[Scan-DC] U.S. Park Police dispatch center

[Alan Henney]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/02/26/park-police-dispatch/

Report says Park Police dispatch center has outdated equipment, mold,
inability to monitor alarms

Inspector general says officers who signal for help aren’t immediately
identified, dispatchers lack training, and birds leave droppings everywhere

By Tom Jackman

February 26, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. EST

U.S. Park Police Chief Pamela A. Smith. Though dispatchers and managers
have been pointing out problems in the department's dispatch center for
years, an inspector general's report found the complaints wre ignored. (
and National Park Service/National Park Service)

Last month, an alarm went off in a historic building in Arlington National
Cemetery after a sprinkler pipe broke. An emergency signal was sent to the
U.S. Park Police dispatch center in southeast Washington. But the dispatch
center receives security alarms on a separate computer in a closed room
adjacent to the dispatchers, and no one heard it. Instead of notifying the
fire department and cemetery staff, no one was alerted, resulting in
flooding which damaged the building and historical artifacts, an inspector
general’s report released Friday said.

The report outlined numerous serious problems with the Park Police dispatch
operations center, from the mundane — birds are flying in and covering
furniture and computers in their droppings — to the serious: if an officer
sounds an emergency signal, the dispatchers cannot automatically identify
the officer in trouble. The findings by Interior Department Inspector
General Mark Lee Greenblatt, which also cited lack of training for
dispatchers and longstanding staffing issues, led to the conclusion that
“these issues jeopardize the safety of officers and the public and create
liability risks for the USPP [Park Police].”

The report repeatedly says that complaints by dispatch center employees to
Park Police commanders have been ignored. Park Police Chief Pamela Smith,
who assumed the top post in February 2021 after years as a commander, said
in a statement that she was “dismayed by the unacceptable conditions I saw
during a personal inspection of the facility in recent months and that were
documented by the Inspector General. Prior to the IG completing its review,
I took several actions to correct clear deficiencies and I am taking
additional steps to remedy remaining concerns.” She did not specify which
deficiencies were corrected.

The head of the Park Police officers’ union said he had not seen the report
and declined to comment.

The inspector general launched its report after investigating the June 1,
2020, actions by the Park Police at Lafayette Square in which protesters
were pushed out of the area around the park, and President Trump arrived
soon after for a photo opportunity in front of St. John’s Church. That
investigation revealed that the Park Police didn’t record any of their
radio transmissions from that day. The inspector general then launched a
deeper look into the dispatch center, interviewing current and former
managers and employees and the current police chain of command.

Park Police did not record their tradio transmissions during Lafayette
Square operation on June 1

The Park Police dispatchers generally don’t receive 911 calls from the
public, but instead receive transferred calls from local cities or counties
when the call applies to national parks or the George Washington or
Baltimore-Washington parkways. But the investigation found that the Park
Police have no formal agreements with any local jurisdictions defining how
calls will be transferred, though their policy requires them to have such
agreements.

The “dispatch center’s workspace and equipment were substandard,” the
inspector general found, with a roof which leaks rain and appears to have
black mold throughout. If the center loses power, the Park Police do not
have a dedicated emergency backup location where they could relocate.

“The dispatch center has outdated phone equipment,” the report found,
including a lack of enhanced caller ID and the ability to have multiparty
calls. Dispatchers told investigators that they were often unable to
determine the location of public callers, return calls if the caller is
disconnected, or confer with third-party translators for callers who don’t
speak English.

Read the inspector general's report on the Park Police dispatch center

And though Park Police officers’ radios have an emergency button to signal
that they’re in trouble, dispatchers cannot automatically identify which
officer has pressed the emergency button. Instead, the dispatchers must
look at a list of numerical radio identifiers to determine which officer is
assigned to the radio sending the emergency signal, the report said.

A dispatch manager told the inspector general that the Park Police have the
software to automatically identify emergency signals, but it hasn’t been
installed. When the inspector general received a complaint about the
dispatch center in December 2020, the report said the complaint was
referred to the Park Police internal affairs unit, which found possible
“safety hazards.” But the internal affairs unit didn’t send its report to
the department’s force safety officer, the inspector general found, and
employees said the safety issues remained.

Employees also reported that only one dispatcher had the ability to log in
to the security system alarms from National Park Service properties, such
as the one at Arlington Cemetery, and the only way other dispatchers could
monitor the alarms was to check a separate computer in an adjacent room.
The dispatchers also reported they did not have the ability to instantly
replay radio or phone communications, which might be important in an
emergency to rehear a caller’s information.

The employees also told investigators that the electrical circuits in the
dispatch center are “overloaded on a daily basis,” sometimes causing
temporary failures of critical radio and computer equipment. The inspector
general said a third-party inspection of the building in 2018 found it also
had inadequate fire suppression equipment, and that wires connecting the
radio and computer systems are poorly organized, leading to inadvertent
disconnection and other electrical issues. Many of the center’s issues
can’t be addressed until new electrical circuits are installed, the report
said, which is hampered by continued holes in the roof. The report said
that as recently as November “birds continued to enter the dispatch center
and leave droppings on dispatcher equipment.”

The dispatch center also faces “serious staffing and training
deficiencies,” the report said, and complaints from the center to Park
Police administration have been ignored. The lack of staffing has led to
Park Police officers being pulled off the streets to handle dispatch
duties, the inspector general found.

And while some dispatchers have received training, some have expired
certifications “and others have never received any formal training,” the
inspector general said. An internal memo sent to Park Police commanders in
2020 said the on-the-job training for dispatchers “makes for a dangerous
situation for our police officers and civilian callers,” the report said.
Investigators found dispatchers do not receive emergency medical dispatcher
training, even though the center regularly receives such calls. Though Park
Police leaders told the investigators that such training was “mission
critical,” no one had gotten the training as of this month.

“Our force’s readiness requires that everyone work in a safe, structurally
sound and functional environment,” Chief Smith said in her statement. She
said President Biden’s 2022 budget request calls for an increase in Park
Police funding that, in part, “is intended to remedy some of the needs
confirmed by this report. When people read a report like this, it may make
them feel less confident in our abilities or our commitment, and I take
that very seriously. I will do everything I can to ensure that the
facilities and equipment that support our officers match their very high
level of skill and dedication.”

Charles F. Sams III, the director of the National Park Service, which
oversees the Park Police, said in a written response to the report that the
park service was working to mitigate the bird infestation and upgrade the
conditions of the space, or possibly enter into an agreement to move in
with the District’s Office of Unified Communications. Sams said the service
would work to ensure minimum staffing and implement necessary training for
the dispatchers.