the fact and they hear some of the worst things and they have to they just have to be there and they have to keep their composure and just get them get the caller through it until help can get there and that's really hard and they have I mean they have the same thing we have where there's we don't always know the outcome you can't visualize what actually happened later and that's probably the hardest part because you're getting all this this traumatic things on top of you and you're not really getting like the the picture the closure yeah I don't even realize until like sometimes it becomes too much and then you're like okay I just need to I need to check in with my mental health here for for a little bit Yeah I'd imagine do you find yourself I mean you I just I have so much respect for what you guys do because you have to have obviously like Ashley just said like there's something going on does that like spill over into your personal life like are you really good at chaos elsewhere I would say so I love planning things so like if it's like a birthday party or anything like like I I actually um got my notary this year to be able to um perform My Best Friend's Wedding oh nice um but I was also her maid of honor the same time as the efficient so I was going around doing all kinds of stuff that day the photographer was actually like do you want a job as a wedding planner I could help you and I'm like I don't know I really like my job but that sounds fun um like like a mental five screens up even when you're off duty yeah yeah I mean I try to I try to shut it off sometimes so I'll try to be like you know someone else should plan dinner or whatever but then if dinner sucks and I could have planned it I want to plan it it could have been better yeah yeah fortunately I'm stuck in that forever yeah I and I would imagine to being able to turn it off and and get out of the here is is a good thing what do you uh what do you like to do for fun I love going to the beach or going to the water I mean this is probably like that month or month and a half that's like the worst time to go cuz it's so hot right now everybody else is it's hot yeah yeah but I did go over um a couple weekends ago we went over to the east coast we have a friend over there and um we went into the Atlantic Ocean it's considerably colder than it is over here it was so nice it is yeah it's like bath water out there yeah no we don't go to the beach as often as we should living here or at least go by the water yeah yeah but if I if I can I I love being by the water um I love spending time with friends and family I know that's kind of like simple answer cliche but it's true like quality times like that's why I hang out with people exactly yeah it's good stuff yeah um well we always kind of like to give um our guests an opportunity if there's something that the public can do to make their job easier this is your time public I have two kind of do two yeah of course so for the public specifically if you call 911 or if you if you accidentally did or whatever just stay on the phone if you accidentally call 911 just stay on the phone and let them know um also if you have one of those phones that you know calls automatically or has those extra features and you don't feel like you actually need them you're not a fall risk turn that thing off basically um so that's the big thing if you call 911 just stay on the phone let them know it was an accident if it was an accident cuz we're going to call back yeah we're going to keep calling back and then you know can turn into a huge thing um speaking of that there was a guy that called like 80 times one day he was on his motorcycle didn't know his phone was wedged in his pocket just gone this nice he finally answered after like an hour and a half we got him on the phone but I'm getting off topic now but yeah stay on the phone um and then I would say for deputies just make sure your dispatcher knows where you are because your GPS might fail you so it's important go back to old school when you have to it's important good stuff April we really appreciate you coming on and and chatting with us you didn't seem nervous at all which is absolutely not which is which is good except for you're a little tiny hamster amount of water you poured yourself in your in your Limited it's still there look at that but we appreciate it and and sharing the incredible work that you all do up there I know you're just a little tiny piece of the the Cog and the wheel up there if you will but um you're obviously a big part of our success that we have you and all your colleagues up there so thank you very much uh Laura this is uh your time you if you have uh any feedback for us you want to get in touch with us there's a way to do that uh yeah you can email us at let's 56pcs onet.com that's ls5 6 at PCS onet.com that was pretty good it wasn't the best one yet that was pretty I know I know I kind of a little cold so my voice is off we are also on uh Instagram 56 podcast just spelled out we have our own Instagram account where we we might post some additional uh content that you may not see on the Sheriff's Office Instagram we promote 56 so uh with that thanks everybody for listening and we'll talk to you next time [Music]