Watch - er, listen - for more LAPD frequency patching
As Greg mentioned, the same thing is often done with West Traffic & West LA, South Traffic and Southwest, and Central Traffic & Central Div. If it gets really tight, they will start tying patrol divisions together, too, in a somewhat prescribed order. All the patching is done through the consoles, so the officers stay on their regular frequency, but get to "share the air" (and the RTO) with another division.
LAPD has started losing dispatchers (PSRs) at the rate of about one a week since December, so you can expect to hear more divisions tied together for longer periods of time. Most are very experienced people taking advantage of the city's frantic (and lucrative for the 2,400 eligible retirees)
"Early Retirement Incentive Program." Since the hard hiring freeze includes PSRs, there won't be any replacements coming for a good long while. (And I've already lost most of my good "inside" info sources
)
As of today, the #1 in seniority PSR is retiring, after having worked Communications Division since June 1974. When they couldn't find her any
good instructors, they assigned her to me for a couple days, but she recovered from that, passed her probation anyway, and has worked the radio and phones for her entire career. The #2 PSR, I believe, is still awaiting "permission" from the city to retire and to be told what day she can (and
has to) leave.
When staffing is below the minimum, which I'm told is almost every shift now, the highest priority is always assigning enough operators to answer the 9-1-1 lines, so they continue to meet the California and NENA "90% of 9-1-1 calls answered within 10 seconds" standard -
page 8. The radios and auxiliary positions get whatever operators are left over. Fortunately, all PSRs are trained for and regularly work all positions, so anyone is capable of
working any assignment, except BCC which requires specific certification.
After the traffic divisions I already mentioned, the "next up" divisions to be patched together are usually
Metro Dispatch Center:
- Harbor & Southeast
- Rampart & Northeast
- Newton & Hollenbeck
Valley Dispatch Center (this may have changed with the opening of Olympic & Topanga divisions):
- North Hollywood & Foothill
- Wilshire & Pacific
- Van Nuys & West Valley
Again, to hear a specific division, just tune to their regular frequency. When divisions are patched it's done from the dispatch center, so is transparent to the officers and to you... except you'll hear two divisions instead of just the one.