I have been a Police dispatcher for almost 4 years. The relationship that I had with the officers were that of a friendly one, of course, but I wonder what officers really think of their dispatchers knowing that the majority of us dispatchers are not sworn officers.

I have been a Police Dispatcher for almost 11 years now. I will be the first to tell ya , I look after everyone of my guys.. We have three sides of town and when I am working I am paying attention to all of them. I want my guys to go home just as much as they do to.. My dad was an officers back in 92 and I now know what it is like for him not to come home. (was killed by drunk driver while on duty). I do my best at all times and give 110%. Not that I am bragging.. but if you ask any officer here they will tell you I am very good at what I do .. I take pride in my job and I am very passionate about it. My relationship with the officers.. simple .. we are all family .. we take care of each other.. and thanks NYPDLieutenant for your comment.. it means alot to us.. You are right.. we dont get thanked enough.. I think I speak for all dispathcers... so to all my fellow dispathcers out there. ..Thanks for all that yall (we) do .. keep up the good work .. I know that our officers appreciate us... ;)

Once a dispatcher and now an officer...I know first hand both sides of the fence. I can say that as an officer...we appreciate our dispatchers. They are our life line and get our back up to us in an emergency. I know that if it hadn't been for my dispatcher on May 3, 2007, I probably wouldn't have walked away from an alteration/fight with a suspect high on crack. She heard me and got me the help I needed. With the exception of OC exposure and a few bruises, I walked away, The criminal on the other hand could barely walk and had a busted lip. I also know how a dispatcher feels about her officers. Even though dispatchers are not sworn...they are still our brothers and sisters and have our back and for that we are appreciative. Keep up the great work!

I'm not a police officer yet but trust me I keep track of what goes on and I am very thank full 4 every-thing you all do because I know when I get out there I will get all the help I need.

I was a dispatcher for college police for almost 3 years. That is where I learned how to dispatch. I was never put through formal training. I trained myself. As a matter of fact the police department was finally recognized as such three months after I started dispatching there. I was not paid by the college, I was paid by a security company that the college had a contract with. None of the dispatchers were trained. We were all basically thrown in a chair and told to learn the codes and here is the radio. Although I always took my job seriously, I started looking at things differently even more seriously when the police officers were hired on. After about a year of asking to be sent to training I finally put myself through POST dispatching school for three weeks without pay. The police officers have always told me that I was an excellent dispatcher for not having any training. I just wanted to make sure that I was doing all I could to make sure they went home at night. After dispatching for the college for almost three years and getting paid a little higher than minimum wage and working with no benefits, I decided it was time to move on. Of course I cried when I left because I knew that I was putting the officers at risk. The only training that the other dispatchers received was from me. Lord knows I had no business training them. However, I had to look out for myself and my kids. I still today wonder if my leaving was selfish. Now I dispatch for the county police with better pay and better benefits than I thought I would get.

No offense to anyone here, but my dispatchers are the biggest bunch of idiots I have ever seen. They don't relay accurate information from the complainant ( the correct color of a stolen vehicle), they hold "in progress" calls (burglary) until the Deputy from that sector finishes a trespass notification, even though there are several other units in service, and they lose hard copies of warrants.

This was just today!

Sorry...this thread came on the wrong day for me.

when I worked for the sheriff dept and i had to aske the dipatchers were nice. but the ones for countys were not so nice. i just guess it depends on the person. but, I was thankfull for them caues if i was lost they helped me find my way. THANK YOU TO ALL DISPATCHERS : > )

GTS197....I'm sorry to hear about your unfortunate situation with your dispatchers. Maybe the suggestion to retrain them might help or even put them through a public relations course. It is b/c of dispatchers like that who make the rest of us look like crap. I have found officers who have come from a department with dispatchers such as yours have a hard time trusting their current dispatchers which makes it hard and frustrating for not only the officer but the dispatcher too. Good luck and be careful. My prayers are with you

I'm trained as a dispatcher as well as being a police officer, so I can speak freely. Most of the times, dispatchers are great, and very appreciated. However...here's a couple ways dispatchers can really upset me: 1) Just say "OK", because you didn't really hear what I said 2) Not answer me, because you were talking to somebody in the dispatch room and weren't really paying attention 3) Don't do what I asked, because you didn't write it down, and forgot about it 4) Copy me on a car stop, and then, when I call for backup, ask me where I am. There's no shame in asking cops to repeat things, or confirm things, if you didn't hear it. We NEED you!!

I'm not down on dispatchers...just THESE dispatchers. My last agency, the dispatchers were top-shelf and I loved them to death. They were always looking out for us and were part of the "family". The ones I'm plaqued with now are more concerned with socializing and screwing around on the internet, when they should be focused on which officer is doing what, and where he's doing it at.

It's gotten to the point that when one of us checks out on traffic or on a call, the other officers pay attention to what's going on and act accordingly. We simply don't trust them.

In our area we have good dispatchers and bad dispatchers...sad to say in our area many of the bad ones are women. They tend to snap at the oficers for no reason, they don't always put down where you are (as a civilian employee I went to see a victim whose boyfriend tried to kill her. He had not been caught yet and so when I told the dispatcher my location I also told her that if I got on the radio it was because he showed up and we needed officers at that location yesterday. She told me of "course, I'll even make a special note." When I cleared the job the dispatcher could not even find the job! Another time a victim called me when her son broke into her house. I called 911 for a family problem/ burglary in progress. When I called dispatch later to find out who responded they could not find the job. I had to call around until I found who got the job. Needless to say the responding officer was NOT thrilled that there was no job showing where he and his backup went to what could have been a very violent call. I have many stories that i could list but I won't:-). I do have to say though that most of the dispatchers are good. All I ask is to pay attention to the officers calling out their location, type of job, etc. If they don't respond to you checking on them don't blow it off, keep trying to raise them and send someone to check on them and again, THANKS for keeping an eye on them. They need you.

Dont know how they do it. Been a cop for 10 years and there is noway I would want to dispatch even for a day. Very demanding multi-tasking job. Most do very, very well with my dept.

Dispatch is a job that not everyone can do, but neither is being a corrections/detention officer. I have no doubt that you would do a fine job and the purpose of my scenario above was to illustrate a point: If you were the officer going to that disturbance, what information would you like to know? It is a common sense approach that some people can't grasp (SOP aside, which will vary from agency to agency). Here are the things that I want to know prior to arriving on scene (each call will be different, but these are for the situation cited above).

1) Are weapons involved?
2) Who is the suspect and what's his description?
3) Is the suspect still on scene? If not, did he leave in a vehicle or on foot? Description of vehicle? Direction of travel?
4) Is anyone else in the house? Other possible victims?
5) Is medical attention needed?

These are just a few, but I think you see where I'm going. There have been many a time when a suspect had already departed, but due to dispatch asking the right questions and relaying the information to me, was able to identify the suspect either walking, or driving out of the neighborhood and detain him prior to ever speaking with the victim. Weapons involvement greatly dictates how an officer will react once on scene. Remember, no two calls are ever the same and the officer needs to remain flexible and adapt to however the situation unfolds.

I wish you all the best!

There's a crew of dispatchers that work here on 1st watch on zone 3 that I think are the best in the city. Their calm voices helps to calm us down during foot or car pursuits and shoot fired at the police. They do a great job.

Kudos go out to the dispatchers in my city working Friday morning June 8, 2007 at 0341hrs. I came upon a suspicious vehicle and my dispatcher notified me immmediately, before I approached, that the vehicle was stolen out of another city. She also dispatched back up before I got a chance to ask for it. Way to go! Then she knew when I said...I got him, but he's struggling...that I needed the 10-13 right then and called it for me. After getting the suspect in custody and clearing the 10-13 she verified that I was OK. She did a wonderful job and I just wanted to let dispatchers know that they are appreciated.