Tag: RTO

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Ramblings by Hal

Ramblings: Dispatchers and Computer

By Hal Collier, Retired LAPD

Computers changed police work in a disturbing way. I was taught to use police instincts which you only gained by experience. You questioned what was obvious and never take what someone says at face value. It didn’t matter whether you were questioning a victim, a witness or the suspect, they all told their story that benefited them. Good questioning is now a dying art.

As an example I was training a young probationer and, to put it mildly, he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. We stopped a car and I told him before he got out of the car, “Careful. I think the cars stolen!”

He walked right up to the driver’s window with his flashlight in his gun hand!

Geez, no wonder I lost my hair. The car was an unreported stolen and later, when I asked the probationer why he walked up to the car he answered, “The computer said it wasn’t stolen!” The new generation of cops are relying on computers to tell them how to do police work.

 

As everyone knows computers can have bad days or maybe they just screw up. I was walking my foot beat in a dark alley when this Ford pulls into the parking lot.  The driver looks rather nervous as he walks away from the car.

I run the license and the RTO (Radio Telephone Operator or dispatcher) replies, “No want. DMV [says it’s] a 75 Chevy R/O (Registered Owner) lives in Northern California.”

Cool. I have me a possible stolen vehicle with cold plates. This car is a Ford. I track down the driver and using the academy-taught tactics, I make him lie on the ground while I point my Smith & Wesson 38 Caliber revolver at center body mass!

As I’m handcuffing him he is demanding my badge number and name. I have had so many people ask for my badge number I thought it was common knowledge. It was Policeman Badge #3845 for those of you that forgot it.

I had the RTO run the VIN [vehicle identification number] and she returns with a 75 Ford, and the license plate that’s on the car.

Oops. How can that be she just told me it was a Chevy? The RTO runs the license again and even a third time, it’s a 75 Ford registered to my soon to be dusted off suspect. My suspect hands me two forms of ID, one is a California driver license and the other is a LAPD ID card which indicates my suspect is a RTO for the same department I work for. How can this get any worse?

My sergeant comes out to the parking lot and documents the RTO’s complaint. I go to the station to try and figure what the hell went wrong! I barely get in the back door and the Watch Commander [W/C] tells me I have a phone call from the Communications Watch Commander.

Oh goody. Probably more bad news! I was about to be surprised.

The Communications Watch Commander advises me that the RTO was not in error but the computer fouled up. She also told me that the suspect RTO I stopped is a disgruntled employee and no one likes him. The Communications W/C says they will be doing an investigation on him for being in a known drug location while on a sick day. See? Sometimes the sun shines in the middle of the night. I never heard another word about the incident and I didn’t ask either.

 

Ok one more story about Dispatchers. I was a sergeant in Hollywood, that’s right working in the dark just before the newspaper boys deliver your paper. An ambulance “cutting” call comes out at 1640 Las Palmas. That’s just a half a block from Hollywood Boulevard. I’m sitting in my car as the RTO broadcasts another ambulance “cutting” at Hollywood and Las Palmas. I advise the RTO that it’s the same call and to cancel the second unit.

The RTO responds, “No the computer says it’s a different reporting district.”

I advise her, “It’s the same call and the computer is wrong.” I’ve just committed a sin; computers don’t make these kind of mistakes.

She again politely tells me that there two different calls.

Ok, time to stop arguing. In my best firm “I’m the Sergeant” voice I say, “I’ve worked Hollywood for 30 + years and I’m looking at both locations from the front seat of my newest model police car. Assign me the second call!”  It was the end of our discussion.

Trust the veteran who’s at scene.

 

Next — open microphones!   Hal

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Ramblings by Hal

Ramblings: Dispatchers and MDT’s

by Hal Collier, Retired LAPD

I’ve given you some of my true stories of the good and bad dispatchers. They can all be verified by listening to me talk in my sleep.

I was not brought up in the computer world but was dragged into it by my employment and my kids. I think my first experience with a computer was an Atari 2600 and playing Space Invaders. My kids beat me regularly.

 

Before computers in the cars you received radio calls by voice from the dispatchers. On a busy night in Hollywood it went something like this: I’d pick up the microphone and in my ‘please don’t give me all the crappy calls tonight’ voice say, “6A65 Morning Watch Clear, Good Morning.”

The RTO responded, “Good morning. Stand by for five calls.”

The RTO would then pause to give you time to get out my #2 Ticonderoga pencil and a 3”x5” note pad. The RTO would then read off the five calls. I had to write down the time, address and nature of the call. High priority calls came first. That 3”X5” note pad was your log (or DFAR as we called them in the LAPD; DFAR stood for Daily Field Activities Report).

Often at code-7 you would transfer your notes to the DFAR. On real busy nights you spent a ½ hour after end of watch completing your DFAR. That was on your own time, by the way. I wished I’d taken short hand in high school instead of print shop. I heard that some officers that didn’t like RTO’s would make them repeat the calls a second and third time—not my style. I knew where my next call was coming from.

 

After handling the first high priority call you notified the RTO and tried to move on to the next call. Well, if another high priority call came in the RTO gave that for you to handle first. Some nights it went like this for most of the night. That was why we sometimes handled loud party calls three to five hours late. Hell, the party giver had almost sobered up by the time we showed up. That was Hollywood in the 70’s.

 

Sometime around the mid 80’s they started putting computers in black and whites. They were called MDT’s (Mobil Digital Transmitters or terminals). A marvelous piece of technology when they worked. Somehow putting a computer in a hot car is asking a lot from a machine invented by a geek. I don’t know what caused the problems with the MDT’s other than most cops resist change. Some old timers refused to even turn them on and others vandalized them. The fact was, an officer either adjusted or rode the pine bench (desk).

 

The RTO now gives you your five calls by transmitting them to your MDT. I missed her sweet voice as she destroyed the next two hours of my career! Like them or hate them computers are here to stay. Adjust or go the way of the Dodo bird.

Computers had some drawbacks as anybody knows who ever accidently deleted that nice letter to Aunt Millie before you sent it!

 

Next: How computers changed police work forever!   Hal

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Ramblings by Hal

Ramblings: Dispatchers

By Hal Collier, Retired LAPD

From Hal: Thonie, here’s part 1 on Dispatchers. I have another 1 or 2 parts to finish. I’d like a dispatcher’s point of view from the other side of the microphone. Are you game?  –Hal

Why, yes. Yes, I am!–Thonie

Ok, I might be stepping on a landmine, but here goes my take on dispatchers or RTO’s (Radio Telephone Operators—This is what my first dispatcher title was when I started at San Rafael PD in 1975), later called PSR’s (Police Service Representatives). They were my lifeline. If I needed help, who do you think I called first? That’s right my RTO—no one could get me help faster. Once during a foot pursuit in the olden days (no radio on your hip) I ran through a parking lot behind a strip club as it was closing. I knew I had changed directions twice since my last broadcast. I asked a patron to call the police and tell them what direction I was going. I heard him say, “I thought they were the police.”

 

No, he didn’t call the police for us. This is why dispatchers do “status checks” after a designated period of time; depending on the call but usually about four minutes. After the mid-70’s my agencies had portable radios so it was easy to ask an officer who just checked out on a domestic if he was okay or needed more units. Traffic would be: “1L30, your status?”

A satisfactory answer would be, “Code 4,” which means, “sufficient units on scene.” An unsatisfactory answer would be, “Send me another unit,” or no answer at all. For the first, another unit would immediately be assigned, usually they’d volunteer. For the second, a two-man unit or two cars were sent to the physical address where the officer checked out. If we were lucky, the officer had his portable turned down and didn’t hear the status check. Sometimes, back-up units drove up on the officer fighting for his life. That’s why we do status checks.

 

Now some of our RTO’s were very good. As an example, you should hear the North Hollywood Bank Robbery broadcast. That had chaos written all over it, but some very seasoned RTO’s handled it as true professionals. Just imagine over twenty very excited cops yelling in the microphone at once.

 

I made it a point to be friendly to my RTO. I always said “Good Morning” when I cleared for my start of watch. I knew that the RTO had the ability to determine what kind of night I was going to have. Did I want to spend the night getting all the crappy calls or just my share?

Not all of my co-workers felt the same way. We had one Hollywood officer who hated the RTO’s and the feeling was mutual. Dispatchers cultivate the nuances in language, diction and mood of their officers. This isn’t taught in a book, but with any luck by a seasoned trainer who knows the voices of their team. Often, a dispatcher can pick up on stress before other units can. They knew him by voice and they could check the officers assigned to each patrol car by the computer when you logged on. He wondered why he got all the crappy calls! Duh.

Some cops could hear the RTO’s giggling and talking when there was an open microphone and they called it a knitting circle. I knew several dispatchers who knit. Knitting isn’t inherently funny. However, in down-time, especially after a busy night, dispatchers need the “pressure relief valve” that officers (and firefighters, and medics and corrections officers—it’s a standard in first responders) have. Think about this, that North Hollywood Bank Robbery call—what had the dispatcher been doing just before the officer called out the armed robbery? Doesn’t matter. Her reactions had to go from zero to sixty in warp speed to take care of business. She did a great job, by the way.

 

I knew that they had a hard job and I sometimes tried to give them a smile. Hal, this is usually very appreciated. Dispatchers are pleased to have a connection with their officers. Hopefully it’s pleasant and as in your case, funny. Often after finishing a radio call, the protocol was to say “clear.” I often said “transparent” just to see if they were listening to me.

Once, the RTO asked me to repeat my message three times before she got it. Dispatchers are usually sharper than that.

Part two, next Sunday