silent dispatch

[brey1234]

The two candidates for Niagara County (NY) sheriff are debating how deputies should be dispatched: either via MDT using the "silent dispatch" technique, or by voice on the radio so other agencies can hear the information. Ernest Palmer, a Niagara Falls PD detective, says the current silent system should end. He accuses the sheriff of protecting his turf with the technique, and called the method "a 1950s mind-set of parochialism." But sheriff's chief deputy James Voutour says silent dispatching is a "manufactured issue," since the technique works well. But Palmer issued a 7-page memo outlining incidents that state troopers never heard, and could have responded to. Voutour says fewer than one percent of incidents are dispatched silently. Read the entire debate here (http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/story/466000.html).

 

[comspec]

As a scanner listener I of course would like "Silent Dispatching" to end, but truth be told, it really isn't all that bad. In my department they are perfectly capable of doing "silent dispatching" but they don't simply becuase we are not busy at all and even with everything going over the air the radio is quiet 70% of the time. Even when they silent dispatch you know it becuase you hear the dispatcher go "Car 11 check your computer for an assignment" which I assume to be the lunch order.

I personally feel that the car assigned, the location and nature of the call should go over the air, just as an officer safety issue. The details can then be sent to the MDT.

 

[sc800]

I agree with the above post. Non-priority calls can go over silent, but any type of priority call needs to go over the air. Not only because of officer safety, but there may be a closer unit than the one assigned, the call may be on the border of two towns, or the call is somehow related to another agency's and the other cars should know of the call as well