[Scan-DC] How quick are snipper calls being dispatched.

[Bote Man]

Well, what do you expect them to say? "Yeah, we hold on to calls
until we feel like dispatching them..." Of course, it wouldn't
be the first time.

After hearing numerous transfer delays from Montgomery County 911
to P.G. County over our ham radio autopatch years ago, I contacted
the communications supervisor for Montgomery County. I was prompted
to this because a particular call taker claimed that the caller
could not be transferred to P.G. County 911, a process that we
had all heard happen over the air many times and had recordings of.

I asked about this and if there were some way to speed the process
instead of sitting there wasting time arguing with the idiot
call taker. He basically told me that seconds really do not count
and that the calls are handled as fast as they can be, and
also that there was no way to transfer calls to P.G. County.

That was long ago and far away, so I'm sure the administration
has changed several times since then, but that was a curious
thing to be telling people.

Bote
F.E.C. milepost 339.3 
Look -> http://pages.prodigy.net/bote/rail
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob Brubaker
> Sent: Tuesday, 22 October, 2002 08:39
> Subject: [Scan-DC] How quick are snipper calls being dispatched.
> 
> Anyone know the delay in the various PD's from the time someone calls in a
> sniper shooting till the word gets radio dispatched ?
> 
> I live in Fairfax Cnty.  Back when FCPD was still analog, I noticed long
> processing times (5- 7 minutes) between when a call came in and when it got
> dispatched.
> 
> This happened even for serious events.   A few years ago a person was being
> robbed at gun-point at the far end of the Springfield mall parking garage.
> One witness called it in on a cell phone as it was happening.  Another ran
> to FCPD annex in the mall.   I don't know how long it took for that person
> to find an officer but the officer used his radio to call in the robbery.
> About 5 minutes later the dispatcher came on with the "real-time" call from
> the cell-phone witness.
> 
> I wrote to FCPD but they denied my observation and said emergencies were
> dispatched ASAP.
> 
> Bob W4NNG