Something that's a little creepy

[brent1]

I've been scanning the LAPD for a while now, and I've noticed something that pops every once in a while. It is creepy every time I hear it, and I was wondering if anyone else had noticed this or been bothered by it also. Maybe there is a good explanation for it...

Code 3 calls are always either directly assigned to a unit, or a minute or so is given for a unit to handle to "identify". Either way, a code 3 call is going to be handled quickly. Code 2 calls just kind of go out, and then someone has to volunteer to take it. This in and of itself isn't a problem - I think it's not a bad system for assigning the smaller incidents. The problem is, it's not uncommon for these code 2 calls to go unanswered for 10, 15 and sometimes even 20 minutes. These are things that, if I was the one calling 911, would want answered pretty quickly - like assaults, robberies and other things that have just occurred. It is really weird and somewhat creepy hearing the RTO announce, robotically, a "211 that just occurred" for the 5th time, nearly a full half hour after it went out the first time. What makes it worse is that when they finally assign someone, that unit takes it right away, making me think that there were officers who could have taken it before, but would rather just take their chances with being assigned rather than volunteer.

Anyone else notice this and have a problem with it?

-Brent 1

 

[swest90]

So much of their system is based off the MDT, its really hard to get any real grasp over the response via the radio unless its a real hot call.

 

[rooivalk]

Without confusing the issue, my Dept works like this:

Hotcalls (i.e. felony in progress, etc) have to be dispatched in 3 minutes.

Lower priority calls, such as a misdemeanor battery or verbal disputes have to be dispatched in 20 minutes, max.

Lower priority calls like noise complaints, cold reports, etc, have no time limit, and with staffing levels being so low and the call volume high, a cold call can take a few hours to get dispatched and handled, especially in busier districts where a car is handling 20+ calls a shift.

The priority assigned to a call is determined by the calltaker taking the call, who then sends it to the dispatcher.

Every Department is different, though. I think, as I understood it, when a LAPD beat car (report car) signs on duty, that car is sent all the waiting calls and the calls are handled w/out being dispatched/broadcast, with the unit clearing the calls via MDT. Only hotshot calls are actually dispatched, and then handled by another call, after which the report car takes the actual report.

 

[Sac916]

I've been scanning the LAPD for a while now, and I've noticed something that pops every once in a while. It is creepy every time I hear it, and I was wondering if anyone else had noticed this or been bothered by it also. Maybe there is a good explanation for it...

Code 3 calls are always either directly assigned to a unit, or a minute or so is given for a unit to handle to "identify". Either way, a code 3 call is going to be handled quickly. Code 2 calls just kind of go out, and then someone has to volunteer to take it. This in and of itself isn't a problem - I think it's not a bad system for assigning the smaller incidents. The problem is, it's not uncommon for these code 2 calls to go unanswered for 10, 15 and sometimes even 20 minutes. These are things that, if I was the one calling 911, would want answered pretty quickly - like assaults, robberies and other things that have just occurred. It is really weird and somewhat creepy hearing the RTO announce, robotically, a "211 that just occurred" for the 5th time, nearly a full half hour after it went out the first time. What makes it worse is that when they finally assign someone, that unit takes it right away, making me think that there were officers who could have taken it before, but would rather just take their chances with being assigned rather than volunteer.

Anyone else notice this and have a problem with it?

-Brent 1

Honestly... and don't take this as being rude, but I don't think you understand how dispatching works. When a dispatcher is voicing the call for the 5th time, it's because there are no units available and they are broadcasting for anybody (including non-patrol) who happens to be in the area. It's also to continue giving a "heads up" to the units assigned to calls that they "should" hurry and make themselves available for pending calls.

A dispatcher isn't going to let calls pend waiting for somebody to volunteer. Not only is it a liability, but it's not ethical.

For code 3 calls, units can make themselves available by sacraficing the current call they are working. Routine calls such as a 211 (robbery)

For medium to larger sized departments, it's not uncommon to have felony or in-progress calls pend for several minutes, even over an hour.

Priorities are based on life over property. An in-progress assault/battery will take priority over a robbery that just occured with property loss only.

Additionally, a dispatcher may voice a pending call for a unit to volunteer for, saying this while no units show available on their CAD. Meaning a unit may be getting ready to clear their current call and willing to take the next highest or closest priority call.

The bottom line, again not to sound rude, is don't jump to conclusions until you have sat behind a console or been directly involved with dispatching. Perhaps you have.

 

[556fmj]

I speak for myself only but as a patrol officer I like to handle service calls as quickly as possible with a good resolution whether it is just by advisng a citizen of options, taking a report or making a fresh arrest. I don't like to see calls pend either especially one that deserves an immediate response. I don't like to see calls stack up in the que either but sometimes certain calls take a little longer to resolve.

If you work with a good patrol team everyone will and always step up to handle calls and help each other out. Before the end of shift my entire team likes to clean up the calls so the next shift don't get stuck with it.

 

[Jimmy252]

Im from the detroit michigan area, and on the scanner while i was at a Redwings game i heard a code 3 armed robbery at a gas station go out as a volunteer assignment. The dispatcher said,

" Northwestern Units, an RA in progress at the BP station, at _____, caller is outside in the lot and is seeing two black males with guns inside the store."

Dispatcher assigned no one, no officer advised reponding either. This made me mad that someone is in need of help, and police arent doing anything but taking calls and telling the officers about it. Now in my city just outside detroit, if an RA came over the air, usually 3-5 units come over the air and contact dispatch with sirens blaring in the background. Now since i was in the Wings parking lot i had to get into the game, but i was sitting and listening for about 15 Mins and that first dispatch was the last and only thing i heard about that RA. I highly doubt police actually got there in time to arrest. Prolly just took a report. So yea, this happens in too many big cities, and this is no way to stop crime. By volunteering. Now im not criticizing how departments do it, i just think that assignments are better taken care of.

 

[Sac916]

" Northwestern Units, an RA in progress at the BP station, at _____, caller is outside in the lot and is seeing two black males with guns inside the store."

Dispatcher assigned no one, no officer advised reponding either. This made me mad that someone is in need of help, and police arent doing anything but taking calls and telling the officers about it.

I think there is a misperception out there. What the dispatcher did was voice a pending call. They voiced to the officers what was occuring and where. If nobody responded and if nobody was assigned to the call, then that means nobody was available. Yes, nobody available. All patrol officers were assigned to a call at the moment or unavailable.

Law Enforcement is quite different than Fire Departments, especially in large metro areas. The vast majority of the time, officers run call to call, without downtime. Unlike a Fire Dept that is stationed at the ready, spending their time preparing and training when they are not deployed on a call.


Especially in large metro areas, you'll find felony and in-progress calls pending (waiting) simple due no resources to send. It is why most large departments scream for larger budgets to get actual PATROL officers on the streets.

Picture this... You're at the grocery store, all cashiers on duty and available are at their station. Suddenly there is a large rush of customers and people have to wait. Yes, even the quick check and self check is backed up. Then it slows down and they catch up.

Same concept.

Excluding holidays and summer hours, its difficult to predict crime and their patterns. Sometimes a Wednesday night in the middle of the night can be the busiest day of the week. It's just depends on where the dark cloud decides to hover. Because of budgets ( yes money ) you can't be fully staffed and over prepared all of the time. There are people whose sole job it is to determine staffing-budget levels. It's a balancing act.

Working for a department that services a region with almost 2 million citizens for 12 1/2 years now, I've seen robberies, shootings, rapes and dead body calls pend. It happens and that is why people all over scream for more cops on the streets. But, you don't hear people screaming about raising taxes or divert funds to support those cops.

If the Law Enforcement just answered calls and voiced it and that's it - they would face severe civil libability which would also destroy their trust, integrity, support and ethics. I've seen dispatchers and officers get in trouble for not taking "action", including letting calls pending at the dispatch level or not responding at the patrol level.

Low Response times is a statistic that is of primary concerns to citizens and departments. I have yet to see a department that doesn't keep very accurate records to support staffing and budgets.

 

[Jimmy252]

Alright, i see where you are coming from. Always good to throw in a real life example, the grocery store : ) . But yea, detroit does have a lot of call waitings. The one thing about the department i do disagree about is that traffic officers are striclty traffic only... posibly one of them couldve responded. but yes, detroit is one of those cities very low on resources, and with all of the layoffs, crime cant be properly tended to.

There was one incident on the news that sparked some anger towards detroit PD. A man saw that someone was breaking into his car steling stuff. That suspect fled. Then, the victim hopped into his car and started a citizen pursuit. As he was following, he called 911, and dispatcher told him they could not help him. Aparently he was to close to a bordering city and the dispatcher thought she should transfer the call to the other dept. Well...the suspect stayed in the city of detroit the whole length of the chase. Detroit still refused to help. After the victim decided to stop chasing, he pulled over, and about an hour later, detroit police came to take the report of the stolen items.

The news made a big deal on this and police cheif even had a press conference to dicuss it.

But anyway, i see where your going and i understand how stuff can be put on hold until officers can take the call.

 

[brent1]

Antfreq- Thanks for the response. Basically you're telling me that when I hear this, it's not because the cops out there on patrol don't feel like taking the call, it's that there are none available. This is something that has crossed my mind. Still, if this is the case, it is a little surprising and scary to think that the resources are so thin that these types of calls have to go unassigned for long periods of time. It makes a good argument for larger public safety budgets.

I am still a little curious. Why is it that when the dispatcher ultimately assigns someone to a call that has timed out, that persons answers up and takes it? What was that officer doing? To a listener, it sounds like that officer was not assigned to a call beforehand, or he would have told the dispatcher he wasn't clear yet. Maybe he hit the 10-8 button on his MDT, I don't know. Or, as you say, if the rebroadcast is in fact a reminder to units already on a call to hurry up, why does the dispatcher have to assign that unit instead of him just taking it? It just seems weird that every time I hear a pending call finally handled, it is not taken voluntarily but instead assigned by the dispatcher.

Don't think that I am hating on the LAPD or police in general. I have a lot of respect for police officers and I've gotten to know a lot of them in my community and done a few ride alongs too. I think anyone that scans knows what goes on out there and appreciates cops all the more for it.

 

[Sac916]

I am still a little curious. Why is it that when the dispatcher ultimately assigns someone to a call that has timed out, that persons answers up and takes it? What was that officer doing? To a listener, it sounds like that officer was not assigned to a call beforehand, or he would have told the dispatcher he wasn't clear yet. Maybe he hit the 10-8 button on his MDT, I don't know. Or, as you say, if the rebroadcast is in fact a reminder to units already on a call to hurry up, why does the dispatcher have to assign that unit instead of him just taking it? It just seems weird that every time I hear a pending call finally handled, it is not taken voluntarily but instead assigned by the dispatcher.

Don't think that I am hating on the LAPD or police in general. I have a lot of respect for police officers and I've gotten to know a lot of them in my community and done a few ride alongs too. I think anyone that scans knows what goes on out there and appreciates cops all the more for it.

The dispatchers job is to assign units to calls as they come in and manage the pending calls. A call is voiced as pending when no officers are available. As officers come available (via MDT or Radio) the dispatcher will assign them a call. Sometimes officers will volunteer for a call before they clear, giving the dispatcher a "heads up" that they'll take the call when actually clear current call.

There are dozens and dozens of variables. A dispatcher isn't always going to send the first officer available. It makes no sense to send an officer several miles (even dozens of miles) when an officer who is closer will be going available in a couple minutes. That particular variable is especially necessary during commute times when traffic can be gridlocked.

 

[Radio_Lady]

Antfreq- Thanks for the response. Basically you're telling me that when I hear this, it's not because the cops out there on patrol don't feel like taking the call, it's that there are none available.

Yes, that's almost always the case. Antfreq's observations from his Northern California perspective are right on target for LAPD, too.

This is something that has crossed my mind. Still, if this is the case, it is a little surprising and scary to think that the resources are so thin that these types of calls have to go unassigned for long periods of time.

Not only that, but since LAPD puts out only the most urgent calls by voice, for every call you hear on the scanner there are four or five times that number being dispatched by MDC that you never hear a word about.

I am still a little curious. Why is it that when the dispatcher ultimately assigns someone to a call that has timed out, that persons answers up and takes it? What was that officer doing? To a listener, it sounds like that officer was not assigned to a call beforehand, or he would have told the dispatcher he wasn't clear yet. Maybe he hit the 10-8 button on his MDT

That's probably the most common reason. As I mentioned, officers are constantly going to or clearing from the 75% of calls that aren't voiced. If a unit is already on a call but gets preempted for a higher priority one, LAPD calls it a retone, which I'll explain.

Or, as you say, if the rebroadcast is in fact a reminder to units already on a call to hurry up, why does the dispatcher have to assign that unit instead of him just taking it? It just seems weird that every time I hear a pending call finally handled, it is not taken voluntarily but instead assigned by the dispatcher.

While the officers do usually have half an ear to the radio while they're handling their calls, talking to victims, suspects, or whatever, it's the dispatcher's job to manage the call load, not the officer's. Officers are almost always allowed to interrupt what they're currently doing to handle a higher-priority call, but a problem that can arise with officers unilaterally interrupting their current call stack (LAPD units can have up to five no-code calls assigned to them at once) is that THOSE calls then get pushed further and further down.

Communications has a much better eye on the big picture of what's going on throughout the city, how many and what type of calls are pending and where, and who's doing what, so it's their responsibility to assign the calls. If units need to be pulled off lower priority calls, or brought in from other divisions, they'll do it based on what they have, and a fairly complex "sequential order of dispatch"

Every agency handles it a little differently, but if you're listening to LAPD, whenever you hear a call being broadcast to "ANY..." unit, it tells you immediately that there are no clear units in that division and they're trying to get a unit to make themselves available for it. Also, and you have to listen closely to notice it, when you hear one long tone rather than the two or three short beeps, it's called a "retone" and the unit they're dispatching is being pulled off lower priority calls to handle it. Depending on what happens at the new call, the officers will have their previous stack reassigned to other units later on, or they'll go back to them when they can. It can get to be a substantial backlog at busy times, with very poor PR for the callers on those low priority calls. You learn to do what you can with what you have.

 

[brent1]

Radio Lady, thanks for the response... Very interesting and informative.

-Brent1

 

[Sac916]

Not only that, but since LAPD puts out only the most urgent calls by voice, for every call you hear on the scanner there are four or five times that number being dispatched by MDC that you never hear a word about.

Very true. My department uses the MDT 50-90% of the time, depending on the time of day or "speed" of the MDT. (Bogs down at times during peak periods of use)

Officers are almost always allowed to interrupt what they're currently doing to handle a higher-priority call, but a problem that can arise with officers unilaterally interrupting their current call stack (LAPD units can have up to five no-code calls assigned to them at once) is that THOSE calls then get pushed further and further down.

My department considered call stacking a few years back. It's a very foreign concept to me.

 

[spock00]

Not to state the obvious but since the LAPD is so busy responding to both the routine or low priority MDT calls and to the Higher priority voice calls this proves that there are too few LAPD officers on the streets. As a citizen of the city of Los Angeles I have noticed very poor response times to low priority calls such as loud music and house alarms. The response to ADW calls is not always optimal either. I strongly support the LAPD and I'm sure we can all agree that something has to be done to improve response times. They need to be allowed to pay salaries to put more officers through the academy and onto the streets before they go to another police dept. Don't get me started on the issue of the Police Commission stalling to approve funding for new handheld radios for the officers to replace the worn out Astro Sabers... They were supposed to have an answer by August of 2007 and here we are in 2008 and still nothing has been approved.

 

[Wilrobnson]

Not to state the obvious but since the LAPD is so busy responding to both the routine or low priority MDT calls and to the Higher priority voice calls this proves that there are too few LAPD officers on the streets.

Or more people calling 911 to report things that they could easily deal with themselves...Like their 'out-of-control' 4-year-old daughter...Their kids refusing to do chores...Their neighbor accidentally cutting part of their shrubbery.

Don't laugh, I've been on all of those and more.

 

[WX5JCH]

And I thought the only code 3 calls there were went to the donut shop...

Yes I used to live in LA and see the cops/fire dept running c3 to there all the time. The 60's were a lot different than now I'm sure.
We don't get much Code 3 traffic out here in Okie land. lol

 

[spock00]

Okie code 3 call:
Man stuck in a horse...